As History repeats itself, the BJP government repeats its own fascist agenda. The JNU, a primordial base for intellectuals in the country has not been left unstained by Narendra Modi led government. On the 23rd of this month, there erupted rumours that the rightist intellectual Subramaniam Swamy was offered the JNU VC post by the MHRD. The present VC of JNU is to retire in January, 2016.
The standing rules state that a panel of names selected by the committee is sent to the President (who is visitor of the central varsities) by the MHRD before the announcement of the new VC. The advertisements for inviting applications from the interested candidates for appointment of the new VC were out in August this year. The thing which troubles most of the JNU students and the common people is that the news of this sudden development comes even before the selection committee has been set up by the government. It is allegedly stated that Smriti Irani, herself offered Swamy the post.
On Wednesday, Swamy tweeted,
“Media is on fire that I have been offered the JNU VC post. No formal offer nor will there be if the government cannot meet my Preconditions,’”
Among the many demands of Mr. Swamy, one is the permission to “Rusticate Anti-National Students”. The vice president of the JNUSU, Shehla Rashid Shora, said,
“The student community of JNU has taken very strong note of news reports pertaining to the possible appointment of Subramanian Swamy as the vice-chancellor of JNU. Be it Mr. Swamy or any other regressive figure, the student community will resist any attempts at saffronisation of JNU with all its might. JNUSU has consistently raised its voice against the blatant attempts by the Modi government at backdoor appointments of RSS members to key institutions, against Hindutva myths being passed off as “ancient science”, against introduction of regressive content in textbooks and against the homogenisation of culture in the name of vegetarianism, linguistic uniformity, etc,”
The statements and continuous threats of protests from the independent and secular minded students of JNU left Subramaniam Swamy enraged and resulted in him posting regressive and anti-student tweets. From calling the protesting students Naxalites to Drug addicts (indirectly), he has done it all. The tweets were as below,
“I think JNU needs an Anti Narcotics Bureau campus branch office to raid dorms and arrest Naxal [ite] s, jehadis and Elis. BSF camp also”
And
“No question of my considering unless allowed to rusticate antinational students.”
It is no hidden truth that by “antinational”, he meant each and every secular minded student, who has voiced his or her protest against the rampant saffronised attack on education made by the BJP.
All these again prove the quintessential point in the whole manner in which the BJP wants to run the country, it wants to control the intellectual base of the country, from the FTII to JNU, the same scenario has been repeated. The situation and the BJP’s desire to instil the saffron agenda into centres which are the pillars of Indian intellectuality and culture, makes me remember the famed theory of Karl Marx, which if plainly stated says that the (ruling) class which controls the mental base of the country will in time, control the means of production, and that is exactly what the BJP is trying to do, it is continuing a heinous drive to control the intellectual bases of the country. While in FTII, there was a direct selection without any sort of selection procedure, in JNU, much to the students’ good fortune, the news of the development has creaked out.
The JNU students are leaving no stone unturned to prevent the saffronised intellectual from entering the campus as its supremo. However, the decision was not out of the blue for JNU. The students were after all, expecting a saffron VC considering with what has been going on for the past year with almost all the centres of excellence of the country. The left leaning student bodies have already started pulling up their socks to throw a militant protest against the same. In a statement issued by the JNUSU, it said,
“To install this saffron puppet as the JNU VC is going to prove to be the last nail in the coffin of this government which has already exposed itself by appointing Gajendra Chauhan as the FTII Chairman. If it is contemplating anything of this sort, this government should be ready for intensified protests every day on the streets of Delhi, right under its nose. We will not let the Government function normally if this attack is made on our education system.”
The BJP government must learn from the mistakes at FTII, which has resulted in the arrests of numerous students. But it must also remember that history ever repeats itself the same way, while the students in FTII took the path of peaceful strikes, the students of JNU have already threatened to organise protests even before the appointment. All these must be enough for the BJP government to mend their fascist and Hinduwadi ways and follow the democratic rules and secular spirit of the country.
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