Asia Rising Podcast India's Sedition Controversy Professor Welcome to Asia Rising, a podcast of La Trobe Asia where we discuss the news, events and general happenings of Asian states and societies. I'm your host, the Executive Director of La Trobe Asia. That India is the world's largest, most diverse democracy is well known. Kanhaiya Kumar, the head of Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union, was arrested and charged with sedition on 12 th February and awaits his appeal. There have been protests across the country against the use of the draconian law. While many critics of the Modi government feel that this confirms their worst suspicions that the Gujarat strong man, has scant regard for the liberal notions that underpin the constitution of post- colonial India. Joining me to discuss the sedition controversy in India is Doctor, head of La Trobe Universities Hindi and South Asian Studies Programme. Welcome back to the program Ian. Doctor Thanks very much it's always good to chat with you Nick. So let's start with some basic facts about what happened or at least about what people say happen because, just what occurred is itself subject to pretty serious contestation. There are definitely some alternate stories flying around, and social media is playing a big part in this and it is difficult I think, even for people sitting in Delhi to know exactly what's happening, let alone Australia. But you mentioned this arrest on February 12 th, the student Kanhaiya Kamar the head of the Jawaharlal Nehru Student Union, was arrested and charged with sedition. Based on several things but it seems primarily to be based on a rally that he was present at on February 9 th, where it's alleged that some anti- India slogans were shouted. And then as we start digging deeper we find out the police chief Bhim Sain Bassi was basing this on a video, there's a video of these anti- India slogans and we know now that this video was clearly doctored; that's not in question anymore, to show Kanhaiya Kamar shouting pro- Pakistan slogans basically. So this has happened and he's been arrested, he's in jail, several students have been arrested again, on these sedition charges. So you have this event, as it's sometimes described Yes, it's this event on February 9 th. And that was marking what? The third anniversary of the execution of Afzal Guru is a convicted terrorist, he was convicted for an attack on Parliament in 2001, when gunmen entered Parliament and killed; I think it was nine people, so it was a horrific attack. There are people in India who have questioned the trial of Afzal Guru, questioned the use of the death penalty and Kanhaiya
Kuman is one of these people and that was part of the protest, absolutely. Yeah and the word that's being thrown around is anti- national. He's accusing (. 2.48 he's an enemy of the d.), of the country and in fact a debate in Parliament in yesterday, it was wonderful to see this debate, it was nice to see people standing up debating these issues in Parliament on both sides. Talking about it but not getting arrested for discussing it; because you mentioned India being the world's largest democracy, so I enjoy watching ministers on both sides of this issue, argue it out. This is what should be happening and obviously there are some who very much support Kanhaiya Kumar's right to question the state, to question state action and there are some, most notably Smriti Irani, Human Resource Development Minister, very much leading a charge against him. So this debate is happening and it would be wonderful to watch if it weren't against a backdrop of students actually being arrested for things that they were saying, being arrested for things that a lot of legal experts in India are saying that this law doesn't apply to. This sedition law specifically criminalised speech that leads to violence, actual provocations to violence which a lot of experts are saying, even if the worst were true, they're saying, this wouldn't be the case. Now as we know, I think it's pretty clear that the evidence against Kanhaiya seems to have been fabricated by overzealous news producers or political opponents, it's not clear how this happened. His actual speech is getting quite widely circulated. The slogans he's chanted, the key word is Azadi - Freedom. This can mean all kinds of things and in the context of the actual speech he was calling for azadi from capitalism, azadi from oppression, azadi for women. You can certainly look at it and say, "oh he's overly idealistic, he's naïve," all these are perfectly good charges, but the actual things they were saying were not that controversial. We seem to have a multiple layer of issues because, obviously there's freedom of speech and the question of sedition and issues around that, but the scale of what's happened. Both the 'over the top' reaction by government and then the reaction to defend it, seems; not to say that the issues themselves are superficial, but there seems to be deeper cross currents for which this is a kind of 'symptom' if you like of these tensions which exist in India? You're right, this is exposing a lot of tensions. The criticism against this university in particular, JNU, Jawaharlal Nehru University is not a new one. The basic criticism, 'oh it's a bastion of leftism, all these teachers are Marxists and they're indoctrinating their students in Marxist thoughts.' I've never heard that charge levelled about a university before. There is some truth to it in terms of it certainly a left leaning faculty, a left leaning institution. Kanhaiya Kumar, the student party he is head of is affiliated with the Communist Party of India but I know the faculty at JNU, there is right wing faculty, there is left wing faculty, they're all over. And obviously the (.5.28 ), which is the BJP associate group is very strong on campus. They're demonstrating the power they have right now and apparently they have the ear of top ministers in government and they want to influence things, so clearly there is a strong right wing presence on campus as well.
