Campus Woes
By Bhat Iqbal
18 August, 2010
Countercurrents.org
At times my eyes wandered what and where are all this is coming from. Hustle and bustle of campus late at night around 2 am had something else to offer for me . Everywhere I was hearing screaming cries, as if somebody was beaten to death. But eyes had else to see, my collegues and others in the campus were jostling with joy.
Perplexity persisted between what I hear and what my eyes were seeing. For a moment it seemed as if I was schizophrenic. I am penning down the life which these days my Kashmiri fellows are going through in Jawaharlal Nehru University campus. We although not being physically present among the people of our nation who have been fighting against oppression with all their naked hands under open sky offering irreparable sacrifices in form of their bodies which can never be compared with any other sacrifice what so ever intellectual it may be. Beyond all this hearing of news of kashmiris being butchered by Indian oppressors, our souls are further paralyzed by the illogical , irrational and inhumane protests being organized by the communal forces under the notion of their nationalistic favor.
I am here talking about few days back when in the campus of India’s most democratic institutions, a student wing of Bharatiya Janata party organized a protest . Their protest was somewhat different in colour as well as creed. Their slogans were something which any human conscience can never expect. They were uttering out words like long live CRPF, Kashmir protests down down..and so on. No where a single mention of killing of innocent children as a concern of human rights was there in the slogans. What an irony…………. this is India’s one of the largest so called democratic political party.
I was sitting along the famous Ganga daba’s side while these protesters were passing by. Many of my friends who although were Indians tried to restore the notion of democratic politics in my mind by saying that India is not what these people seem to be but it is a nation of one billion people where such black sheep’s like ABVP have an existence. Although I had no reluctance to the figures of population which they provided where in 60 lakh kashmiris are included. But I began to think for a while and in the mean time I recognized Meera nanda’s book The God Market; How Globalisation is making India more Hindu. How secular Indian constitution may be but I don’t hesitate in saying that Indian democracy is a myth propounded under the Gandhian philosophy. I don’t imagine how the dark spot of demolishing of Babri Masjid is going to be washed away by the secular constitution of India and then not to talk of Gujarat riots.
It was quite an unfortunate thing why Indian intellectuals are comparing India with Pakistan. There is no doubt Pakistan is an Islamic republic if not practically but why Indian state breeds Hinduism under the name of secularism. It seems as if the real hypocrites are the ones who go by this ideology. If you have an authority to organize people on slogans like “Bharat Mai Agar Rehna Hoga Vanday Matram Kehna Hoga and RAM KAY NAAM”, what is then wrong with people who fight against oppression under the banner of their religion? Although I may point it out here that Kashmir’s freedom struggle is in no way a fight for religious establishment rather it is a notion of nation as an identity to which everyone out there has an equal and specific share . I being a ordinary Kashmiri student on my own behalf request all kashmiri pundits living outside Kashmir, to join the freedom struggle under which ever banner they want and do not let alone your brothers and sisters who are shedding their tears, sweat, blood and what not day in and out for seeing Kashmir as an independent nation with its own boundaries.
(Bhat Iqbal is a research student at Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi and can be mailed at [email protected]
