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On 20th January, 2020, Young India Coordination Committee called for Rally from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar, against Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)-National Register of Citizens (NRC)-National Population Register (NPR), two days prior to Supreme Court’s hearing on the issue, along with All India Students’ Association (AISA), Krantikari Yuva Sangathan ( KYS ), Students’ Federation of India ( SFI ), All India Students’ Federation (AISF ) among others from Universties all over Delhi. 

20th January, 2020, observed a mass rally of students marching from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar at 1 p.m. against CAA-NRC-NPR. The rally was called for by Young India Coordination Committee along with multiple student organizations like AISA, KYS, SFI, AISF, Jawaharlal Nehru University Student’s Union (JNUSU), JCC, Joint Forum for Academic and Social Justice, Karwan-e-Mohabbat, Shaheen Bagh Protest Committee (United Youth Brigade), We the People among others.

Harsh Mandar, prominent Social Activist, said, “We are fighting against hatred with our love and Constitution. The Young India is showing us the hope and we will take back our India.”

Hundreds of students belonging to different universities like University of Delhi (DU), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) and other student organizations joined together to raise slogans of Azadi against the undemocratic and unsecular rule of the Government and against CAA-NRC-NPR.

They chanted slogans of “Inquilab Zindabad” (long live the revolution), “BJP hoshiyaar” (stay alert BJP), “Secularism Up-Up, Communalism Down-Down”, and sang popular songs improvised to create tunes of resistance. 

N Sai Balaji, National President, AISA, said, “Young India is one such powerful platform which not only unites all students and youth but today has shown that they won’t get divided by hate. But have unitedly launched a campaign to defend citizenship and defend the Constitution.” 

These protests are being held simultaneously in cities like  Mallapuram, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Patna, Kolkata, Allahabad, Varanasi, and many others against CAA-NRC-NPR.

“Just after two days the Supreme Court is going to hear the petitions challenging CAA so by this rally and across the country we are trying to give this message that this march means a public declaration, that this public is not in support of CAA, specifically the students, the young people of this country. We are against this CAA. We are born in a secular and country and will not let them (the Government) destroy the secular fabric of this country. India cannot accept secularism on religious lines,” quoted Kawalpreet Kaur, Delhi President, AISA.

The rally was followed by talks addressed by prominent speakers such as Harsh Mander, Umar Khalid, Gauhar Raza and Professor Ratan Lal among others at Jantar Mantar.

Umar Khalid, popular youth Social Activist and former student of Jawaharlal Nehru University, told DU Beat, “Young India today wants jobs and education. It does not want divisive laws like CAA or NRC or NPR. When we demand education, what does the government tell us? That spending on education is a waste of taxpayer’s money. But our money is not gonna be spent on putting us through an exercise in which we will be forced to prove our citizenships. They are using our money to strip us of our rights and we cannot allow that to happen. The government does not have that right. The government is here to serve us, not lord over us. Citizens also have rights. We are demanding those rights-  right to education, right to employment, right to healthcare.”

Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary Communist Party of Indi (ML), suggested that the country is fighting it’s second freedom struggle.

“This law has been brought to divide people based on their religion and if we allow them to do this, tomorrow it will lead to caste discrimination.” he further added.

Feature Image Credits: Gyanarjun Saroj for DU Beat

Aditi Gutgutia

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Komal Sharma, student of Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi (DU), who was recognised as one of the ‘masked woman’ in an image of the JNU violence has now registered a complaint in the National Commission for Women (NCW).

Komal Sharma, student of Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi (DU) was allegedly believed to be one of the masked women after her picture surfaced all over the Internet, along with Screenshots of her confessing to the crime, after one of the students of the University identified her. This is also followed a sting operation to affirmate Sharma’s crimes.

The DU student accused the news channel of falsely incriminating her during one of their sting operations, by attaching her name with the masked woman which appeared in an image of the JNU violence. Declaring the channel’s attempt as an attack on her dignity, she filed a complaint against the reporter and the director in the National Commission for Women (NCW). The Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad member said that the channel never approached her for any sort of clarification or confirmation about the same and hence, has requested the commission to look into this matter.

Siddharth Yadav, ABVP member, said,” Komal Sharma is not the masked woman she has not been identified by anybody, the media has been spreading news about her without any evidence.”

He further informed of Sharma writing a letter to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), heading the Special Investigation Team (SIT) and has herself proposed to participate in the investigation process. As, told by Yadav the NCW has issued letters to the media houses and the commissioner of police.

Sharma was allegedly recognized by the police as the woman having her face covered with a blue scarf, dressed in a checkered shirt and carrying a stick in her hand, in a video and image of the violence that spread on the JNU campus on 5th January. As per the police her mobile phone was switched off since Saturday.

