Opinion

Dear Jisha, I never knew you, nor did you know me. You were probably a “usual” student, pursuing your studies, dreaming of a better future for yourself and your country. You were probably someone like Rohith Vemula, who dreamed of stars and skies. I learnt that you were a Law student, but I regret to tell you that the Law of this country fails us miserably.

Entering Masjids just to fulfil obligatory duties on time, and using it as a place of spiritual guidance and having a peaceful, unrestricted rapport with your Lord are two different things. And for most Masjids in Kerala, the first is what they assume doing it like God wanted. For most of these Masjids do not give a warm and clean welcome to the female gender seeking a place to get closer to God. While most of the woman’s sections are sidelined right next to a stinky, dry, and piss filled wash rooms, the main prayer area itself looks like the shady streets we avoid at all times. Filled with dust, with no basic electricity or sometimes-even directions to the Qibla, the male elite expects women to be satisfied with no complaints whatsoever that they are being given entry into their sacred places.

The pursuit of expectations( of students) demands a sensible solution to this problem . Revising rules does not mean the board is liberalizing a very competitive examination .But it just means to act democratically by a giving a consenting nod to what the board has been teaching us at school ever since. Like so many worried parents, brothers, and sisters I am only a friend of someone who scored 97% of marks in 12th grade and is hoping that the board will let her wear hijab, respecting her ideology.

Before demise, Rohith Vemula, who was led to suicide due Political Victimization of BJP and RSS, reiterated “Dalit Organizations and Independent Dalit Activists must make a resolution to resist these RSS programs (pogroms) with tooth and nail fights. It is a waste of time to watch at the left side for support. Dalits should take RSS personally and fight back. Or else, we will be doomed to a future, very risky for our coming generations”. Ironically, the proponents of Hindu Raj had started appropriating Ambedkar on his 125th Birth Anniversary. As Babasaheb said, go back to villages and your localities, and emancipate the masses, failing which depressed classes will be doomed.

Fast forward to 60 plus days and many protests later, VC Appa Rao Podile, the small fish who facilitated the murder of one of his own students, gets back to campus aided by right wing police and right wing administration. Nobody cares. Students starts protesting non violently and gets brutally beaten up and sexually, physically and verbally abused. Rape threats are issued at female students and Muslim students are called terrorists. Nobody bothers to report even. Around 36 people including 3 faculties are missing after police detained them. Do you care?

I would argue that Sufism and deconstruction could be a guide to negate all forms of power , be it race, caste, gender, sexuality etc, and relocate our being in a social location that is ontologically situated outside of dominant power narratives.

We condemn this ghastly act of the CITU/CPI(M) comrades unequivocally and appeal to the democratic forces in the university to take a stand on such issues that often gets erased in the mainstream, left-driven discourse and as well submerged within the pomp and splendour of ‘International Women’s Day’ Celebrations !!

Like Mudassir, there are 100’s of students coming to these institutions from the lowest strata of society and from the most discriminated areas such as Kashmir. Irrespective of the fact that they have fought all odds to reach here, these institutions mostly fail to recognize their worth. Their merit is often rewarded with discrimination, humiliation, violence and death.

The strengthening social justice is being renounced by media and Sangh Parivar past jingoistic nationalism.This is the right time for all democratic believers to stand up and fight against this fascist menace upon students.

Prof. Gopal Guru  (Faculty, Centre for Political Studies  School of Social Sciences. Jawahar Lal Nehru University) in a talk series  titled ‘What is the nation? JNU lecture series conducted by...

 Nidhin Shobhana There are six hundred and six faculty members in JNU presently As per 2013 data, number of SC/ST/OBC teaching posts vacant - (a) SC : Professor:23 Associate Professor: 34 Assistant Professor: 11 (b)...

JNU Faculty, Students, Alumni, SFI, CPI(M), AIDWA, other self-professed “progressive Indians” can either side with the unfettered right to self-determination of Kashmiris, our inalienable right to Azadi, or concede being colonialists.