Students and labour unions marched across Delhi on Tuesday to demand that the cases of sedition with which Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya and SAR Geelani have been charged be dropped.

Khalid and Bhattacharya, students of Jawaharlal Nehru University, have been accused of committing sedition against the government after organising an event at JNU on February 9 at which anti-national slogans were allegedly chanted. Geelani, a former Delhi University professor, has been arrested for allegedly organising an event on February 10 to mark the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru at the Press Club of India.

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The government action has set off a storm in the country, speaking debates on big ideas such as free speech even as colonial-era laws such as the one on sedition are used to silence dissent.

Scroll.in spoke to some of the participants at the rally to find out what they were marching for.

'Fascism actually started in India in the late 1980s. We're just seeing it grow day-by-day now. Right now leftists are so weak, we can only defend ourselves from right wing attacks" – Devesh, student at IGNOU.
'By bringing this flag to the march, I want to show that India is ours too. We won’t accept the Bharatiya Janata Party’s forced definition of India' – Vaibhav Sharma, JNU student from Lucknow.
'This isn’t a debate over who is more nationalistic. We want to debate and discuss the very meaning of nationalism in today’s world where the mission of the state has become to perpetuate a culture of fear' – Sofia Abbas, MPhil candidate at the Delhi School of Economics.
'I am a student too and what happened to Umar and Anirban could happen to me too. It’s my duty to be here and protest on their behalf' – Yogesh S, MPhil candidate at Delhi University.
'I sympathise with these kids. They have not done anything wrong. Fascist rule is coming in India. I have seen British rule and believe me things are much worse today. Even at that time, the police wouldn’t behave as horribly as they do now. And today, even the public has turned against free thinkers' – Nathiram Bhatt, retired school teacher.
'I salute what Rohith Vemula did and I hope that JNU as well as students around the country take his struggle forward' – Jeet Sankalp, JNU alumnus.
'Sedition is a colonial law. We are fighting for the right to dissent. Today anyone who dissents is branded anti-national. We cannot live in India by the anti-woman morality of the RSS' – Tenzin and Colleen, JNU students.
'Please note that this protest is not only about JNU but also about SAR Geelani and Sai Baba. Geelani has been acquitted by the courts, yet he’s being harassed. Clearly he is being targeted because he is a Muslim and a Kashmiri' – Saima and Abhay, PhD candidates at JNU.
'For the past two years, this government has been relentlessly targeting educational institutions. Students will not take this lying down' – PV Shuhaib, MA candidate at Jamia Millia Islamia University.
JNU student's union president and sedition-accused Kanhaiya Kumar hanging out the back of a lorry as he addresses the crowd.