Another Ominous Incident
Recently sixty seven students of a private university in Meerut were suspended and sedition charges foisted on them. What was the terrible, vile, incident that led to such an extreme decision of the university authority and the state? As reported it was the consequence of a mere India Pakistan cricket match, the recent Asia Cup semi-final match that was held on the March 2nd in Dhaka.
The match on that particular day was really dramatic with a last two ball back-to-back sixes by the Pakistani favourite Shahid Afridi swinging the fortunes in favour of Pakistan. The game revealed its thrilling ups and downs but the cheer and enjoyment of those good moments of performance of either team got lost in the midst of the blind display of hyper-nationalism. On the night after the last moment defeat of Indian cricket team at the hands of the Pakistani team, there were abuses and manhandling of the Kashmiri students in their hostel by the local students as reported. Earlier warning were given by the local students that the TV should remain closed for that match as they suspect there may be trouble. Of course there are as always different accounts accusing and counter-accusing on who started it. That is not at all important for it did not just arise from this isolated incident of the cricket match. But one thing is clear that the local boys displaying their provocative brand of Indian patriotism were jeering and booing the Kashmiris calling them Pakistanis while the Kashmiri youth were equally hyper-reactive to show their anti-Indian gestures by support for the Pakistani cricketers. The cricket match turned from a simple thrilling competition of sports and sportsmanship to an ugly display of blind nationalist reactions. Sports conceded its sportsmanship to blind jingoist mentalities of two groups of students.
The Chancellor of the Swami Vivekanand Subharti University, Meerut lodged a complaint and declared three days of suspension for the Kashmiri students of one hostel. Then amidst a chaotic situation and tension created by the local students in the campus, on sudden orders the very next day those sixty seven Kashmiri students were literally pushed and prodded onto buses even not allowing time for them to prepare and pack. Within moments they were moved out of the campus to the stations to return to Kashmir in an unbelievable hurriedness. Explanations were later given by the university authorities that being Kashmiris, and the place of the incident being also a "communally sensitive" Meerut, such steps were taken with concern for safety of the Kashmiri students. Interestingly these Kashmiri students are one of those who like many other students from the valley have been accommodated in a number of institutions in different parts of the country as part of the Prime Minister's Special Scholarship Scheme meant for providing higher education and achieving a step towards national integration between the mainland and Kashmiri youth. The Meerut incident turned out to create more disintegration and distrust instead!
The university authority and the state's knee-jerk reaction also contributed to this conflict of hyper-nationalism. The university authority's complaint resulted in the Uttar Pradesh government slapping extreme charges like sedition, promoting enmity between different groups on the sixty seven Kashmiri youth. Only after voices started criticizing this extreme action from different parts of the country, about six days later, on March 8th the sedition charges were dropped by the government and the university authorities started assuring that the students will be reinstated, their backlog in studies/classes specially arranged to be covered. However, there should not be any doubt that such apparently corrective measures will not be able to bridge the gap between the students which has been increased by the incident.
If this had been like one of those instances of cheering by Indians who are British or Australian citizens in support of India or vice versa from the galleries itself on the very playground that is often seen, then we would not witness such sparks and bitterness of feelings. The Indo-Pak cricket matches have become and also have been made to acquire this extra hype of national pride and jingoism. The nationalism promoted by the Indian ruling classes competes in a belligerent mood with that of the Pakistani ruling classes. It has over the years spread its tentacles of anti-democratic, communal, aggressive national jingoism deep in our society. It titillates the masses, as equally on the other side of the border, with a brand of communal-nationalism that carries with it the British era bred venomous communalism since the days of partition. It has been further aggravated by the continual journey of the national, subcontinental and international situation rightwards. Continually accumulating complicated problems of the masses has remained unresolved, and the age-old prejudices of the masses have been abetted by the communal forces leading to such a situation.
While the oppression and exploitation of the masses and the open loot of the wealth and resources of the country by the powerful imperialist countries and their giant companies is relentlessly continuing with their onslaught on the masses, promoted and supported by all our political leaders and the governments then this brand of ruling class bourgeoisie nationalism doesn't provoke us to resist it. The petrol, natural gas, coal reserves, iron, bauxite, the lands of peasants and various other natural wealth in our country, the government sector big industries and organizations are being sold away at their convenient terms and prices to the desi-videshi capitalists; the rights of the masses to air their grievances and opposition snatched away. But against all these this much hyped patriotism doesn't push us onto the streets in protest. Rather all these big political parties and the Indian big bourgeoisie behind them have made us believe that these imperialist looters are there for the development of this country just because they themselves have a share in the booty.
But when it comes to an India Pakistan affair be it the time to time skirmishes at the border between the armies, or the verbal war-mongering between the two governments, a diplomatic squabble or even a cricket match then it is this fake communal, nationalist posturing that involves and excites the masses in the garb of patriotism.
