JNU crackdown is hypocrisy at its worst

NEW DELHI: CPI-ML (Liberation) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya is a stake-holder in the JNU ‘sedition’ controversy with four of the eight students sought by Delhi Police being members of the All India students’ association (AISA) which is affiliated to his party. Excerpts from an interview with Rai Atul

Krishna:

What is at stake in the row that has enveloped JNU, India’s premier university?

At stake is the democratic, participative environment that is an idiom of the JNU and serves as a guiding force for institutions of higher learning across the country. As the JNU has shown a preference for the left, as validated by students’ union election after election, it has become a target of the RSS for quite some time.

What, in your view, is the root cause of the JNU crisis? The JNU crackdown is meant to serve as a warning to students of other universities. It started with the HRD ministry persuading IIT-Madras to ban a Dalit studies group, then happened the controversy over appointment of FTII head, then the university of Hyderabad targeting Rohith Vemula… The government wants to place curbs on thinking young minds.

Do slogans favouring separation of Kashmir, backing terror convicts, fall within limits of free speech?

I cannot see why not. You cannot call it sedition. Although the ruling PDP has opposed the hanging of Afzal Guru, the BJP doesn’t mind being in a coalition government with it. How can the same view be a big ‘no, no’ in JNU? This is hypocrisy at its worst