Divide And Rue

The mob is suddenly everywhere: not just on the streets, but on the TV, in our minds. Is this a rebirth of the nation, or is something going horribly wrong?

- Uttam Sengupta

THE UNHOLY GRAIL

Unlike Rohith Vemula’s suicide, BJP has “created” an issue in JNU where none existed. The same event passed off peacefully last year. In 2016, the shallow definition of nationalism, which criminalises dissent, came to rule.

An emotional construct of nationalism (Afzal Guru, national flag) has a strong patriarchal feel, subsuming a constitutional framework of justice that must cover gender, caste, class, language, religion, ethnicity, etc

India is seeing an expansion of this kind of accusative or coercive nationalism, accompanied by hooliganism; being used as a test of identity by ABVP and other Sangh outfits across India, especially in BJP-ruled states.

After FTII and IITs, Narendra Modi government faces charge of fiddling around with the nation’s high-quality educational institutions, undermining his own India’s initiatives to make India attractive to investors.

“I was astonished, bewildered. This was INDIA, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, in the Fundamental Rights thoughtfully inc­luded by the founding fathers... We were a democracy....” “But I knew it wasn’t a dream; there was a painful lump on the side of my head...police did come knocking, lawyers in black coat did beat me up....” “The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending int­erests. They were on the side of the rulers, the rich and the powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there to stop you.”

No, that’s not what Kanhaiya Kumar, by now India’s best-known ‘traitor’, told his lawyers. They are lines from