The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Wednesday 17 February 2016

JNU ROW: QUESTIONS WE MUST ASK!

THE QUESTIONS


The JNU row (Jawaharlal Nehru University) has debased to such lows that we seriously need to ask questions - on the whole socio-political milieu prevailing at the moment:

-- That what was and what would be the right approach - to let the incident pass by taking strict disciplinary action against the erring students? - or making a fuss about it to the level that it has now escalated to the extent to threaten the academic atmosphere in many other universities?

Obviously, the sane and the logical voices would say a disciplinary action would be enough to address the issue - if at all it was needed - or it would be precisely in course to ignore the event because it was not a majority view there, in fact just a handful of students were for it, and it was not the first time in JNU.

-- Was it a case fit for police intervention? Now, after a week of row and its spread to other universities, we can safely say NO. In the age of being students, we all are impulsive, reactive, susceptible to sentiments and above all, we question ethos if we don't conform to them - even if it means airing our views about the state, about its affairs. Being a student should be about that. We need to get outraged and speak our mind whenever we see something wrong. That is permissible within the democratic norms - something that is even the top custodian of the Indian Constitution, the Supreme Court of India, accepts - saying unless words incite action, it is not a fit case for imposing sedition laws. We may be wrong, like here these 'pro Afzal Guru' protesters were, but then there were other possible means to handle the situation than a police intervention.

-- That if the administration was hell-bent on 'improving' the situation, sanitizing JNU of anti-national elements? If it was so, and no problem in that, then why did the Delhi Police act so late. Reports say the Delhi Police had information prior to event.

-- What were they waiting for? If the Delhi Police can proactively raid a government run canteen (Kerala House beef controversy) in the name of taking precautionary measures to prevent any untoward incident in the name of beef politics, what didn't they do so here?

-- Since February 9, it was JNU. Since yesterday, it is Jadavpur University. University of Hyderabad is also delicately balanced at the moment. Now, in the name of taking tough action on the so-called 'anti-national' elements in our university system, in our academic institutions, aren't we risking something much more insane - something that would vitiate the academic atmosphere by dividing students along the lines of differing ideologies?

Universities must be the first place in any society to inculcate a culture of debate with differing voices and ideologies and the emphasis should be on developing in-built mechanisms to address voices of extreme like the 'pro Afzal Guru' event of JNU. There were just handful of students (10-15), and even that is not sure that if they all were from JNU, and their voice would never matter in the whole group of over 7000 JNU students.

-- Aren't all political parties culprit of adding fuel to the fire? From Arvind Kejriwal to Rahul Gandhi to senior BJP and Congress politicians to Mayawati to Nitish Kumar to Omar Abdullah and all others including the natural claimants, the Left parties with their legacy in JNU, who made statements or visited JNU to take sides - everyone is responsible to make what JNU has become today - since February 9 - and what University of Jadavpur is becoming since yesterday.

-- Aren't we all to share the blame? Aren't we all instilling fear in minds of our students? Aren't we all forcing our students to take extreme steps like Rohith Vemula did or like the three students of a Villupuram allied medical college did or like a Ph.D. scholar in Central University of Rajasthan? Incidents like JNU crackdown or policies that make vice-chancellors excessively powerful are solely responsible and therefore is the system that is behind such events or policies.

-- Did the police act politically? Did the police act in haste? Did the Delhi Police make the matters worse? Yes, in fact, it is the Delhi Police that is primarily responsible for making this much of something that was initially nothing. And they have continued with their charade. They found an anti-national in Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU Students Union president, very conveniently and arrested him but they have conveniently ignored the goondaism and lawlessness of some of the lawyers, an spectacle that has been on obscene display since yesterday thrashing Kanhaiya Kumar, his supporters and journalists including women - in the name of nationalism or patriotism. But like the ultra-leftist (DSU, the Democratic Students Union in this case), we also don't need these ultra-nationalists. And the list of such bravados includes a BJP MLA. Things are on tape, recorded. The BJP MLA and the goons in the garb of lawyers are openly airing their views but the Delhi Police is still investigating, even if the Supreme Court reacted angrily on the lawlessness on display at the Patiala House Courts complex.

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/