The above narrative reflects what happened last week at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

It all started with the JNU students holding rally to commemorate the anniversary of the execution of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist. Students were accused of shouting anti-India slogans and making incendiary remarks at the event. JNU Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar was charged with leading a procession in which anti-India slogans were raised. He was arrested on sedition charge.

Raising anti-national slogans by whosoever he/she is highly condemnable and must be severely dealt with under the law. But is the arrest of Kanaiya Kumar, President of the JNSU campus under sedition law based on facts and legally justified? From all available accounts, it is not.

On February 18, one of the prominent National English Dailies published translated excerpts of the speech made by Kanhaiya on JNU campus on February 9. It inter-alia quotes him saying “The JNSU does not support any violence, any terrorist, any terror attack, any anti-national activity. There are some unidentified people who have raised the slogan of “Pakistan zindabad”. The JNUSU strongly denounces them.

Please listen carefully to the ABVP slogans. They say “communist kutte”, they say “Afzal Guru ke pille”, they say “jihadiyon ke bachhe” Don’t you agree that if this Constitution has given us the rights of a citizen, then calling my father a dog, is it not the trampling of our constitutional rights?”

The newspaper also says that it was only next day that the police registered the FIR on the basis of a report telecast by a TV channel. The FIR doesn’t accuse Kanhaiya of making any hate speech. He is charged with leading a procession in which anti-India slogans were heard.

India’s top legal luminaries including former Attorney General Soli Sorabji and Fali S Nariman have taken strong exception to the sedition charge against Kanhaiya describing it as deplorable.

The most disgusting aspect of the episode is the statement by Rajnath Singh who is supposed to know all facts about security-related happenings in the country “that the protests by the students at JNU had the backing of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed”. He was referring to a tweet by an unidentified individual impersonating the Lahore-based Lashkar-e-Taiba chief”.

Our loud-mouthed Union Home Minister did not bother to find out the truth about the fake tweet. A prominent national English daily has quoted Hafiz Saeed saying, “I felt strange after learning the Indian home minister had given a reference of a tweet with my name. Neither I am behind the students protest nor did I tweet to incite them”. It appears Rajnath’s statement is part of the saffron party’s attempts to recover from the negative fallout of the JNU happenings by projecting itself as a staunchest patriotic nationalist party. Though welcome, this week’s decision taken by Central universities Vice Chancellors held under the chairmanship of the Union Minister Smriti Irani to “prominently and proudly” install the national flag is obviously an attempt to cover up the damage to the party’s image caused by the JNU happenings.

Kanhaiya’s is also a case about BJP’s doublespeak. While the party has charged Kanhaiya with sedition, it formed alliance with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP to climb to power in J&K. Within hours of taking oath, Mufti credited the separatist Hurriyat and militant outfits with creating conducive atmosphere for holding elections”. His government also released separatist leader Masarat Alam.

The BJP’s hypocritical attitude on the seditious issue is also reflected by its joining of hands with Akali Dal to form the government in Punjab ignoring the “seditious action” of Akali leaders, including the chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, of burning copies of Article 25 of the Constitution in front of Gurdwara Rakab Ganj, Delhi in 1983. Is burning of the Constitution not a graver seditious act than what Kanhaiya has been alleged to have committed?

The JNU case appears to be a part of the BJP’s ideological fountainhead RSS’s strategy to capture India’s institutions of excellence, particularly educational, journalism, film-making, art and culture. To achieve the objective, the Modi government started appointing indoctrinated loyalists, some even lacking merit, to head such institutions.

Two such cases had generated intense controversy. One was the appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as president of the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune. His ‘merit’ was that he played Yudhishthir in the TV series “Mahabharat”. FTII students went on indefinite strike to protest against his appointment.

The second case was appointment of Bollywood producer Pahlaj Nihalani as chief of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) and packing it with those who have links with the saffron party or RSS ideologues. Nihalani had replaced Leela Samson who resigned accusing the ministry of 'interference, coercion and corruption'. Samson's resignation was followed by that of 13 other board members.

Nihalani had recently made a six-minute campaign video for Modi titled 'Har Ghar Modi’.

Such developments are going to have negative fallout on BJP and its allies electoral prospects in 2016 and 2017 Assembly elections. People’s memory may be short but not so short as to forget the ruler’s failures. (IPA Service)