Almost all the newspapers of the country have the same story on their front page now days “Bal Thackeray Says …” and “SRK says…” Before this episode there was the issue of MNS and its anti UP/Bihar campaign. In both cases, several well known intellectuals and politicians spoke a lot and really sensible things. It is really a positive sign in the national politics and the Indian society but where had they been when communalism and casteism entered into the politics and sown the seed of hatred. Same intellectuals and politicians who are speaking against the Shiv Sena are the champions of religion and caste based politics and discourse. When Mayawati speaks about Dalits and declares everyone else Manuvadi, it is perhaps not deviding our society. When people like Praveen Togaria and Ashok Singhal spits venom against a community, it is perhaps not disturbing the harmony of our country. Then why the so called racist politics of Bal Thackeray has become a great danger to the country?

I am not a supporter of Shiv Sena neither do I belong from Maharashtra but I am surprised that how one thing is justified in one form and unjustified in another form. Some of us support the caste-based politics because we are also among the beneficiaries. When we get the benefit of reservation despite of belonging from a rich family, we just close our eyes and somehow justify it. When a communal statement comes abusing a particular community some of us justify it. If the above mentioned types of politics are justified, then the region based politics should also be justified and we should have the immunity against this one as we are already having against previous ones.

Entire human being has same blood and flesh but we have been divided into the different geographical borders to make our life better, not miserable. First of all we should think about the entire humanity and then abut the country. Other micro-divisions are just to make it colorful and nothing else.

I would like to ask some questions to the Shiv Sena and MNS.

Q: Why people from all parts of the country go to Mumbai?

A: Because Mumbai has the job opportunities.

Q: why Mumbai has so much of job opportunities?

A: Because Mumbai is the financial capital of the country and it has hundreds of offices of different companies and several industries.

Q: These companies do their business only in Mumbai or across the country?

A: Across the country.

Q: What will happen if the people of the other parts of the country boycott the companies having their head office in Mumbai?

A: The corporate have no regional and communal inclination and they will shift their offices to the other places.

Q: Then what about Mumbai?

A: ???

Yesterday (29/09/2009) Congress MP and AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi visited JNU. Before his arrival we read so many posters and pamphlets on the walls and in the Mess, passing so many comments on him. Like others I also went K.V ground to know what Rahul Gandhi speaks and in reply what our fellow students ask. Rahul came and mixed-up with the crowd for some time. He started speaking and four to five people started waving black flags. After all, we have also the culture of waving black flags (to Manmohan Singh by left parties and to Arjun Singh by Y4E and so many others).

Keeping the starter (the pamphlets and the posters) in mind I thought that the main course (the questions) will be very good, but the level of questions gave us nothing but sheer disappointment. People who have witnessed the JNU of 10 years back, would have literally cried after hearing the questions we asked. Rahul proved himself smart enough by giving the opposition priority and consequently one of the four five friends waving the black flags started asking question. This question was not bad. She asked about the money spent on the education across the country and the rebate on tax for corporate. But the way she asked the question made me laugh. I thought what Rahul Gandhi is? Has Rahul Gandhi become the Education Minister, Finance Minister, or he has become Prime Minister? Our friends who (apparently) hate Rahul Gandhi were giving much more regards and protocol to him than anyone else. We could have asked questions about his view, his ideology or the Congress party’s stand on any issue but we were asking the questions like everything is done by him only. Some questions were so embarrassing that even an illiterate person could have asked better question than our so called JNU scholars. For example one of our friends said that you implemented Lyngdoh. Another friend asked a question that why the price of Sugar cane is so low in UP? A friend first introduced himself as NSUI loyalist and then asked why Muslims are not getting reservation?

We people portray ourselves as intellectuals in JNU or outside JNU but now I realize that we are living in utopia. There was a time when people involved in the left politics were having a real world view and knowledge but now we are having only pseudo in the campus.

People who were asking questions not only prepared themselves for that but also advertised in the form of wall posters that they are the champions and have mastery in this field.

The questions our friends asked were worst and substandard. One more beautiful question was asked that how a poor student will pay the fee. Rahul asked about the family income of that young lady and the answer was that My mom and dad both are pensioners and the total income is 5000/=. I want to ask that lady that which service your parents were in? As per my poor knowledge any government department doesn’t give Rs. 2500/= per month to its ex employees as pension.

One of our friends asked one more stupid question. “I am very poor person, I have done graduation in French and doing Masters in the same stream. I am getting a job of Rs.40,000/ per month but I want to join government job.   One of the students passed a comment. “Go and face the competition, get the job. What the hell Rahul Gandhi has to do with it?” The comment was fair enough. Almost every student in JNU wants to get a good job and many of them belong from poor families, but it doesn’t mean that we will go to Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi or L.K Advani for the solution.

Our friend from SFI came up with the statement that you have misquoted communism and the ideology of left. We have a world view and we believe in distributing wealth in poor people. Party like congress believes in suppression of poor and strengthening corporate. Rahul asked that Communist party in China is playing a role in the development of China… Our SFI friend interrupted. We don’t know about China and Russia, we are talking about India. Then Rahul asked that “Where did your world view come from?”. Again Rahul asked “you call for distribution of wealth, but where will the money come from? There has to be growth on one side so that money can be transferred to the other,” he asked the same question five times, but our friend from SFI had failed to answer the question and then I got to know that communists propagating world view in the campus have not read the “Das Capital” also.