Let's dig in to the sedition issue itself because, what has been said, even if you take the worst possible interpretation, the stuff around, the doctored comments about referring to Kashmir and tearing apart the country. Most countries in the world this is just something in which you couldn't possibly arrest someone for saying this so what is it? Cos I've been somewhat vocal about this as an academic, and as someone who mentors ( PSG 6.08 ) students, I'm automatically upset when PSG Students are being arrested for things they are saying and I've made that clear. And the reaction a lot of people have said to be is, "but how would you feel in Australia, in America if people started supporting terrorists and starting calling for the destruction of the country, that's sort of the idea?" And obviously it's not that there aren't limits on things, but that kind of protest in Australia does happen. There's a discussion in India about what the limits of free speech should be though. At least online, on social media there seems to be a new concept. I mean basically saying this shouldn't be allowed. Smriti Irani, the Human Resource Development Minister, when she was asked specifically on camera about what do you say about what's happening at JNU? She had a very interesting statement she said (.6.49) she said, "The Mother India," and here she is really referring to Mother India as a goddess, "cannot tolerate any kind of insult," and this is a very common sentiment among a lot of people in India. If you actually look at the law (and going off at what some legal experts are saying) the law doesn't speak about insults to Mother India, that simply isn't there. I mean there were some of the slogans which are on video, someone at some point, probably February 9 th shouted basically, "Long live Pakistan and down with India," these kind of slogans. This does seem to have happened, it's not clear who said them. Kanhaiya Kumar immediately denounced them, so the question is, what should be done with a student on a campus who is shouting pro- Pakistan slogans? I think it's the debate that s being had. I mean I'm not a legal scholar, but it seems that the way in which freedom of speech is legally enshrined in India, does provide some scope in which the courts can weigh in. Say for example, you don't have in the US where you've got a pretty robust constitutionally guaranteed right to free expression and essentially that's there and the government has to prove why it shouldn't be the case. It seems that the Indian framework is a little bit looser? It does seems to be a bit looser. A lot of people are saying that this should have been handled internally by the university, they had the power to expel these students or sanction them in some way and people on the other side are really saying that any kind of pro- Pakistan slogan like this is an incitement to violence along the lines of what the sedition law does apply to. So that's the divide here and that kind of debate was being played out in Parliament yesterday, where members of the BJP, my understanding is that they were directed from the top) to take a real hard line on this in Parliament. I've only heard members of the BJP actually say these slogans but they're repeating them in Parliament and demanding does ( 8.33 Gandi agree with this or not? Does. agree with this or not?) So they're demanding people stand up in Parliament and declare their patronage, I guess that's what is happening. I guess stepping back a bit for listeners who are perhaps not as familiar with India and its history
as those who play close attention to it are, there is a sense that in living memory you had the partition of British India with a pretty serious amount of communal bloodshed that went with it. You've had this long history of civil unrest, both government prompted and not. There is a sense that the country is potentially a fragile one and the unity is threatened, not necessarily by these guys, but there is the idea of Mother India as vulnerable, fragile, threatened? I don't know if I can speak to the mentality of an Indian citizen in this. Definitely what some people are arguing now is; when we prosecute every little anti- India slogan like this the implication is that we're saying is that India is fragile, and if we don't prosecute every little thing that's affirming the strength of India. That's what people are saying. Yeah, and that's probably brings us to an interesting question which political scientists generally looks and go, "BJP has played this really badly, this is tactically, by dumping a ton of bricks on it, you've heightened the publicity of the cause that this guy's putting forward, you've made a martyr out of this guy." To me it shows a degree of fragility or concern or fear that this sentiment's got to be crushed and crushed and crushed and pounded and smashed. Whereas this bunch of left wing students are saying the sort of thing left wing students have been saying for generations. They really have. What's really noticeable to me when I sat down and talked to you after the election where Modi's government came into power, we were both amazed at the support he had from India's youth. Something Craig Jeffrey over at the Australia India Institute likes to say that, "One out of every six people on earth is an Indian youth," I mean it's a huge number of people, they supported the BJP, they voted for them. So it's utterly strange to see Modi's government come down on students like this because it's creating a group of allies among youth who wouldn't necessarily be allies normally and it's alienating one of the most important voting blocks that he's had. So I'm surprised to see it. I mean do you think it's got something to do with the fact that the shine does seem to have come off him? For the first year or so, eighteen months in office he seemed kind of this bullet- proof figure who was charming the world, you know every world leader has a special relationship with Modi, everyone gets hugs. The Make an India Campaign, the PR was amazing, but electorally he's lost Bihar and (. 11.07 ), Delhi.. Delhi was a huge blow. Behar just a few months ago was another huge blow, and there's a series of elections coming up and definitely a lot of people in India are saying; this is about electoral politics, this is about trying to change some sort of narrative. Is it playing to the base that might otherwise be going, 'maybe this guy isn't for us'? It looks that way and the people who are arguing that, I can't help but agree with them that something like that's going on here. To me it just seems to smack of a lack of confidence more than anything, I mean if you look at it
