Eerie parallel between Rohit Vemula, who committed suicide, and Kanhaiya Kumar, who is facing sedition charge.

February 13, 2016, NewsCrunch

As the controversy at JNU continues to develop, striking similarities are emerging with Modi’s earlier headache at HyderabadUniversity.

Look at the common threat between the two campuses - hasty official action, angry students, rallying opposition, high-pitch  media coverage, aggressive ABVP, anti-national rhetoric, dalit undercurrent - history seems to be repeating, back to back.

There is an also an eerie parallel between Rohit Vemula, the unfortunate student who committed suicide at Hyderabad University, and Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU students union president, who is in police custody on sedition charge.

The Delhi Police action has been termed hasty by most legal experts. Starting 1962, Supreme Court has consistently held that incitement without overt threat of violence is not sedition.

There are also questions on the strength of evidence against Kanhaiya Kumar, which is rooted in one eyewitness account. Kanhaiya Kumar has denied having shouted the anti-national slogans.

The police action accelerated after ministers Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani went public condemning 'anti-national behaviour' of JNU students.

Rohit Vemula committed suicide after the Hyderabad University expelled him from the hostel and stopped his scholarship. It was Smriti Irani’s letter to the varsity which had prompted the tough action against him.

Kanhaiya Kumar’s arrest also moved the story from JNU students raising anti-national slogans to the hasty and dubious police action.

Along with Kanhaiya Kumar’s arrest, the police raids on the hostels, and their heavy deployment in the campus, have made students bitter and angry.

It has also divided the student groups into ABVP, which is high on its brand of nationalist rhetoric, and the rest, who are smarting.

ABVP and BJP leaders’  high pitch campaign targeting ‘anti-nationals’ in Hyderabad University was reined in by Modi himself. Something like that may happen in JNU as well.

Rohit Vemula became a rallying point for opposition parties. Rahul Gandhi visited Hyderabad University and the rest followed. Arvind Kejriwal has tweeted in support of Kanhaiya Kumar. Left leaders have camped at JNU, where Rahul Gandhi also went on a visit.

Eerie parallel between Rohit Vemula, who committed suicide, and Kanhaiya Kumar, who is facing sedition charge.

There are striking personal similarities between Rohit Vemula and Kanhaiya Kumar.

Both were doctoral students. Both hated ABVP and Hindutva politics.

It was Rohit Vemula’s suicide note that moved many. A brilliant writer, who knew how to use words, Rohit Vemula bid a touching farewell. Kanhaiya Kumar matches that intensity with an equally powerful oratory; his speech at JNU campus made just before he was arrested has gone viral.

He convincingly says that that he is more nationalistic than anyone from ABVP or RSS.

There is a dalit angle to the story. Rohit Vemula worked as a dalit activist. Kanhaiya Kumar swears by Ambedkar and caste struggle in a rhetoric that can move many.

Both came from poor families and rose on sheer talent. Rohit Vemula was the son  of a single mother who worked as a maid to raise him. Kanhaiya Kumar's mother earns Rs 4,000 as an anganwadi worker. That is still the mainstay of the family.

JNU could create bigger trouble than Hyderabad University to Modi. The university has a history of agitation and the present situation is being compared to emergency excesses.

Within political parties, bureaucracy, media and civil society groups, there is a  heavy sprinkling of JNUites.

Many of them are angry.

Related 

JNU president Kanhaiya Kumar's speech goes viral - We are more national than any of you in the RSS or ABVP, he says (Watch video)