Celebrating India

Vishal Sharma
Violence at NIT campus at Srinagar has yet again reinforced our beliefs in the stereotypes or, rather what most of us dismiss as, the hackneyed clichés.
Of all, however, the stereotype of- the more the things change, the more they remain the same- appears so relevant in so far as the NIT campus ruckus is concerned.
The undercurrents of the debate that started in the forested expanse of JNU continue to sweep the educational canvas of this country. First, it was Pune university, and now, it is NIT, Srinagar.
The question that is now being asked is- what next?  Just when it appeared that the flag bearers of the right wing ideology have lowered their flag and the leftists have also taken their eyes of the ball, came the news that the hoisting of Indian flag at the NIT campus has once again got the temperatures rising. Student action at the JNU and Hyderabad Central University (HCU) had a distinct anti-state backdrop. A section of the students at HCU, where it all started, dissented against the Mumbai blast convict,YakubMenon’s hanging. The dissent had the clear lower caste bias.
The upper castes, who deem themselves as the custodians of patriotism,felt dissent at HCU was a counterpoint to the idea of India. The fight that, thereafter, ensued was a natural corollary.
The academic issues later raised were a red herring to let in an escapist discourse for obfuscation.
At JNU, Afzal Guru’s hanging was at the heart of the row. The raging armies on either side of the row had devised their own idiom of patriotism and were raring to defend it to the last.
What happened at the close of the JNU fracas was that none of the ideologies was held acceptable. It was felt that both needed a certain nuance.
Consequently, right wingers fell back and rewrote the script of the nationalism to allow for denominational constraints and constitutional liberties. Left wingers, in a similar spirit of accommodation, necessitated in great measure by the way debate on nationalism was being received in the country, let up the anti-right fervor;andgrudgingly accepted that while the existentialist reality of the state of India was non-negotiable, there was nothing wrong in differing here and there with the government of the day.
In effect, while the right wingers looked for solution beyond constitution as the latter could not possibly envisage every conceivable ideological construct, the left for sheer convenience held up constitution as the only guiding template- portraying it something that was non tradable.
The violence at NIT, however, emanates from the noxious bipolarity of the debate that had its genesis in JNU and HCU. It had an added edge of the Indo-Pak cricket rivalry stirred up by the recently concluded T-20 world cup.
It has been reported that tension had been brewing up at the NIT campus after India put it past Pakistan in the league match. Indo-Pak matches have often generated sentiments.
In certain quarters, Pakistan’s victory is hailed and her loss mourned with equal sentimentality.
If Pakistan loses to India, and there are post match provocations, the hurt sentiments have often acted as staging posts for street fights. This time, NIT became the amphitheater of these volatile sentiments.  While non-local students at the campus celebrated India’s win over Pakistan, the very immediate outside environment mourned it. The celebrations, which followed in the campus, though legit, may have been taken for provocation by the mourners. The problem with bi-polarity of an issue is that the ideological strands follow a linear pattern of right or wrong. The third, more middle of the road, part right, part wrong, axis of the morality is completely amiss.
The supporters of India- Pakistan have often allowed themselves to be hostage to this bipolarity of the issues concerning the two nations.
Resultingly, the commonsensical perspective that may have helped the matters has been traded for venomous ideological constructs.
Even when the backdrop is, or has been, as trivial as sports.This has been the greatest failure of this relationship; and thebiggest disappointment for the saner amongst the rabble rousers.
If the trigger was India’s win over Pakistan, then the final nail in the coffin was India’s loss to west indies in an important semi final tie. This time, the campus mourned and the immediate outside neighbourhood celebrated.
Those, who mourned, had a reason to do so for their country had lost. Those, who cheered and celebrated, did so for their own reasons. They, it is held, have always chosen to do so in the past.
In their case, minds are made up where their hearts lie in so far as who they have to cheer on during a cricketing tie, or for that matter, in any sports. The question, though, is- should this uniquely perverted rooting for a different nationality in sports necessarily be accompanied by the radicalberatement of one’s own country. The clear answer should be- no.
There is something about this country though which persuades people to propup their patriotism, irrespective of its nature, with visible symbols.
The subtleties of expression, which respects the others’ views, have always been at a premium.
The balance that could have perhaps lent dignity to the cricketing discourse grounded in one’s liking for the art of batsmanship or bowling skills, independent of the colour of the shirts worn by the players, has always been missing.
This has predictably only produced indian cricket team fans and not the true connoisseurs of the game. The police action on the students, notwithstanding, was uncalled for in the same way calling of police into the campuses of JNU and HCU was. Students’ perspectives, however, obnoxious, should have been left to be dealt with at the level of the institute administration.
Letting police in to handle the situation the only way they know has its costs. It allows hardening of positions on both sides, because one side suspects the other to be behind it. Secondly, and most importantly, it militates against the freedom the students enjoy or should enjoy in educational campuses and in the process pits them against the administration.
The recent revelations tumbling out of NIT are damning. Students, who were at the receiving end of the police action, have revealed the deep animus that have existed in the campus between the local students and their non local counterparts on the one hand and the non local students and the faculty on the other.
They haveinfact let out far more incriminating stuff. And it can’t get any worse. The non locals students have alleged that they are routinely forced to shout Pakistan Zindabad slogans in the classes by the teachers; that the local students and the canteen personnel at the institute regularly disparage India and Indian symbols; and that the observance of anti Indianism both in words and deeds is routinely insisted upon by the faculty.
If all of this has continued there since long, then this needs serious thought. How can an institute running on GoI funds put up with such blatant anti Indianism?
And what about students, past and present, who have had to live in such an extremely intimidating environment? This gross negligence or complicity needs some explaining. All those whose job it was to bring to the fore such shenanigans need to be called to account. The matters at NIT need to be probed. This time the probe though must go beyond the routine of going through the motions. It would need to do some jackal catching or fox hunting. Let those students, though, who are on the run for their lives today, be reassured that their act of hoisting tri colour and supporting blue shirts is not something that they have to be ashamed of.
It certainly is not deserving of callous and uncalled for police action. If anything, it is worthy of applause.
If it is the security or lack of it that they are worried about at the campus, it falls to this nation to step up to the plate and secure the campus.
It does not behove a nation, if her youth fear for life within her legit territory.
If the youth have stood up for the dignity of the Indian symbols, the state which finds expression through these symbols, must also step up and deliver for her youth.
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