Dearth On The Campus

Have ideas abandoned student politics?

- Siddharth Singh

Country Without a Post Office is a quaint—part poetic, part rebellious—name for a cultural event. But in New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) where revolution is serious business, names usually signal revolutionary intent. When a bunch of students gathered at Sabarmati Dhaba on its campus in the evening of 9 February, they were clear about why they were there. In the best of Leftist tradition, poetry and rebellion ran togethwy evening. Earlier on, the university authorities—among the most liberal in a famously liberal campus—had given a go-ahead for the event.

That event has gained some notoriety in India and abroad. Slogans were chanted in favour of convicted terrorists Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru. If that were not enough, there were calls for waging a struggle until Kashmir is freed and India broken into pieces. In a politically charged atmosphere, this was nothing less than adding fuel to fire. There were protests and counter protests in Delhi and elsewhere one student—the leader of the JNU Students’ Union, Kanhaiya Kumar—has been booked for sedition. Four other students, wanted for their participation in the event, absconded. Two of them, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, finally gave themselves up to the police after almost a fortnight late on the night of 23 February.