Mumbai Students Too Give Us Hope
By Vidyadhar Date
7 March, 2016
Countercurrents.org
Students from Mumbai too give us hope for the future. There was a large and very enthusiastic turnout of students in the last two days, on March 5 and 6 at the Y.B. Chavan Centre at a conference Celebrating Freedom and Pluralism in Defence of Secularism.
A feeling of solidarity and camaraderie pervaded the atmosphere and the conference ended with every one joining in the singing of the popular left-wing song Hum Honge Kamayaab Ek Din (We will succeed one day ) penned by Sahir Ludhianwi. It was sung by Rossi who also earlier sang a song - the anti national label unites the human race.
The gathering was inspired by the student protests in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi and Kanhaiya against police repression and it was felt that any impending attack on the next target, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai would be resisted. There were a large number of students from TISS, IIT and other colleges including some from interior Maharashtra.
The conference was organized by the Mumbai Collective, an organization of academics, activists, journalists, artists, film makers, political leaders and others with panel discussions, talks and cultural expressions of solidarity and protest.
A point frequently made was that it was strange that the RSS supporters were talking of patriotism when the organization never joined the struggle for independence for 22 yeas since its formation and its supporters had killed Mahatma Gandhi in cold blood.
Prof Irfan Habib, distinguished historian, in a message said India is much larger than the RSS and its cohorts and this gives us space and time to approach everyone who believes that India should fully preserve its liberty and freedom of thought.
Mr N Ram, veteran journalist, said we may be overestimating the enemy’s strength when we talk about impending fascism. What can be more anti-national, he said, than talking of creating a Hindu Rashra ?
Dr D Balasubramaniam, scientist and populariser of science, referred to the great rationalist tradition in India from the Buddha to Tagore while rebutting Mr Narendra Modi’s irrational utterances about the prevalence of plastic surgery in relation to Ganesha’s trunk.
Several scientists, he said, had written a letter to the Prime Minister on this and are still awaiting a response.
The unscientific utterances of leaders were accompanied by attacks on important institutions of science including the council of scientific and industrial research and Ph.D. research with cuts in grants.
Dr Raghunathan of IIT, Mumbai, began in a light hearted way saying that he was quoting the Rigveda to show his nationalistic credentials. The quote referred to the need to imbibe good ideas from everywhere.. He blamed neoliberalism and the greed for money for the dwindling scientific temper in the middle class. Some people seemed to say Garve se Kaho, hum Lobhi hai (let us say proudly we are greedy).
Dr Prabhat Patnaik, noted economist, said the destruction of multiplicity of views and thought would make us parasticially dependent on other countries for knowledge. He also expressed concern over the letting in of the police and lumpen mobs on university campuses. Privatisation of higher education also meant the exclusion of the poor, exclusion of protests and falling aside of creativity.
Prof Chaman Lal, a radical activist and translator of poet Pash, said it was shameful that the RSS was trying to appropriate Bhagat Singh when it had nothing in common with his atheism, radicalism and revolutionary fervor. He was like a burning hot coal they are incapable of handling.
There was a loud applause during the screening of clips from a film on the JNU protests made by noted film maker Anand Patwardhan. It depicted among other things the brave speech of a girl student leader from Allahabad who is now facing threats. He said it was wrong to portray Ambedkar as anti Gandhi as Gandhi in later years was becoming very radical on the caste issue. It was revolutionary of Gandhi to introduce the practice of upper castes cleaning the latrines themselves and he insisted that he would attend a wedding only if it was inter-caste.
Mihir Desai, noted human rights lawyer, said the government had made the same blunder by applying the sedition law in the JNU case as the British committed while doing that to Mahatma Gandhi. He also recalled that Jinnah defended Lokmanya Tilak and then Tilak defended himself in the sedition case in the Mumbai high court. Tilak’s case is also unique in that his portrait is displayed in the same court where he was convicted and his statement is displayed outside the room.
P. Sainath, renowned journalist, said while the media was the fourth estate it was the only estate which was bent on extracting large profits and one group treated it like real estate.
Gopal Guru, JNU professor, said people must have a right to complain and enjoy freedom of thought. There was a freedom square in the JNU campus, he pointed out. Some sections talked only of the international boundary ignoring the fact that we have created so many boundaries within the country prohibiting the poor and other sections.
Kabir Khan, film maker and director of the film Bajarangi Bhaijan, said he was fascinated by the character of the Hanuman when he and his friends went on bicycles to watch Ram Leela performances years ago in Delhi. His father, prof Rasheeduddin Khan was among the earlier teachers in JNU.
Prakash Ambedkar, Republican party leader and grandson of Dr Ambedkar, said the RSS behaved most unconstitutionally after giving an undertaking to then then home minister Sardar Patel that it would abide by the Constitution. He also made it clear that Dr Ambedkar was against the death penalty arguing that restriction on liberty was an adequate punishment.
Anjum Rajabali, film script writer, said because he was a Muslim he had failed to get a house to stay after visiting over a hundred housing societies including those of civil service officers and judges.
Mumbai has not witnessed for a long time such a conference with such stimulating discussion. It was organized by a large team including Mr Ramakumar, professor in TISS. The speakers and presenters included Sitaram Yechury, CPM leader, D Raja, CPI leader, Jitendra Awahad, NCP MLC, Kapil Patil, independent MLC, Nandita Das, actor, who read from the works of Manto, the celebrated writer, journalists Naresh fernandes and Jyoti Punwani on the post riots Mumbai scene, Swarna Bhaskar and Zeeshan Ayub read poems, Geeta Seshu, Sashi Kumar, Nikhil Wagle spoke on the media and communal politics, Hamid Dabholkar, son of the slain rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, spoke on the need to promote rationalism. Among other speakers were Megha Pansare, daughter in law of the murdered CPI leader Govind Pansare and Subhashini Ali, a veteran leader of women’s struggles.
(Mr Vidyadhar Date is a senior journalist).