Saving JNU and Democracy

JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) , is one of the most prominent universities of India. It has been in the news for a long time due to everything except academics. 

JNU claims it is a leading university.  For the enormous resources lavished on setting up and maintaining JNU critics point out, it has precious little positive outcomes to show for it. JNU has however distinguished itself by becoming a breeding centre for anti Indian establishment political thought and action. JNU is just an extreme example of what has become of India's premier educational institutes.

How did JNU acquire this dubious distinction?

In every general election, the communist political parties invariably won parliamentary seats that were not huge in number, but significant enough for the communists to make or break coalition governments. In essence the tail wagged the dog.

However unlike most political parties the communists play for the long term. Misplaced as it may be, the communists are ideologically driven and not driven by short term money making by individuals. The pound of flesh demanded and obtained by the communists to  support successive governments since Indian independence, was not in ministerial berths for the communists but in securing appointment of their key cadre to all major positions in all the key universities.

The communist heads and leaders successfully recruited communist, mainly revolution seeking faculty, who in turn recommended for admission students who shared this ideology.

The communists know, the replacement of democratic Indian government by a communist regime can occur only by young intellectuals in universities. After all revolutions have always been started by students in universities. Rarely if ever, do older people start revolutions.

Grab them by their minds, their bodies, souls and wealth will follow.

India has no shortage of enemies, who wish to impose their ideologies,  be they religious, political, social, military or economical. Unfortunately the myopic leadership of our political establishment has allowed the masters of indoctrination,  the little worm to grow into a giant highly vicious powerful multi headed hydra.

Plagued by radical forces such as Naxalites, Maoists, Marxists, Jihadists,   it is places like JNU is where all the disruptive forces have converged.

What is to be done?

What the current Indian leadership is attempting to do with bravado is, to purge the educational institutions of the challenge these radical ideologies pose to the Indian state. Maybe the approach is a bit heavy handed but who can say how much action is appropriate.

The students of JNU, have a right to freedom of speech and the right to dissent. However it does not extend to galvanising forces to overthrow democratic institutions  and support openly or facilitate the causes of terrorism, violent Jihad and the dismemberment of India.

"Democracy is the act of discipling oneself, so as not to be disciplined by others."

Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. While students claim their rights they cannot ignore their responsibilities and accountability.

This anti establishment lobby has grown from strength to strength over past several decades and are extremely well funded. The irony is that they are all being provided the best facilities, libraries, staff to student ratio, hostels, travel, support of all kind and all funded by the Indian exchequer.

Politicians especially from the opposition parties, supported by some in the media have waded into the controversy to reap political benefit at the cost of national security and sanity.

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”

There are also many good students and teachers, but they have been made irrelevant by their silence and timidity, thus ceding political space to the radicals.

Emboldened by the passivity of the government and their successes in the past, the trouble maker students and their handlers have become overconfident and belligerent.

This has provided the Indian state the best possible justification to drive the genie back into the bottle.

The battle for intellectual leadership of India goes on. Current score, 

Nationalists = 1 

Revolutionaries = 0