Indian academics in the US to rally against JNU crackdown

WASHINGTON: American academics of Indian descent on Saturday condemned recent police action against JNU students and accused the BJP government of attacking democratic freedom.

“The arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, the student union president, and the charges of sedition against him, Umar Khalid, and other students are emblematic of the continued attempts to muzzle dissenting voices,” they said in a statement.

They planned to read this statement at a solidarity rally they are holding at Columbia University later Saturday, to be attended by universit i es of Brown, Princeton, Massachusetts-Amherst, Pennsylvania and Yale as well as the City University of New York and New York University.

Professors Partha Chatterjee and Anupama Rao of Columbia, and Rohit De of Yale are expected to address the rally.

“When we stand with JNU, we also stand with what the protests there symbolise. The attacks on JNU are only the latest of the several assaults by the BJP government and its allies on democracy, constitutionally guaranteed rights, and academic freedoms,” they said in the statement.

They said they “salute” student protests at Film and Television Institute of India, the Hyderabad Central University, Jadavpur University, and Allahabad University and others.

They went to say, “We believe that it is the duty of citizens to be critical of their governments. Sedition laws or charges of antinationalism have no place in democratic societies. We believe it is the right of people to dissent and to voice their opinions, however much these opinions may run counter to the views of the majority. We believe that debates and protests are the life-blood of a democracy.”

PROTEST MARCH AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, TO BE ATTENDED BY VARSITIES OF BROWN, PRINCETON AMONG OTHERS