#SeditionDebate: We stand by JNU's Kanhaiya Kumar because his struggle is for India's soul

You don’t get it, do you? Your closed minds can’t understand why we are fighting for Kanhaiya Kumar. Let me tell you. It is because Saare Jahan Se Achcha, Hindustan Hamara. Because, its people stand up against injustice, fascist propaganda, an insensitive state; they fight for human rights, freedom of expression and the core values of this country. Because, its patriots are real people, with real feelings, ideals, morals, conscience and a soul; not just slogan-shouting, vote-seeking, flag-waving thugs. Because, with their deeds, not mere words, Indians prove that deshbhakti is not just on their lips, it isn’t a mere slogan to be bandied around for votes, justifying hate agendas, violence and TRPs. Our love for the country sings in our veins, it beats like a rhythm in our hearts. Because, deshbhakti is what we do, what we think, what we fight for. It is not the tool they use to divide and rule. It is that bond that unites us. [caption id=“attachment_2633682” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  JNU students’ union leader Kanhaiya Kumar. PTI[/caption] So, we fight for Kanhaiya Kumar because he is a metaphor for everybody who wants to fight against injustice, the deep state that is trying to crush him without evidence. Because, the Kanhaiya in each one of us wants to go out and raise slogans seeking azaadi from all the evils that plague us and the country we love. Because, like Kanhaiya, we want azaadi from the anti-nationals who demean our country with malignant politics. Because, we want to stand with our courts when they hear our voice every time anti-nationals threaten our Constitution by attacking the rights guaranteed in it. Because, we want to stand with our lawyers who rose above past loyalties and ideologies to defend Kanhaiya. Because, the symbolism of Soli Sorabjee, the jurist who served as India’s Attorney General in the Atal Behari Vajpayee government, leading the fight for Kanhaiya Kumar’s rights and freedom against a government led by the BJP erases the blot that some goons in black coats put on the nation with their violence and humiliation of the law of the land. Because, not everything is lost even if some of our institutions and politicians are afflicted with the malaise of bigotry, rabble-rousing and divisive politics. Yes, they are sick because of the viruses that gnaw at their conscience, eat their moral fibre. But, the real India, its democratic institutions, its civil society, its courts, lawyers–not the thugs who take law in their own hand but who fight for it– wants to ensure that this sick fringe either remains where it is or gets well soon. Because, we want to show not all of our media is unhinged, it has not gone off the pivots of morality, accountability and rationality. It is still dominated by people who, instead of screaming, shouting, demanding answers they believe the country wants to know from TV studios, search for the truth on the ground, among real people, and then stand by it even when beaten, ridiculed and shouted-down in its quest. It is still dominated by journalists who write what they see, not what they concoct, distort and manufacture. Because, the youth of this country is still the voice of our collective conscience. When the time comes, they still have the moral and physical courage to come out on the streets to take on the enemies of India, speak the truth, tell us, like those brave ABVP students did, hooliganism is not nationalism. Because, we want our children to get educated in liberal, democratic schools, colleges and universities, not in shakhas or dark rooms of ultra conservatism. Because the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, his principle of Ahimsa still thrive in this country. Because, even when beaten under the gaze of cops, provoked with violence, its students, teachers and civil society fight back with words, flowers and prayers for the well-being of their misguided assailants. In today’s edition, The Guardian calls the fight for Kanhaiya Kumar a watershed moment for India. “So what is really at stake here? In short, it is a struggle between those who would lay claim to India as a democratic, heterogeneous, inclusive and at least incipiently egalitarian national project, and those for whom nationalism has devolved into a lethal cocktail of aggressive religious assertion and equally ferocious unbridled capitalist growth, where neither the body count nor widening inequality indices matter,” it argues. Because, the struggle has begun. And the Rohith Vemulas, Kanhaiya Kumars and other sons and daughters of India are going to win it. Because, we are India.