Even within the country among the masses, even among common workers and toiling masses this communal nationalism is becoming ingrained to a large, alarming extent, dividing the masses and pitting one against the other as enemies. Muslims mean they are unfaithful to the nation?..they are Pakistanis at heart. But those who loot the masses and the natural wealth to pile their enormous empires through scams or otherwise, who are they? Are they great patriots draining our country to put their names in the top rich people's lists of the world? During the recent Lok Sabha election the BJP leaders were heard saying that, if Hindus from the surrounding countries want to come to India they are welcome or one of the Bihar BJP's Giriraj Singh had, at a gathering in Godda district of Jharkhand, said "those who want to stop Narendra Modi (from becoming prime minister) are looking towards Pakistan. In the coming days, they will have no place in India. They will only have place in Pakistan." [http://www.ndtv.com/ Rebuked by BJP, leader Giriraj Singh stands by ?Modi critics to Pakistan' remark Edited by Mala Das | Updated: April 20, 2014 19:39 IST] or the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader's outrageous statement "Evict Muslims from Hindu areas: Pravin Togadia"[Apr 21, 2014, 03.11AM IST TNN[ Vijaysinh Parmar ] http://m.timesofindia.com/]. All these show the increasing communal nationalist thinkings bluntly prevailing in present society. The whole history of the anti-imperialist struggle against the British rule is painted in one single shade of the communalist forces erasing those glorious instances when the masses of different religions, communities and regions fought together. The British rulers consciously and planfully used and enlarged the communal divide. After independence the Indian ruling classes have left the democratic transformation of the country and with it the communal question unresolved utilizing such backward divisions in society for their rule and power equations. In the meantime the nationalism nurtured along this communal line, and the expansionist role of the Indian ruling classes in the periphery surrounding the borders have not only gone on communalizing but also oppressing by force and manipulation the backward nationalities like the Kashmiris and other nationalities of the North-Eastern states.
On the other hand Kashmiri masses have also got communalised and influenced by the similar brand of nationalism of the bourgeoisie from the other side of the border. The Kashmiris who sought the help of the Indian ruling class during the attack of tribals from Pakistan were seeking independence from both these big neighbours and preserve their indigenous Kashmiriyat culture, language. Neither they wanted to be in subjugation of the ruling class of Pakistan nor India. Not even they saw there struggle to set up their own rule as a Muslim versus Hindu communal conflict. Over the years the use of force of the army, draconian laws and manipulations by the Indian ruling classes to place puppets of Delhi in the state governments have pushed them more and more to the fold of this reactionary nationalism.This has further engulfed the minds of the masses suffering under the twin impacts of the sufferings of unsolved backwardness and stagnating economy.
With the general impact of communalisation throughout the country and the subcontinent both from the side of Indian and Pakistani ruling classes and communal forces within, both the masses of this country and the Kashmiris have moved far and farther away looking at each other through their communal-national lenses as enemies expressing their distrust and anger in aggressive language that doesn't care to leave any space for differing opinions or democratic rights of the other. It is anti-democratic, oppressive and hegemonistic with obviously the more powerful and developed Indian state in control over parts of Kashmir bearing the bigger responsibility. The central government's appointed team of interlocutors in their report about a year or more back repeatedly talked of stopping of human rights abuses of the Indian forces, the withdrawal of inhuman laws like the AFSPA, DA from Kashmir; recommendations of the Rangarajan Committee led to the arrangement of study of the Kashmiri students in higher educational institutions under the Prime Minister's special scheme. But the growing psyche of intolerant, oppressive nationalism among the masses is revealing the fruitlessness of these half-baked measures of continuing repressing on one hand and serving token relief on the other. The more authoritarian, communal leanings of the ruling classes is gripping the masses.
Due to that reason such an incident has not only been an isolated case of the university in Meerut. It happened also in a smaller scale in other institutions such as in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh and even in Srinagar Kashmir itself.
Even the cricket matches far away from the playgrounds have turned to be part of these blind, aggressive, expressions of Indian and Pakistani ruling class nationalism that recreates communalism and undemocratic aggression in more and more vicious forms and diverts us from the real nationalist tasks of the masses. Remember the 1983 Srinagar ODI between India and the West Indies where some Kashmiri youth swarmed onto the pitch during the lunch break and tried to dig holes in the pitch. They were angry that India had hosted an international match in the "disputed region" for whose independence from the clutches of the Indian state they craved. In 1991 the Wankhede stadium pitch was dug up by the Shiv Sena men two days before an India Pakistan match, in 1999 it was once again Ferozshah Kotla ground. Now it has come to occur in front of the TV sets among the educated youth. Hence if the so-called progressive people like famous lyricist Javed Akhtar suddenly says that suspension is not enough the Kashmiri students must be rusticated and sent back to Kashmir he must also question the bigger menace of predatory communalism nationalism of the Indian ruling classes that have more and more pushed on one hand the Kashmiris towards such a stance that they did not possess earlier and on the other vitiated the minds of the Indian masses. People like him must realise that the Pakistan government's invitation to the students saying that their hearts and colleges are open for the Kashmiri youth is also another side of the same predatory, communalism vitiating this strife between the masses.
This danger that the masses are turning themselves more and more into has become a complex problem having no solutions through rustications and blatant laws. Even the workers and the toiling masses who have to struggle for their daily livelihood and are in the midst of continuous assaults by the big bourgeoisie of this country and the imperialists are getting diverted from their pressing tasks and becoming involved in this communal-nationalist divisiveness. They are becoming the tools in the hands of the ruling classes who are hell-bent on further deepening their exploitation while keeping the masses bogged down in such infighting. The working-class is completely opposed to this ruling class oppressive nationalism. The working-class is for the class unity of the workers of different nationalities, communities, religion, as it is necessary to fight against the real common enemy in the form of oppressive, exploitative world capitalism i.e. imperialism and any regional expansionist ambitions of powerful states. It remembers that every time these promoters of nationalist phrase-mongering and infighting, the bourgeoisie of their own nations, compromise with the actual forces of oppressor nations to subvert and surrender away the rights of the masses and the wealth of the nation in order to settle for their rule of exploitation. This ruling class bourgeoisie nationalism in India is not only communal, compromising with the imperialists but oppressive against the backward nationalities' democracy and equal rights. Only in the process of fight for thorough democratization of society, the eradication of communal , casteist etc divisions, the establishment of equal rights of nationalities, the workers and toiling masses can come out of their self-destructive strife that only divides them for the benefit of the capitalists and their authoritarian, oppressive rule. Only a country-wide struggle of the working class and toiling masses on the basis of a voluntary unity can stop this bloody game of the exploiters.
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