The Latest: Top stories of the day
1. A member of the Special Investigation Team that probed the killing of Ishrat Jahan came out to categorically term the incident a fake encounter.
2. You are not defending the flag when you frighten your own people into silence: Rahul Gandhi breaks mould to deliver a fiery speech in Lok Sabha.
3. Doctoring watch: Words like “gun” were inserted into Kanhaiya speech video: Report on JNU row.
4. Tamil Nadu wants to remit the life sentences of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case convicts.
The Big Story: Thoughtcrimes
There’s good and there’s bad news. First the good news: Kanhaiya Kumar has been given bail by the Delhi High Court.
Kanhaiya Kumar, a Phd candidate at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and president of its student’s union, has been in custody for more than a fortnight after he was accused of sedition. Much of the case was initially driven by videos aired by TV channels that have now turned out to be doctored. Additionally, Kumar had no role in organising the February 9 event on campus to protest what the organisers believe is a miscarriage of justice in the Afzal Guru case, who was executed for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack. All in all, the case against Kumar didn’t add up to much beyond the hysteria.
But here’s the bad news: hysteria is powerful.
The Delhi High Court Order did give Kumar bail but also put in some unusual conditions. It directs Kanhiaya to “control anti-national activities in the campus” and asks the JNU faculty “to ensure that his thoughts and energy are channelized in a constructive manner”. It also asks Kumar to furnish an “undertaking to the effect that he will not participate actively or passively in any activity which may be termed anti-national”.
It's difficult to decide how exactly anyone can legally define “anti-national” activity. It's even more difficult to determine whether Kumar has “passively” participated in an anti-national event. With this statement, the court is violating the principles of liberal democracy to enter into the realm of thought. As most rational people will agree, only action should be criminalised. How can being “passively anti-national” – according to any definition – be prosecuted?
Then there was the militarism. The slogans – even thought there is no proof who chanted them – will demoralise the troops, the Delhi High Court held. Again, how exactly can the authorities decide what sort of political activity will demoralise the troops?
This retreat from Indian liberalism is not new: the judiciary had done so during the Emergency too. In the infamous Habeas Corpus case of 1975, a bench of five seniormost judges of Supreme Court ruled in favour of state’s right for unrestricted powers of detention during Emergency. Only one dissenting judge, HR Khanna spoke up against it: “Detention without trial is an anathema to all those who love personal liberty."
Why are so many Indians shying away from standing up for personal liberty today?
The Big Scroll
Watch Kanhaiya declare this complete faith in the Indian Constitution in a speech delivered at JNU on February 11. Much of the initial hysteria vis-à-vis Kanhaiya was driven by doctored videos: here’s how.
On nationalism, TM Krishna writes about why we must love our land and not romanticise the nation state
Politicking and policying
1. West Bengal: The Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have launched a joint attack on the Mamata government.
2. The issue of Bangladeshi migrants will dominate Assam polls once again.
3. The BJP’s parliamentary strategy seems to be: the Congress won’t allow business anyway, so let’s keep the heat on with nationalism.
Punditry
1. In the Indian Express, Arvind Virmani writes of how Budget 2016 promotes inter-state competition in reforming laws to generate employment.
2. Mukul Kesavan in the Telegraph writes of the battle for Uttar Pradesh where the Bahujan Samaj Party – a party of pluralism – will take on the BJP’s majoritarianism.
3. In the Business Standard, Rahul Jacob asks whether Vietnam will be the next big garment hub.
Don't Miss
Ipsita Chakravarty lays out how the sedition drama has actually rejuvenated campus politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Among those who has been a regular at the ad block is Purnima Singh, a masters student in the School of Arts and Aesthetics who does not identify with any political group. “My right to question the state as a political structure is being questioned here," she said.
The energy has even radiated outside campus. “We are now fighting about issues that are larger than what you can provide if you win elections,” said Souradeep Dey, Singh’s classmate. “It’s not just about books, WiFi, hostel facilities. In the last two or three months, with the Occupy UGC movement and the Rohith Vemula protests, student politics has had to go outside the campus to achieve its goals.”
Shehla Rashid, vice president of the All India Students Association, would agree. The network of protest that was built around University Grants Commission scholarships and the suicide of Dalit researcher Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad in January has been activated once again, in the most intensely political moment that JNU has seen in years. It is a moment that’s being compared to the Emergency, when the university’s student leadership went underground, and to Mandal Commission agitations of the 1990s relating to quotas for people from the lower castes.
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