Don’t brand JNU anti-national, say teachers

Home Minister Rajnath Singh unleashed a political storm on Sunday with a claim that an event at JNU to protest the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru had received “support” from LeT founder Hafiz Saeed amid an escalating showdown over the crisis at the varsity.

Opposition parties demanded that the Home Minister provide proof to back up his claim on the event at the JNU campus.

In a shot in the arm for the students demanding the release of its students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who was slapped with sedition charge, teachers associations of 40 central universities extended support to the protest by the students and teachers of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University(JNU).

JNU’s teachers’ association also openly came out against the administration for mishandling the matter and particularly slammed it for allowing police action before completion of a probe by the university’s proctorial committee in connection with the event. The teachers are backing the students.

They appealed to the public on Sunday not to “brand” the university as “anti-national”. “Isn’t it unfair to brand the university as anti-national which has stood as an epitome of academics and democratic culture. Why tarnish its image by calling it a home to anti-nationals? We have taught here for years, we know what it is to be at JNU. We appeal to the public to look beyond the present controversy and not to associate the ‘adjective’ anti-national with JNU,” said a Social Science professor, who did not wish to be identified.

A professor of the Linguistics department said the “University is doing an inquiry, police is probing the case, the Delhi Government has also ordered a magisterial inquiry. Why can’t we wait to see how the situation unfolds? Why brand the university as a ground for terrorists?” The teachers have also come out in support of the student’s union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who is in police custody on sedition charges in connection with the event, saying even if the students have done anything wrong, it is an issue of “indiscipline” and not “sedition”.

“University is a place of debate and dissent. Ideas should compete with ideas, force and violence cannot be used to suppress ideas. Arbitrary arrests should stop and our internal mechanism should deal with situations,” said Ayesha Kidwai, another professor at the varsity’s Centre for Linguistics

Amid the protests and mounting outrage over police action in JNU, Rajnath said, “The incident(Afzal event) at JNU has received support from Hafiz Saeed. This is a truth that the nation needs to understand.” 

“What has happened is very unfortunate,” Singh told reporters in Allahabad referring to an event at JNU campus to commemorate the third death anniversary of Afzal Guru.

Singh’s comments about Hafiz’s links with the event where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised sparked a political row with opposition parties asking him to provide evidence.

National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said it is a “very serious charge” to level against the students and that the evidence must be shared with all.

CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said the Home Minister has to come out and share the evidence he has with the country to back up his “serious allegation”. CPI leader D Raja also demanded that the evidence be made public.