Kanhaiya vs BJP: Ruling party steps out to trash student leader’s speech

Almost as soon as Jawharlal Nehru University Student Union president Kanhaiya Kumar started addressing students on the campus after getting out of Tihar jail on Thursday, social media was abuzz with the claim that a new political star had been born. Kumar’s rousing speech ripped into the Bharatiya Janata Party government's contention that it had ushered in acche din, good times, and didn’t even spare Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The speech was hailed by people from the centre to the left of the political spectrum. Even Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal expressed his approval for the young man on Twitter.

However, many sympathisers of the ruling party have been less than admiring of Kumar's rhetoric.

Since Thursday, Kumar has been the subject of death threats and the BJP was forced to expel a leader of its Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha who offered a reward of Rs 5 lakhs for anyone who cut off the student's tongue. Even some ministers stepped up to to brush off Kumar as someone who did not have the authority to question the government because of his alleged “anti-national” activities – a charge for which the Delhi Police has not been able to produce any evidence in the court so far.

'Victory for BJP in Kanhaiya's speech'

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley claimed on Sunday that Kanhaiya Kumar's speech signalled that the BJP has won the "ideological battle" against him. Jaitley added that the students who supported the controversial event Kashmir event JNU last month at which allegedly anti-national slogans were chanted were "jihadis" and "Maoists".

"I consider this our victory because a person, who was jailed for chanting slogans of dividing India, after being released has to say ‘Jai Hind’ and waves the Tricolour during his speech," Jaitley said. "This was an ideological victory for us."

'Cut his tongue off'

Kuldeep Varshney, the Badaun district chief of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, who was expelled for announcing the bounty on Kumar’s tongue, attempted to explain why he took the action. He told reporters that he was a “dutiful citizen” who refused to countenance any insults to BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

While the party quickly distanced itself from Varshney's statements, other members expressed their disapproval of Kumar a little more politely.

'Gullible students'

The BJP’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkiah Naidu, for instance, advised the student to “stay away from politics”.

“[He] is getting free publicity and is enjoying it,” Naidu said. “They are all studying at a central university, where public money, people’s money is involved, so they must do justice to the cause and they must study, that’s all.”

He added that Kumar must either choose studies or politics.

“Why are they getting into politics?” Naidu asked. "If they are interested in politics, they can leave studies and join politics. Simple. Join your favourite party."

Naidu seems to have missed a few ironies. After all, his own party has its own youth organisations – the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. Moreover, Naidu's own political career was launched in 1973 when he became president of the Andhra University Student’s Union as a candidate from the ABVP.

On Monday, Naidu wrote in the Indian Express that political forces are manipulating "gullible students" for their benefit and converting tragedy such as the death of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula into controversies.

The Congress and the Left parties, Naidu wrote, are using "the anti-national sloganeering incident at Jawaharlal Nehru University to malign the NDA in a venomous, slanderous campaign, and are attempting to spread unrest on a few campuses by poisoning impressionable minds".

'Shameful and condemnable'

Yogi Adityanath, the BJP MP from Gorakhpur, also had his say, chiming in to claim that it was “shameful and condemnable” that JNU teachers were also involved in the controversy.

“Every citizen’s fundamental right to freedom has been provided by the Constitution but it does not mean that one gets busy in conspiring against the country or that the traitors are glorified”, he said. “No Jinnah will be allowed to take birth in any of the educational institutions of the country.”

'Rohith Vemula shouldn’t be an idol'

BJP minister VK Singh on Saturday decided to take aim at Kumar's statement that his idol was not Afzal Guru, who was hanged for his role in the 2001 Parliament attacks, but Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula, who committed suicide at the University of Hyderabad in January after a series of incidents that were sparked by a clash on campus with the ABVP.

Speaking at a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha meet in Vrindavan last week, Singh questioned Kumar’s nationalism by claiming that even Vemula had supported Yakub Memon, who was hanged for his role in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.

“The student leader of JNU says his leader and source of inspiration is Rohith Vemula, and not Afzal Guru,” he said. “I told myself that Rohith Vemula too had organised a meeting for Yakub Memon. Are we with those people who encourage terrorism and who abuse India?”

At the same event, BJP President Amit Shah said that the right to free expression did not include the right to treat terrorists as heroes.

“A strange atmosphere has been created," said Shah. "Anti-national slogans are being projected as freedom of expression. If slogans terming terrorists as martyrs is freedom of expression, then what is sedition?”

Minister of Culture Mahesh Sharma also had a view on the matter. He said that the JNU incident had tarnished country’s image.

“I agree with your views that the country’s image gets tarnished because of such incidents,” Sharma was quoted as saying. “We must all work together for the formation of a strong nation. And the tourism industry definitely suffers because of such incidents.”