Shobhaa's Take: Why so scared of opinion?

I was at a smallish dinner last night, minding my own business (yup. God’s swear!), and focusing on scooping up the last bit of a velvety rose-petal ice-cream, when an intense-looking gentleman to my right asked abruptly, “So... what do you think of the Jawaharlal Nehru University?” We had just received the news that Kanhaiya Kumar had been granted interim bail for six months, and there was a heated debate raging across the country over certain remarks after that decision. Before I could respond, the nattily-dressed guy hastily added, “I was at JNU myself... after studying in Kolkata... and at JNU I shared a room with someone who wanted to wage war against the state on a daily basis. We argued, fought, got drunk, participated in dharnas... it was considered ‘normal’...”

Today, the same person is a high-powered suit. And his roommate, a successful filmmaker. What would life on a college campus be without dissent, debate, defiance? Why should anybody be afraid of opinion? Students are our most invaluable resource. I can’t stop repeating myself on this one. Without their intellectual and emotional energy, we’d be a pretty dead society, hanging on to tired ideas and getting nowhere. We need young, vibrant minds to constantly challenge the status quo. To question authority. To buck the system. In what way does that pose a threat to a country’s stability?

Assuming all sorts of offensive slogans were really raised... assuming there were pro-Pakistan speeches made... assuming Afzal Guru is a hero for them... is India so fragile that a bunch of students can destroy such a vast and diverse nation merely by voicing protests? Oh come on! Had KK and company been left alone, perhaps the monster left behind in the wake of the arrest, would not have existed. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, what next? All it takes sometimes is a campus incident like this one to start a much bigger confrontation that is far harder to suppress.

I had watched Aligarh the night before the dinner. The issues raised by the movie are equally significant and disturbing. Aligarh explores personal freedoms in a way so delicate and moving, it’s no longer about one professor’s battle to protect his privacy and dignity.

The movie gets stretched automatically to include different freedoms which, in today’s vicious and vitiated environment, are indeed under serious threat. I couldn’t get “out of the movie” after leaving the multiplex — I was haunted by Manoj Bajpai’s eyes. And the deeper tragedy of what an unfeeling society can do to destroy an individual.

In the movie, the protagonist is in his mid-60s. He is broken by the brutality of the assault on his sexuality. He doesn’t understand the term “gay”. What he does understand is the viciousness of colleagues who hound him out of the campus.
This is the “gangrene” we need to talk about. Talking to an erudite diplomat about JNU and the happenings in his own country, he mentioned the wonderful interaction he had enjoyed with students from IIT (Mumbai), who had approached him with an interesting proposal for their annual cultural festival. “They were so sure of what they wanted. So well-prepared for the meeting. So clear about their vision. I meet so many people from across the world... but I have never met students like these youngsters.”

These are the conversations we should be focusing on. These are the minds that will re-energise and recharge our stuck-in-the-19th-century attitude.
Instead of harnessing this incredible potential, we are accusing the young of “crimes” that cannot be defined or codified.

To talk of infections and amputations as a “cure” for a condition that makes authorities squirm, is to place the onus on the young to “reform”, behave, toe the line, own up mistakes, conform, obey... or else. It is time we looked more closely at the “or else”. Or else — what? Bullies rarely have an answer to that question. They back off and pretend nothing ever happened. But, occasionally, even these cowards can tighten the screws and use the boot to crush opponents.

One would like to believe that is simply not an option in a democracy. It may be a naïve belief, given the history of collective repressions, past and present. But the environment at the moment is overwhelmingly pro-students, pro-JNU. No matter which way it goes from this point on, whether it is Rohith Vemula’s suicide, or Mr Kumar’s bail, what the government doesn’t need is another showdown with India’s impassioned young. How many students can our jails hold? How many young people can be threatened, charged, assaulted, punished? Ten Thousand? Ten lakh? Ten million?

Get real. Something big, something significant is taking place right here, right now. The young want their voices to be heard loud and clear. Some of those voices may not be music to the government’s ears. But that’s not the point. They have the right to speak up. Those who don’t want to hear them — try earplugs. Not lathis. The entire debate on who or what is anti-national has gone dangerously off the rails. If you love your country and are loyal to its welfare, you are nationalistic enough, even if — and sometimes, because — your viewpoints are radically different from officially sanctioned ones. We need to remember — nobody but nobody has the exclusive rights over spelling out what nationalism means.