Apoorvanand - A besieged life of the mind - Attacks on Nivedita Menon, Rajshree Ranawat show the decline of state universities, perversion of student politics
The reports of attacks
and a hate campaign in the form of agitations and police reports against
academic Nivedita Menon of Jawaharlal Nehru University
(JNU) and Rajshree Ranawat of the Jai Narain Vyas University (JNVU), Jodhpur,
must concern us all. We cannot simply shrug it off when the university
administration itself is filing criminal reports against academics for their
“anti-national” remarks on its premises. FIRs have a life of their own and can
have serious consequences. Books have been pulped, recalled from shelves,
writers and artists have apologised for something they have not done, jobs have
been lost. So, it is not amusing to learn that teachers are facing a “popular”
agitation, bad press and possible arrests for their scholarly work, be this in
a lecture at a seminar, an article or a book.
This attack is not an
exception. A similar assault had taken place at the Mohanlal Sukhadia
University, Udaipur, some time ago when the organisers and speakers of a
seminar in the department of philosophy were targeted with criminal cases and a
“popular” agitation. The case of the teachers in Haryana Central University,
attacked for staging a play, is still fresh in our minds.
In these cases,
nationalism is used as a weapon against knowledge and free enquiry. This
article, however, is not an attempt to defend Nivedita Menon and Rajshree Ranawat
or the English department at JNVU, which invited Menon to speak at a conference
on “History Reconstructed Through Literature: Nation, Identity, Culture”, where
she made allegedly “seditious” remarks questioning India’s claims over Kashmir.
Menon has since
clarified, in great detail in a post on Kafila.online, that statements
attributed to her are falsehoods and half-truths. She is not a coward, so she
does not disown her remarks. But clearly, most of what is being blamed on her
is not what she said but what the agitators imagined she had. This is an
occasion to deliberate on the sad decline of state universities, the perversion
of student politics and the irresponsible reporting by the Hindi media, which borders on instigation and hate campaigns.
We know the sad story
of the destruction of the once-outstanding Jodhpur and Jaipur Universities.
They have been killed by starving them of funds and the non-appointment of
faculty. Reduced to examination machines, they lack even the ambition of
contributing to knowledge creation.
The divide between the
state universities and central educational institutions, in terms of finances
and knowledge, is huge and daunting. The sheer insensitivity of state
governments and political parties towards the young is demonstrated in the way
they treat and maintain universities. Vice chancellors are selected not for
their ability in academic leadership, but their loyalty to the government of the day.
Departments are empty, libraries impoverished and laboratories non-functional.
In such a dismal
scenario, conferences like the one Ranawat and her colleagues organised are
audacious acts, pulled off in extremely adverse situations. They also serve as
oases, a rare opportunity for students and faculty to be exposed to and
interact with the best minds in the academic world. Such conferences provide an
opportunity to the faculty and students to break free from mechanical,
examination-driven classes. But it is clear that the university authorities are
ready to sacrifice them at the very first provocation.
The quality of the
corporate life of a university is something we need to think about. When unions
of teachers and non-teaching staff members turn against their own colleagues,
it gives a signal to other teachers that they cannot be adventurous and would
be left alone to fight their battle. The behaviour of the ABVP, in such cases,
has been uniform. Instead of engaging intellectually with its ideological opponents, its
members have indulged in threats, physical attacks, destruction of public
property and public agitation. One expects student organisations to promote a
culture of dialogue. It is disappointing to see some of them using their
physical prowess and proximity to power to make their point.
The role of the Hindi
media in the JNVU and other such cases has been dangerous. It does not engage
in a balanced reporting of the facts. A team from the editors’ guild, which
investigated Hindi media’s role in the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation, found that it
has turned into a propaganda machine for Hindu right-wing politics. The reader
and viewer solely dependent on Hindi media are not only malnourished, they are
being fed intoxicants in the name of news and opinion.
The cultural life of
what is known as the Hindi heartland is becoming dangerously narrow. This is
definitely a loss for teachers, but more so for young minds. As sociologist
Satish Deshpande argues, universities are the only spaces, in our otherwise
highly segregated and hierarchical society, where the youth get a chance to
participate in intellectual discourse in an egalitarian manner. This is an
opportunity for them to experience a freedom which is unavailable in wider
society. This applies especially to first-generation college and university
goers.
To restrict or close
down such spaces is to deprive them of their only source of intellectual and
cultural nourishment. Here, they learn the art of dealing with differences and
the art of persuasion. When a Rajshree Ranawat organises such a conference, or
a Nivedita Menon speaks in it, they do not do so merely to exercise their right
to free speech, but more out of their sense of responsibility towards the
youth. They are being told that this is a soldierly duty, fraught with real
risk, that they have been in the line of fire from the enemies of intellect,
who, by being so, become enemies of equality, freedom and humanity.
