For Whom The Lynch Mob Comes
By Radha Surya
27 February, 2016
Countercurrents.org
In some ways it has been a swift unraveling. The Union Home Minister ordering a police crackdown on the basis of a tweet subsequently shown to be sent from a parody twitter handle, police laying siege to what is arguably India’s finest university, making arrests and citing a video quickly exposed as having been doctored for the express purpose of fabricating evidence, an MLA from the ruling party and thuggish lawyers assaulting JNU professors and students, journalists and political activists on the premises of the high court and being photographed while perpetrating this lawless activity —all of this seems to come straight out of a burlesque playbook. Then there is the astounding blunder of attempting to pull off this unconscionable attack on freedom of expression and university autonomy right in the heart of the nation's capital in full view of the national and international press and the civil liberties and human rights organisations.
Next time the Prime Minister travels to a foreign land and gives a blockbuster performance at a venue comparable to New York’s Madison Square Garden or London’s Wembley Stadium will he be prepared to explain why the state sponsored crackdown on JNU has drawn condemnation from internationally reputed NGOs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch? Will he have the chutzpah to claim that the NGOs have an anti-Hindu agenda? Will Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch then go the Greenpeace way? The Sangh Parivar is known to be extremely touchy about presenting a positive image of India to the outside world. Exactly how will the ruling party handle the international dimension of the JNU debacle? Has it lost the plot? If the latter the saffron brigade’s incompetence may be viewed as the one saving grace in all the villainy and ugliness witnessed since the arrest of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar on February 12.
Thanks to the mix of criminality and sheer stupidity on display the saffron brigade stands thoroughly exposed in the eyes of the sane and unbigoted section of society. After all the Sangh Parivar’s principal ideological opponent Jawaharlal Nehru University is nationally and internationally known for excellence in scholarship and research and for producing generations of students who went on to serve in the higher ranks of the government and civil and foreign services. If the saffron brigade’s objective is to shut down this national asset, it should have gone about its project with more skill and cunning. For instance it might have been wiser to chip away at the periphery before launching a full frontal attack on the principal citadel of all that is anathema to the Sangh Parivar—critical analysis and vibrant debate on matters social, political and economic as well as articulate opposition to the religious and cultural chauvinism—in a word majoritarianism—of the Hindutva brigade. Is the saffron brigade not acting like the king who burnt his tongue when he ate after dipping his spoon into the center of the steaming porridge? The king was roundly rebuked by the aged crone in whose hut he had taken shelter. She counselled him to start at the periphery and thereby gave him a lesson in military strategy. The Sangh Parivar too would benefit by this lesson.
Yet despite all the bungling that has taken place to date, the regime in Delhi has shown no sign of backing down. Condemnation of the state sponsored crackdown on JNU and statements of solidarity with students and academics of the beleaguered university have poured in from across the globe. The solidarity is a torrent that shows no sign of abating. The witch hunt unleashed on JNU has sparked a wave of protests on campuses across India. The massive protest march of February 18 drew fifteen thousand participants and included JNU students and teachers, students from universities across Delhi and concerned citizens. The moral strength of JNU students was displayed in the most impressive way when they handed roses to media persons of the very news channels that had defamed JNU and stigmatized its students as anti-national parasites. But the regime has shown no remorse. India is now entering the third week of this crisis and Kanhaiya Kumar remains in custody. The police dragnet has drawn in Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya and seeks to capture three others. The state sponsored persecution of these fine young people--some of India’s best and most passionate minds--is truly sickening. The saffron forces are not satisfied with hounding twenty six year old Rohith Vemula, vibrant Ambedkarite and scholar, into taking his own life. He spoke in his suicide letter of being unconcerned about himself. But a drowning man will grasp at a straw. Rohith must have hoped for a last minute reprieve even in the final moments of his life. Weeks after the fact some of Rohith’s mourners have yet to come to terms with his untimely death. But the saffron juggernaut has moved on. Its appetite for young lives is insatiable. It has now focused all its energy on breaking the spirit and destroying the lives of the admirable young people who are being held by the police and treated like criminals although they have broken no law of the land.
The regime in Delhi is bent on plumbing the depths of depravity in full view of national and international observers. There must be some method to this madness, some weapon that can be wielded to retain popularity for the remainder of the current term and gain a second “mandate” in 2019. Some knowledge of the history of fascism is helpful in understanding the crackdown on JNU. In an illuminating article that appeared in The Wire, the political scientist Diego Maiorano has found unmistakable similarities between the rise of fascism in Italy and the present Indian situation (The Ghosts of 1920s Italy Are Here to Haunt Us, The Wire, February 24, 2016). Diego Maiorano points out that the right-wing groups who thrive in PM Modi’s India are strikingly similar to the fascist squads who helped Mussolini to consolidate power. The political scientist then goes on to say the following: The local sections of some nationwide organizations like the Bajrang Dal or the ABVP strongly remind me of these fascist paramilitaries. They too are only loosely associated with the government and, in some cases at least, hardly controlled by the BJP. However, what is striking is the climate of impunity in which they operate.
Diego Maiorano’s perspective on India under Prime Minister Modi helps us to understand why next to no action has been taken against the perpetrators of the assaults that took place on the premises of Patiala House court even though two of the attackers BJP MLA (OP Sharma) and one of the lawyers (Prithvi Singh Chauhan) have been identified. The attack on Kanhaiya Kumar was reported to be particularly vicious. The beating took place as the police stood around watching. But Kanhaiya Kumar remains in custody and is being subjected to harsh interrogation while OP Sharma and Prithvi Singh Chauhan remain at large. The saffron forces take care of those who serve them. Little interest has been shown in apprehending those who carried out the assassination of rationalist thinkers Narendra Dabolkar, Govind Pansare and MM Kalburgi. Small groups who attack or kill opponents of Hindutva ideology and lynch mobs like the ones who perpetrated last year’s beef killings in Udhampur, Dadri, and Haryana are turning into the very foundation of the ruling party’s hold on India. Ultranationalist mobs are now said to be roaming in lanes and by lanes of Delhi chanting slogans like the following: “Ghar mein ghus ke maarenge Afzal ke yaaron ko” (“We will break into homes to kill Afzal [Guru]’s supporters”). The BJP spokespersons who repeat verbatim the slogan about dismembering India over the news channels are in effect goading the ultranationalists among their viewers into a state of murderous frenzy. It will be next to impossible to contain the genie of violent ultranationalism in the bottle once it tastes blood. The dark ages will then descend on India.
Prime Minister Modi and his cohorts should beware. They only need to look west to understand that state sponsored terrorist groups can evolve into an uncontrollable force. With respect to equipment and training there is no doubt a big difference between on the one hand terrorist groups armed and funded by the ISI and Pakistan’s generals and on the other hand the small groups of assassins and gauraksha lynch mobs that carry out the Sangh Parivar’s agenda across India. Nevertheless like Pakistan’s terrorist groups India’s lynch mobs too could potentially turn against their sponsors. Lynch mobs are not known to respect democracy and the Constitution of India. When the mobs come to get the ruling elite, kissing the steps of Parliament will be of no use whatsoever.
Radha Surya is a freelance writer. Her articles have appeared on Znet and Countercurrents.