It is a question that has violently divided Indian public opinion, and in particular the university world, since 12 February last and the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the student’s union at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU, New Delhi), itself affiliated to the communist union the All India Student Federation (AISF).

The African Studies PhD student has been charged with “sedition” and “criminal conspiracy”, following a discussion he co-organised on 9 February about a Kashmiri activist executed in prison exactly two years earlier and whose sentencing for terrorism continues to be controversial and therefore the subject of much discussion.

Kumar and several other students, who were reported to the police by members of the extreme nationalist student union the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP, close to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP) have been arrested quite blatantly, one by one.

This has been happening against an already tense background, following the protests against social injustice within the education system, renewed after the suicide of the Dalit PhD student Rohith Vemula, whose tragic story triggered a wave of solidarity and indignation across the country.

Kumar was released on bail on 3 March for six months, on condition that he pay a fine and promised not to “passively or actively” take part in “anti-national” activities – which according to the official text of the bail order, would be a threat to the country and like a “gangrene” for which the only treatment is “amputation”.

Kumar’s arrest and “the crackdown on all dissent on the campus is part of a larger design to stifle the voices of anyone going against the policies of the current regime,” wrote Vikas Bajpai at the beginning of February in The Economical and Political Weekly.

Contacted by Equal Times, this lecturer from the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the JNU recalled that: “This university has always been a place where the most eminent thinkers in our society have been able to express their views. It is a faculty that offers a more humane vision of society. This is all very inconvenient for a government that wants to impose a uniform idea of nationalism.”

The vestiges of colonialism

Saurabh Sharma, assistant general secretary of the ultra-nationalist ABVP at the JNU also recognises that “the right to debate is at the heart of the JNU’s culture… provided it stays within the confines of the law. The people who have been charged, the communists and their activists, are spreading propaganda. Many students, including in my union, do not identify with what these people are saying,” he told Equal Times.

He justifies the government’s action, saying that: “I don’t agree at all with the description of what happened at JNU as an ’attack’. If someone were to celebrate the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo atrocity by upholding those responsible as martyrs, wouldn’t that be an attack on the integrity of the nation? Words of hatred against our nation were spoken in the name of freedom of expression,” says Saurabh Sharma, who maintains that Kumar sang this kind of slogan.

He bases those claims on the videos that are currently the subject of a government inquiry in Delhi after it had been proved that the footage had been doctored.

“For me, nationalism means taking responsibility, serving your fatherland and your nation. Any act, speech or intent to destroy national sovereignty is a reprehensible anti-national act that requires legal intervention.”

It is the charge of sedition that reveals, according to most critics, the pressure the Modi government wants to exert on its detractors.

According to Balveer Arora, Chairman of the Centre for Multilevel Federalism at the Institute of Social Sciences in New Delhi, “no institution or campus is above the law, but freedom of expression is a fundamental right that is freely exercised on campus. The criminal charge of sedition is from an old colonial law that is indeed still on the statute books but it is an anachronism. Expressing hatred for a political figure or ideology does not constitute an act of sedition. Effigies in the image of leaders are regularly burnt to show disagreement with them. What is reprehensible is a call to hatred, and inciting violence between ethnic or religious community groups.”

The Prime Minister, for his part, seems to have retreated into silence, and appears impervious to the events creating mounting tension in the country.

“This strategy of silence and non-governance is the Prime Minister’s doing, and is allowing tensions to escalate without intervening to calm fears or emotions. Of course, analysts think that it is a deliberate act and that he tacitly sympathises with the most extreme ideologues of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, the ideological wing of the BJP),” comments Arora.

Indian spring?

These events have, however, awakened the political consciousness of India’s university students, according to several analysts.

“I can see something marvellous happening,” confirms Professor Bajpai. “A real wave of solidarity amongst students and the teaching body. Most courses have resumed as normal. Informal meetings are regularly held in the evenings, with well known authors, artists and researchers, to debate what nationalism really means in our country, and the level of discussion is admirable.”

Pride in the identity and strength of the Indian nation seems to be holding sway over the coercive measures of the government, whose actions recall the traumatic state of emergency in 1975 when Indira Gandhi’s government banned all forms of protest and campuses were invaded by police.

“The atmosphere that is being created discourages all forms of dissent against the government, and there are attempts to impose restrictions on individuals and organisations that don’t agree with the ruling party. NGOs have been perceived as hostile and against national interests. There have also been attempts to control the media through their owners,” says Arora.

While the introduction of a Minister of Yoga in 2014 caused irritation or amusement, the creation of the post of Secretary of State for Sanskrit in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was more controversial.

The imposition of Sanskrit – a ritual, liturgical language on a par with Latin – appears to some to be a return to “hindutva”, which seeks to define Indian culture solely in terms of Hindu values, despite a long tradition of tolerance and openness in India.

The thinkers who support this ideology maintain that education, and particularly history, should be “safranised” (the symbolic colour of Hinduism), with all exogenous contributions revised and sugar coated according to an extreme nationalist Hindu version. Myth, religion, conspiracy theories and actual facts are all used to serve the glorification of the (re)invented past.

“For the time being, it has only been about speeches and making the right sounds. The heart of the education system, the school programmes, have not been affected,” said Professor C.N. Rao, in Bangalore, a former scientific advisor to the government and current chair of the very prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research.

“Perhaps there has been intolerance on both sides” says the scientist, in a conciliatory tone. “The Hindu extremists are very much present and much more active and virulent, as the violent attacks amongst students of both sides have shown. It is a worrying crisis, but the India I believe in is solid enough to emerge from this stronger than ever.”

As if to prove him right, the impassioned speech given by Kanhaiya Kumar with humour and emotion to hundreds of students at the JNU just after he left prison resonated with everyone: “We are not asking for freedom from India but for freedom within India! (...) The struggle that was begun by Rohith is everyone’s struggle. It is the struggle of all those, like you, who want peace and social progress in our country... We will fight for this, and we will win.”