Support for the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) protesters has started pouring in from Indian academicians and students abroad. Professors and research scholars from various institutions like London School of Economics, University of Cambridge, University of London in the United Kingdon and University of Illinois in the United States and University of British Columbia in Canada have also condemned the political and legal clout being exercised by the Indian government in Kanhaiya Kumar’s arrest and subsequent reaction to protests.
In a letter, graduate students and faculty at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice and the broader University of British Columbia have said, “It is deeply disturbing to note the public debate around this on mainstream Indian media and TV news channels. The contention is that universities should not be spaces of political engagement, but of quiet scholarly repose. As students and researchers committed to the principles of transnational social justice, it is distressing to note this attempt to depoliticise the university space by dismissing students as undeserving of their spot for being actively engaged in the future of their country.”
Pledging their solidarity with the students, faculty and staff at JNU, students, faculty, staff, and other members of the University of Illinois community have said, “We strongly believe that the charge of sedition against Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and the other six students are based on spurious evidence. This arrest is an excuse for the state to root out dissenting voices on JNU campus, a move towards converting educational institutions like JNU into an arm of the authoritarian state. Attempts of a similar nature have been witnessed recently at other Indian educational institutions such as the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and Hyderabad University. The growing threat to academic freedom and the practice of fundamental thinking and critique, posed by the current political climate is transnational, and extends beyond India to other parts of the world — it is a threat we face here in the United States, too.”
In the solidarity statement with JNU, academics from UK have said, “We condemn the BJP government-sanctioned police action in the JNU campus and the illegal detention of Kanhaiya Kumar. We strongly condemn the manner in which political dissent is being stifled, reducing academic spaces to fortresses. We also condemn the widespread witch hunt of left-wing students and student groups that this police action has unleashed.”
They further added that by disguising targeted assault on oppositional student groups/political movements within the narrative binaries of nationalism/anti-nationalism only reflects how vulnerable the BJP government feels in its own ability to provide accountable governance.