and go, 'is this a country that's competent and on the rise, a country that wants, (as Modi often likes to talk about) to be at the high table of international politics and all these sort of things? Look there's no Can't cope with this No they can't cope and it's upsetting for me because this isn't the story I want to be talking about with India at all. But of course this is getting international attention because it surprises people, people don't think of this as happening in India. To have this happen in Delhi, to have this student, he was arrested and taken to court on the 12 th and he was attacked by a group of lawyers. This made me physically ill just watching it. The disputed reports about what happened, but the best- case scenario is that the police had to protect Kanhaiya Kumar from a large group of lawyers and people dressed as lawyers who were physically attacking him, and this happened in the courthouse, spread onto the streets and journalists were also targeted. The worse- case scenario which is what a lot of eye witnesses are saying, and what a Hindi human rights reporter just said is that; 'police kind of stood by and let it happen.' Testimony based on the medical examination of Kanhaiya which show clear injuries to him and also in interviews with various politicians and lawyers who were involved in the beatings who were quite proud of having committed this violence. The narrative's not looking good, it's not looking good for this police chief who was unable to prevent this violence or he's been accused of allowing it to happen while going after these students who really, why are they being targeted at all? It doesn't look good. I remember seeing coverage of the "lawyers," but by all accounts some of them were lawyers, beating this guy up and I was like, what on earth is going on? No. You can't, it's a terrible story, it's a terrible outcome, you can't beat up prisoners in custody, and especially not in the Patiala Courthouse in the nation's capital. It was shocking to see.
And of course there's critics of Modi who go back a long way and see in this, echoes of 2002 where you have the anti- Muslin bloodletting basically. Pretty substantive allegations made essentially saying the government knew what was going on and in some cases people saying; 'act of conniving by the government, to encourage this activity.' But least of all, you've got to look the other way, allowing things to occur that seem to be on the face of it but any rate come beyond the pale. Whatever parallels could or couldn't be drawn, he hasn't come out and said anything clearly, he's been quite silent. I mean in the midst of all this he gave a speech at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, where he talked about the importance of nurturing students and keeping the student alive in each of us, and the importance that would seem quite tone deaf when the government was cracking down on students in another part of the country, it was strange to see, he is definitely not speaking out on this. This has been a huge issue and for India and for people who watch India closely, this is the story at the moment. It is huge. And yet in Australia at any rate, there is not a column nothing about this. Any sense as to why that's the case? Certainly it's starting to get some international attention. I can't say why it hasn't been picked up in Australia as much other than perhaps it doesn't fit the narrative that we've been seeing with India, which is in regard to an emerging economic powerhouse, one of our key partners that's coming up, which I certainly want to be the main story. Maybe we're just not sure how to fit that in. Well we're running out of time but how do you think this might end or how do you think it will play out? Moving forward in the Delhi police I think they've just denied bail to Kanhaiya, locked up a couple of other students and I don't know where they can go with this. The evidence they were using is so clearly manufactured and doctored, it involves fake videos, fake tweets from Twitter accounts, that were taken to be real. It's ridiculous but they seem to be digging their heels in, I don't see how they can back down.
There's a lot of people demanding the immediate release of Kanhaiya Kumar, I think it will have to play out in court a bit, I think some of this evidence will have to be presented. I don't know, I'm worried that they're going to need some student to imprison, but the evidence is not going to hold it up. So I don't know, I think it'll play out at the voting booth I think is what we have to wait for and see what happens. Well that's all the time we have. Thank you Ian once again for being part of the programme. You can follow Ian on Twitter @iawoolford or me @nickbisley. You've been listening to Asia Rising a podcast of La Trobe Asia. If you like this podcast you can subscribe to Asia Rising on itunes or Soundcloud. And while you're there do leave a rating and a review to help us spread the word. Thanks for listening.