Feature Image Credits: National Herald

Kriti Gupta

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These are powerful times. These are politically volatile times. These are disappointing times. These are resisting times. Most important of all, these are questioning and questionable times.

With the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) being protested against vehemently in the North-East and across the rest of the country, including the popular hubs of politics and entertainment – Delhi and Mumbai – respectively, the citizens of the country are awakening to the anti-people policies of the current administration, including (but not limited to) the controversial abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, the policies to privatize education, the Trans Person’s Bill, and the continual curbing of dissent by arresting protesting activists. As I write this, the Farmers’ Leader, Akhil Gogoi, is being charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act – a move that has invited widespread criticism for its arbitrary and oppressive nature.

In a backdrop such as this, it is impossible to go about one’s life – especially as students who study Foucault, Orwell, Ambedkar, and Marx in the classrooms of one of the premier universities of the country – without being the least bit affected with the socio-political climate of the country. The slogan, “Personal is political” manifests itself  powerfully before us, now more than ever, since the majority of us who are on any social networking platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, among many others, cannot possibly scroll through the feeds nonchalantly, without coming across stories, posts, or articles on the current climate. What, then, becomes of social media activism?

I confess that I myself, in the past, have sneered at ‘social media influencers’ and the like, believing that the social and cultural capital enjoyed by them, by virtue of their popularity, was taking up unfair space in the powerful discourse of ground-level activism. However, the past few months have altered this perspective drastically, because social media has now seemingly emerged as the preferred space of discourse for many, includingsystematically disenfranchised communities like trans-people, women, and people from conservative households. When paramilitary troops and police forces are employed in the ratio of three is to one, at organised protests in India Gate, Jantar Mantar, and brutalise the students of Jamia (JMI), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), among other locations, then being on-ground becomes a life and death battle for many from the aforementioned communities.

Social media, then, serves as the forum to express dissent, become informed, and share awareness. This is not to say that the women at Shaheen Bagh, sitting in the chilling winter of Delhi for about a month now, are not palpable to a violent crackdown, or that the resistance that has engulfed Kashmir for multiple decades is on equal footing with sharing a tweet, but it is to acknowledge the newfound power that is threatening the authorities in control. Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) IT cell has been notoriously in the news for circulating numbers, advertising that calling said numbers would get the people “free subscription to Netflix” or rendezvous with porn-stars. Doctored photos of students holding placards like Hinduo ki kabrkhudegiinstead of the original “Hindutva ki kabra khudegi,” were instantly circulated in social media pages, attempting to polarize communal sentiments against students at JMI and AMU. In no time after actress Deepika Padukone stood behind JNU Students’ Union President, Aishe Ghosh, and activist Kanahiya Kumar, that the hashtag “BoycottChhapak” was trending on social media and sexually profanity being hurled at her. Internet lockdown in Kashmir has continued for over 150 days now, while internet services in numerous states like Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Assam, and Gujarat were blocked. Instances like this are testimony to the fact that any platform of public dissent, especially a technologically savvy one like social media that people from older generations in the administration are largely unable to grasp or master, acts to counter the narrative of normalcy our Prime Minister has been propagating with his famous line – Sab changa si!” A single tweet on the everyday violence in the country is indeed momentous enough to throttle this false narrative.

While the criticism against social media has always been the legitimacy of the sources and the accountability of any debates/discussions over it, private citizens like Mitali Bhasin, Sukhnidh Kaur, Pravan Sawhney, Divya Kandukuri, are some of the few names who have set precedent for researching their own resources for news and compiling information for public use in these tumultuous times. Pages like With Kashmir, and media houses like The Wire, The Print, Quint have proven to be reliable sources of information and discourses, publicized and accessible through social media platforms.

The language barrier parting English, Hindi, and other regional languages in India has always been a drawback for left liberal discourse in India, and the dearth of similar resources / activism in languages apart from English, including in Hindi, remains a blind-spot that needs correction in an era where the voting public, from Savarna households, including in our family WhatsApp groups is unaware of the manipulation and propaganda being targeted towards them, because of language or technological gaps that disengage their participation in social media activism. However, as millennials and post-millennials, it is our prerogative to engage in sharing the information that reaches us, creating the much-needed space for dissent amid the hoardings of propaganda.

Most important of all, it is time that to take heed of all the tools at our disposal in fighting violence sponsored by the State. It is time to change those display pictures to red, to make highlights on Instagram with curated information, to tweet and flood the judiciary, the Police, and the ministries, because when we fight fascism in Orwellian times like these, it becomes poignant to break free, in any and all ways possible, from what 1984 labelled the Thought Police.

Anushree Joshi

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On 13th January 2020, the students of Hansraj College, University of Delhi (DU) stopped peaceful protests from happening while a student in the protest alleged violence by a faculty member.

