‘I begin college this year. Will I be able to speak my mind?'

IN A LITTLE over six months from now, Aditya Chanana, a Class 12 science student, will begin college. While his days now are filled with coursework and preparing for engineering entrance exams, he often longs for a break, like the one he took through his school years, to cycle around the lush green Jawaharlal Nehru University campus, a few kilometres from his home in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj locality.

“After a hectic school week, I would go there to unwind. I am also part of a cyclists’ group, and on a couple of occasions we went to the campus together. The Aravalis, the greenery, the winding roads, all made for a great cycling course,” says Aditya, a student of Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj.

But Aditya no longer makes his weekly trips to the campus. “In February this year, while I was cycling around the campus, I came across a protest rally. There was a crowd outside the administrative block, and I saw a couple of television reporters talking to students. I was told that a group of students had raised anti-india slogans,” says Aditya, whose father works in a pharmaceutical firm. He has no siblings.

“The next time I visited the campus, the guard asked me for a university ID card. I didn’t go there after that,” he says.

Earlier this year, JNU made national headlines after some students allegedly raised “anti-india” slogans at a February 9 protest on the campus. Four days later, then JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested by the Delhi Police and charged with sedition. Two other students, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, were also arrested a few days later.

Over the next few weeks, Aditya says he saw JNU, his favourite retreat, becoming the subject of noisy TV debates and nasty jibes on social media. “I could not believe it. A place so close to my house had become a national concern. JNU has always been a centre for discussions and debates. I did not understand what was wrong,” he says. Aditya also feels that the issue was blown out of proportion because of the intervention of political parties.

As he now prepares for his college life, Aditya often wonders if his university will allow him to express his opinions freely.

“I have always thought of university as a place to share ideas. That is what forms the crux of a democratic society. We live in a country where people are free to express their opinions, yet, political parties seem intolerant to others’ views,” he says.

While getting through an engineering college in India is his first preference, Aditya is also applying to universities abroad. Among the many questions on his mind is this: “I begin college this year. Wherever I go, I want to live in a campus where I am allowed to speak my mind without being worried about harassment. Will I be able to do that?” SAIKAT BOSE