Claiming hands in attack at JNU; A bloody debut !
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 09 2020 -

A bloody debut this is, with all the blood and gore and this is how the Hindu Raksha Dal has announced its entry into campus politics, or whatever one may call it.

The blow on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has obviously left an ugly dent and while it is sure that the varsity will bounce back with renewed vigour, it is unacceptable that a university of higher learning should be subjected to such infamy.

Making things all that more questionable is the report that two cases were filed against the president of JNU Students’ Union Aishe Ghosh within a span of four minutes and here is police ‘efficiency’ being given a new understanding.

That these two FIRs were reportedly filed even as the student leader lay bleeding tells a story of its own, pregnant with meaning.

No wonder then that the Guwahati edition of The Telegraph covered the JNU story under the screaming headline, ‘Barbarians descend on JNU’.

The Hindu and the Times of India watered down their headlines but this did not stop them from clubbing the marauders in the dark as ‘masked’ attackers or something along this line.

The clash or rather the attack on JNU went a step further as reports have also come in that it sent ripple effects to other places, such as Ahmedabad wherein activists of the NSUI and the ABVP came to blows against each other, once again taking things to a more bloody path.

Campus politics or campus violence is definitely not confined to JNU alone for university campuses across the country have seen and experienced violence, one glaring example being Manipur University when police conducted a mid-night raid during the stormy days of the oust the then Vice Chancellor AP Pandey drive just some time back.

There certainly does not seem to be an immediate reason for the attack on JNU in the dead of the night, but the Hindu Raksha Dal has gone ahead and asserted that its offensive was premised on the point that JNU has become a hotbed of anti-National activities.

How far this will hold water is anybody’s guess and the natural question that follows is whether protesting a sharp fee hike, however justified or long overdue the fee hike may be, can be termed anti-National.

And who is the Hindu Raksha Dal to dub someone or the activities of students within a university as anti-National ?

Who gave them the authority to pronounce someone or some act as anti-National ?

This is a question which should be raised by all concerned.

And how are the activities of the students of JNU interpreted as being anti-Hindu ?

Does anybody have the sole prerogative to dub an activity as being anti-Hindu or anti-any religion ?

The answers to these is perhaps best left to the Hindu Raksha Dal to furnish, but what happened at JNU cannot be good for the country and it certainly cannot be good for students.

Let the incident be probed thoroughly and steps taken accordingly to ensure that such ugly incidents are not repeated in any other university.

Muscle power should have no room in any place of learning, much less in a place like JNU, which is home to a number of students and teachers drawn from different parts of the country.