 On 13th January, the students of Hansraj College had given a call for a collective reading of the Preamble of the Indian Constitution and Swami Vivekananda’s historic Chicago Speech. However, as soon as a few of the students had gathered, holding the Indian flag in their hands, the Principal, Dr Rama, came with a few faculty members and started snatching the flag from their hands, taking away their mobile phones and dispersing the crowd.

“I reached LP at 11 am with the National Flag and posters. Dr Rama, The Principal, was already present there with few other teachers and admin staff and was forcing students to vacate the space. Then she rushed towards me and my friend who was holding the other end of the Flag, and tried to snatch the flag. A student also tried to assault us and take away the Flag,” said a student, who wishes not to be named fearing action from the college authorities.

Also, Gaurav Kumar, Physical Education, Professor at Hansraj College, allegedly physically assaulted a third year student due to his participation in the protest.

“Sir told me that he will drag me out of the hostel and beat me up and no one will be able to do anything. Now the problem is, I cannot go anywhere, even the college is adamant on proving me wrong. I’ve filed a written complaint with Rama Ma’am,” the victim told DU Beat.

He added, “Gaurav had a grudge against me as a few days ago, I had shared a screenshot of a post where our professor was using a fake news to attack an actress.”

However, the Assistant Professor denied the claim. The Professor said, “I had confronted him regarding the post, but didn’t touch him. He is lying.”

The student has demanded that the administration of the Hansraj College file an FIR against the teacher, and suspend him until an investigation takes place. Students have decided to hold protests if action is not taken against him.

Image Credits: Anonymous
Image Credits: Anonymous

The original complaint sent to the College administration by the victim.

While all of this was happening, a group of students organised a protest supporting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in College ground. The administration was lax in reaching out to stop the gathering and was able to stop the pro-CAA gathering, not before videos were made and slogans and chants raised.

Feature Image Credits: Anonymous

 

 

 

While the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA) has corresponded to a trail of protests, the recent legislation needs to be addressed from three other P’s – the politics, patronage and privilege – that interplay along with the proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The anti-CAA protests have brought the entire nation to a juncture where adjudication does not seem like a perplexing matter. Rather, the course of this movement and its directive hasbeen guided by an array of holds fromstudent, legal, and political experts tothe common masses which generally abstains from addressing such issuesagainst the authorities.

As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Government had calculated, theCitizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) didundergo a smooth passage in both theHouses of the Parliament with support from its alliance parties and more, but a similar smooth shift was observed in their stance after the protests gathered momentum, and their politics found a reality check. While parties like the Indian National Congress (INC), theAll India Trinamool Congress (AITC),Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI (M)] opposedthe Bill from the very beginning, soonafter, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Communist Party of India (CPI) alsojoined the morcha (march) against the

Bill. Another kind of stance was observedby the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally, Shiv Sena, which did vote infavor of the Bill in the Lok Sabha, but walked out of their responsibility in the Upper House, and now stand opposedto the Act. Interesting observations werefound by Bihar’s governing party JanataDal (United) [JD (U)] as well, which also gave its vote in motion of the Bill, but senior Party leaders like Prashant Kishor and Pawan Verma criticised the decision, after which the party seemed skeptical,and it appears in bind as well. AssomGana Parishad (AGP) and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) of Orissa also replicated thebehavior of their Maharashtra and Biharcounterparts. BJP’s oldest ally, Shiromani Akali Dal, has also criticised the CAA,and wants to include the only excluded minority under the Bill.

While the opposition in the face of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) continually stood against this Bill, other opposition parties like AITC and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) too seek the rollback of this Law. Kerala’s CPI (M) Government went on to pass a resolution, demanding scrapping of the CAA. 10 out of the 13 governing NDA allies withdrew their support from the BJP on the CAA-NRC plan; former BJP CabinetMinister, Yashwant Sinha, and Bengal’sBJP Vice President, Chandan Kumar Bose,are few of the leaders who have raisedquestions regarding the Act in their Party itself. This poses as a political conundrum in the history of Indian Politics. As the lens transmitted over the politicalmilieu, the CAA gave a tough slap to the

dogma of privilege that largely stoodunaffected from all kinds of proceedingsby the virtue of the social status theyexercised. Esteemed, influential, and prominent faces from all social factionsjoined the country-wide protests, and synchronised with the student unity that shook the order of chaos. Corporateprofessionals in global firms like Google, Amazon, and HCL also wrote to theGovernment to withdraw the Act, in aletter titled “TechAgainstFascism”.

With such circumstances prevailing, the privilege could not stay in denial and

was gradually compelled to take a step.

