The outbreak of violence on the JNU campus on Sunday throws up many disturbing questions. Masked goons wielding sticks, rods, hammers -probably mostly outsiders, although, this needs to be ascertained through an impartial probe, if such a thing is still possible, about which I have my doubts. Who ran riot on the fateful Sunday night.
If scores of armed hoodlums were beating up students and teachers, pulling out even young women from their hostel rooms and attacking doors windows, and parked vehicles inside the campus, their friends, colleagues, and sympathisers who had massed at the main gate, were flattening the tires and breaking the windowpanes of ambulances seeking to go in, bring out the injured as police stood by meekly.
Politically it’s nothing but a manifestation of state terror. How else can one explain the passive behavior of policemen, clearly tools of the state and executors of law and order? Even if VC didn’t clear, their entry could have not stopped the mayhem to preserve the rule of law. Both left and right-wing student outfits were caught in a war of accusations and counter-accusations, but then even going by the circumstantial evidence, left controls the students union, is best placed to fight for student’s rights on its terms and would not need to shed blood of its chief. Not a single attacker was detained by Delhi police deployed in large numbers at the campus. Since street lights were turned off, and police have given cover for the mob that leisurely walked away. Therefore, the attack couldn’t have been carried out without the connivance of those in power. I don’t understand the logic behind blaming left and Congress, or Urban Naxals. That only shows their bias.
The students' unions in politics have changed their nature and texture completely these days. Earlier when we were students at the university, it was all about student’s welfare, but now it’s all about the call given by the parent organisations and their political leadership. The pernicious practice of politicising has crossed all canons of decency. Ironically, what I came to know, that those who get into JNU are brilliant ones, who face stiff competition at the entrance examination. I believe, mostly they come from lower middle class, and low-income brackets, and continue their studies with great difficulty. But in the end , they bring glory to the institution itself with their academic excellence. Left ideology survives in dots in campuses, has virtually been eroded in the mainstream political space
It’s rather bizarre that Delhi police which was so active in suppressing protests in Jamia Millia Islamia didn’t feel qualms in directing its fury even on those in the University’s library, couldn’t protect innocent students and academics from armed goons. This mayhem points to meticulous planning and one can not but guess that police must have had an inkling of it. This only confirms that organisations following fascist ideology have been given free hand to target their ideological opponents and with an assurance of impunity against prosecutions. If this downslide is not arrested it may result in civil unrest. This behavioural pattern of police force indicates an ominous change, detrimental to the spirit of democracy.
