Prabhakar Sinha
The Registrar of Narain Vyas University in Jodhpur has filed a complaint to the police against Prof. Nivedita Menon of JNU alleging that in course a lecture she delivered on the campus, she said that 'Kashmir was not an integral part of India and that soldiers worked for a livelihood and not for the nation . As usual,'the complaint was filed following a shutdown of the university by the Akhil Bharati Vidyarthi Parishad .Prof .Menon has categorically denied saying so .She can be trusted not to deny it out of fear .But even if an Indian believes that Kashmir is not an integral part of India and says so how does he become a criminal or anti-national? We are a democracy in which the citizens have the right to think freely and give expression to their thought .The limit of this freedom is defined by the law and not by the hoodlums of the BJP and RSS under the patronage of the Modi government .There is no law in this country , which stipulates that on the legality of the status of Kashmir no citizen can hold and express an opinion different from the government of India's .Nobody who says that Kashmir is not an integral part of India or that Kashmir is under the illegal occupation of India or Kashmir should be given Azadi commits a crime or is anti-national .Kashmir is a problem on which the people ,who are sovereign ,have a right to think and suggest a solution , and their right to think and offer a solution cannot be criminalized .
The allegation that 'the soldiers worked for their livelihood and not for the nation is one half true and the other half absurd .Everyone joins public service for a livelihood and serves the nation (that they don’t actually serve the nation is another issue) .Thus to say that the soldiers work for their livelihood is a statement of fact and to say that they do not work for the nation is so ridiculous that no person in his/her senses can utter such an absurdity.
What is anti-national is not the statement allegedly made (but denied by Prof. Menon) but the attack on our freedom of thought, speech and expression by the ABVP and the University under the patronage of the BJP government. The attack is part of a grand design to suppress dissent by the State and non-State players acting in tandem typical of a fascist State .Such intimidation should not be taken lightly and should be fought. Tooth and nail.