The students across national universitieshave expressed their resentment and received solidarity from worldwidefraternities in leading institutions and other organisations. From European nations, to the United States, Australiaand the Middle-East, the dissentspread, cutting off the patronage the Government sought to receive. After amonth since the Bill has found clearance,the dissociation from its existence seems to be challenged exponentially, with due action still on halt.

Feature Image Credits: The News Minute

Faizan Salik

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In an unforeseen turn of events, Bhupendra Tomar, leader of ‘Hindu Raksha Dal’, a right-wing organisation claimed responsibility for the attacks on the teachers and students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi on the 5th January 2019.

 Bhupendra Tomar, leader of Hindu Raksha Dal, a right-leaning organisation claimed responsibility for the attacks on the teachers and students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi on the 5th January 2019 through admission in a video.

The video surfaced on the internet after being posted by a Twitter user where Tomar, popularly known as Pinki Bhaiya blamed the university for being a hotbed of “Anti-National” and “Anti-Hindu” activities.

Bhupendra Tomar, said in the video, “We take full responsibility for the attack in JNU and would like to say that they were our workers. The way these people have been behaving over the years, especially the people in JNU, it is against our religion. We can never tolerate such anti-national activities,”.

According to the ANI report on the issue, Government sources have informed that the claims made by Pinky Chaudhary (Popular name for Bhupendra Tomar) are under investigation. The sources also informed that the Delhi Police is using CCTV footage and facial recognition to identify the masked men and women.

He also added, “These people live in our country, eat here, study here and indulge in anti-national activities. Hindu Raksha Dal will never tolerate this and again attack whoever tries such ideals.”

He with much pride also confirmed the party’s ideology to engage in further violence in the name of nationalism.

Affirming to that, Pinky Chaudhary said, “If in future others indulge in similar anti-national activities, we will again carry out a similar action in those universities. We take responsibility to carry out these actions.”

The gruesome display of violence that the students and teachers of JNU endured where more than thirty people were injured along with tremendous property damage by the people, who were seen carrying around sticks and rods has succumbed to this video.

JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Aishe Ghosh was also injured in the incident and was rushed to AIIMS along with the other injured people. All of them were discharged on Monday.

This incident raises major questions about the safety of the students on campus. However, both JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) have blamed each other for the violence.

Feature Image Credits: ANI

Khush Vardhan Dembla

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The Jawaharlal Nehru University has been, for the past 50 days, since the controversial release of the Inter-House Manual on 28th October. But it all seemed to be over on December 13th, when the Ministry of Human Resource Development released a mediating statement based on talks between JNU Administration, JNUSU and MHRD. However, are all the stakeholder’s satisfied? Read further to find out.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development after a series of talks with the JNU Administration and the JNU Students’ Union put forward the aforementioned statement. In the statement, the MHRD states that the fee of a single occupant room and the double occupant room remain Rs.300 and Rs.600 respectively. While the BPL or Below Poverty Line students will get a concession of 50% on the fee. All of the costs of utilities and services shall be borne by the University Grant’s Commission or UGC. The MHRD has also directed the administration to adhere by the Delhi High Court’s orders and therefore notify JNUSU. Furthermore, the statement has requested the Academic Council to give the students relaxation of two weeks to compensate for the loss of the academic period. In addition to this, the MHRD has directed the JNU Administration to take a ‘Lenient View’ on the incidents that have occurred since October 2019. Lastly, via this statement, the JNUSU has been directed to stop all kinds of dharnas around the administrative, academic blocks and in the residential areas of the varsity staff. The MHRD has urged both the JNUSU and JNU Administration to take immediate steps for the restoration of the normal functioning of the university. It has also been directed that any further issue shall be resolved only via dialogue as per university statutes.

Talking to us, Musaib Ul Haq, the JNUSU hostel prefect, says, “JNUSU has from the beginning of this protest demanded a full rollback and therefore we reject anything which is short of that. Most of our demands have not been met and apart from that, we demanded the taking back of all the cases against agitating students. However, the statements only use the word ‘lenient action towards the protesting students’ which is why we have maintained that the language used in the notice is just unacceptable. Our slogan for these protests is ‘Complete rollback and not an inch back’ therefore for us the talks are still on and nothing is decided yet. Our movement is still on and it will continue, there is no call back of these protests as of now. Apart from this, there was a meeting with the JNU Administration just yesterday wherein all the senior admin members like the Dean of Students were present. But, as of now the movement has not finished and is still continuing.”

Even though the stakeholders in this issue still do not find themselves on the same page but what has become better is that a deadlock has been broken and the JNUSU and JNU Administration have now started a dialogue. As one of the main issues of the protests since its inception is the lack of communication between the students and the administration. Thus, the solution to this problem now seems to be feasible.

 

Featured Image Credits- ANI

 

Aniket Singh Chauhan

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