Last year on the JNU campus, Umar Khalid had shouted slogans for the breakup of India and the slaughter of the Supreme Court judges who dared to pronounce Afzal Guru guilty. Some self-confessed leftist-liberal intellectuals are now shamelessly trying to take advantage of the pathetic slowness with which our legal system moves—by exalting Khalids and the Kanhaiyas of this world to the status of national heroes and youth icons. Cases of sedition are pending against Khalid and Kanhaiya. Where was the need to invite such an individual to Ramjas College? He would have added one more ‘azadi’ rant to the many he had raised in JNU. Besides, why had the college wanted to host a seminar on Bastar and Cultures of Protest? The moment this seminar was cancelled, there was manufactured outrage on the campus, and even sections of media virtually exploded with angst. Calls for debate and discussion on our campuses are good, but we need to remember that the situation in J&K and Maoist areas has gone far beyond the level of discussion and debate.
Kalashnikovs are spitting bullets and people are killed daily. There are violent attempts to overthrow the state and dismember the nation. Yet, under the guise of freedom of speech, votaries of such sedition and treachery are being lionised as youth icons. For the past eight years, tax payers have been forced to subsidise the never-ending PhD projects of comrades Kanhaiya and Khalid, who go about in the business class, on jet-setting political tours to arouse this country and ask to overthrow its duly constituted government. Some apologists for such seditious speech, however, remind us of the campus protests against the invasion of Vietnam and Iraq. These were foreign countries that the US was invading. Are these liberal activists equating Kashmir with Vietnam? Is J&K to be deemed a foreign country? The equation is highly odious. Section 37 of Indian Constitution lays down the duties of an Indian. Foremost among these is to uphold the unity, integrity and sovereignty of India. We see this being reviled on a daily basis on the JNU campus and yet, sections of media go overboard to celebrate such traitors and separatists as national heroes and youth icons of protest. Protest against what? The unity, integrity and sovereignty of India?
Few people care to remember that the troubles in strife-torn Syria actually began in the universities of Damascus and Aleppo. There is not one building left standing there today. When we see what is happening in the Jawaharlal Nehru, Jadavpur and Hyderabad universities, and now Ramjas College, one is struck by the ominous similarities of tone and content. There is a concerted assault upon India’s sense of nationhood. Nationalism is being equated to unvarnished evil. Few countries have had their sense of self so comprehensively attacked and destroyed as India’s was in the Colonial era. After the 1857 revolt—the British resolved that Indians would never reunite. They exploited each and every fault line of caste, creed, language and ethnicity to divide and rule Indians and prevent the emergence of a pan-Indian identity. Seventy years after Independence, the rear guard of colonialism is still active in our universities under the cloak of leftist-liberalism to divide and break up this country; to cheer every separatist movement and propel every seditionist student leader to instant stardom. The argument of free speech is being shamelessly used to advocate the breakup of India, to applaud and encourage every separatist. First slogans on Burhan Wani were heard not in the Valley, but in JNU. In any other nation-state that would be deemed high treason. In India, it is being given the veneer of free speech.
There is the curious case of Gurmehar Kaur. I demand that a through probe be ordered to ascertain who gave her death/rape threats. That individual needs to be taken to task with all the severity at the command of the state. There is, however, speculation that this threat was purportedly given by a left-wing student union leader to propel her into stardom and confer on her the halo of victimhood. This needs to be probed, for it would then amount to a well-crafted conspiracy. Kaur recently morphed into an arch-angel of India-Pakistan peace. She was seen in the company of Ram Subramanian, AAP’s media advisor, and John Dayal, a famous India-basher. Last year, she had put out an impassioned video that not Pakistan but war killed her father. Hence, she wanted peace between India and Pakistan. And what would be the way to achieve it? Her AAP has the pat answer—“hand over Kashmir to Pakistan on a platter!” Viewed in this light, Kaur’s pleas for peace do have some sinister overtones of capitulationism. What is disturbing is the manufactured outrage and instant stardom that was conferred upon her by so-called Leftist-liberals of our English print media. There are undertones of a rather deep-seated subversive conspiracy. The intention is to weaken India’s collective will and resolve to tackle the state-sponsored terrorism emanating from Pakistan. There is a capitulationist agenda designed to force India to tamely surrender Kashmir to Pakistan. Traitors and turncoats are out to break up and balkanise India. It’s time we faced them squarely.
Maj. Gen. (Retd) G D Bakshi
War veteran and strategic analyst
gagandeep.bakshi@yahoo.com