Some questions were very good like “You advocate the democratization of NSUI but which democratic process has entitled to head the AICC and NSUI?” Rahul didn’t hesitate to accept the hierarchy in the organization and express his views. He handled this question so honestly that we were compelled to think that there was no other way to answer this question.

The most beautiful question was “you visit Dalits and poor people, you spend night over there, are they able to provide you food when the prices are on cloud nine?”

Rahul Gandhi really didn’t have any answer. He answered that the money come from NAREGA for their survival but no one of us felt that it was the right answer.

I recall the public meeting of SFI where Mr. Sitaram Yechury was invited. A girl from extreme left wing asked a question and Mr. Yechuri said that this is the meeting of SFI and you are not entitled to ask any question. That was also a Public meeting (not the Polit Bureau meeting). So our friends in SFI should realize that the person who is not familiar with the culture of this campus (like Mr. Yechury and Mr. Karat) is more flexible, more democratic, more lenient and more down to earth. May be they will call it (having dinner in Jhelum) a publicity stunt but Mr. Yechury and Mr. Karat might not have tasted the food of JNU mess for more than a decade.

Rahu Gandhi was also not expecting such stupid question he expressed it before the media…

“Nobody has asked me questions that go beyond the present; fundamental questions about the long-term future of the country”

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/rahul-takes-on-left-at-bastion-to-raise-pitch-at-jnu/523496/

After all these things some of our friends started shouting slogans

“Rahul Gandhi ka ho gaya tel”

“Rahul Gandhi Bhag Gaya”

I thought we are ashamed to have liars like them in this campus. He gave you the equal opportunity for question and cross question but our friends were not able to make him feel helpless and now they are consuming their frustration by shouting this kind of slogans. We feel ashamed on their shamelessness.

Today we like Rahul not because he is a great youth icon but only because the people who were standing in opposition, were dumb. It was not known to them that what kind of question they should ask him (even after such a great preparation).

I was having dinner when 15-20 people of AISA entered into the mess shouting slogans “JNUSU Zindabad” (Long Live JNUSU), “Prashasan Ko Jhuka Diya” (We have bowed the administration before us). I did nothing but smiling on their dirty politics. One of the students sitting in front of me said that if a training program of fraud started anywhere in the world these people will be the best faculties for that. I again smiled and kept quite. Today when I recall the entire episode I find it more pathetic. Genuine struggle had been hijacked by these slogan parties. The movement was started by the SIT students same day or day after the death of Aishvarya. SIT students contacted all the teachers including the hierarchy of Teachers Association. They contacted Staff Association, they went and sought an appointment from HRD Ministry and the HRD Minister assured them that he will look into the matter. All these things happened before our friends from slogan parties entered in the arena.

This time JNU Administration was supportive enough and I am damn sure that the VC had made his mind to improve the health facilities before the announcement of slogan parties’ procession. When they assembled at Administration block VC came with a statement that he has already ordered an ambulance and has constituted a committee to find out what kind of improvement we need in our health facilities. We should keep it in our mind that VC had already done this before slogan parties’ procession but he should have thought about slogan parties’ political hunger. Slogan parties had made their mind to get political mileage out of this issue (Because the issue had grabbed so much of media coverage). Our beloved JNUSU launched a Relay Hunger Strike with the demand of a hospital with 20 beds. The representatives of poor people didn’t think about rest of the India, what is the ratio of population per bed of Government Hospitals. After all, unachievable targets are needed for fooling people for uncertain period. One of my friend told that every hostel should have an ambulance standing in its campus. I had nothing to say. They kept fooling people whole 8 days in the name of Relay Hunger Strike.

Today they have distributed pamphlets in the mess after winning the marathon of Hunger strike. Let’s read what they say…

“JNUSU congratulates the students and the entire JNU community for the significance that has been achieved in the ongoing struggle for better facilities and adequate emergency health services in the campus. In a written statement, the administration has agreed keeping the health centre open from 9 pm to 8 am from Sep 29 onwards, as well as provide a full-equipped ambulance round the clock.”

Well done!!! Means the committee constituted by the VC was dumb enough and was unable to recommend any positive thing because everything is done by our JNUSU strugglers. As I have mentioned above, the administration had ordered ambulance before our friends woke up from their prolonged slumber but the shameless people didn’t hesitate to take the benefit of what they have not done.

They write…

“When confronted by JNUSU representatives today, the JNU administration was forced to admit that the UGC had indeed allocated Rs 1 crore to JNU for improving health infrastructure. Left with no excuses, and after the smokescreen of “lack of funds” was effectively blown away, the JNU administration has finally made some concrete assurances”

See!!! The Administration was forced to admit. In the age of RTI we need to put a simple RTI for any kind of information and as per my poor knowledge the information they have taken forcefully is accessible for common students also.

The most important point is that the JNUSU which always try to make us feel that only because the election is not taking place (in result of so called ongoing conspiracy of administration and some political parties), the administration is doing all wicked things and our beloved JNUSU is helpless. How cum suddenly they became so powerful to make the administration bow before them. Again I smile and think this is all miracle of “Zindabad, Murdabad”. We are not that dumb that we don’t understand the story but we don’t have that much time to go and counter them. We are here for academic purposes and they are here to do whatever they are doing. So we should all focus on our goal but sometime we look around and write something like this blog post.

Long live…

If someone will ask me who really the killer of Aishvarya is, I will simply answer “The Administration”, but at the same time the political parties who won the JNUSU office are equally culpable. How can I forgive them who never mentioned better medical facility in their real priority list prepared after winning the election? Unfortunately they are also singing the same song and trying to portray themselves as the real strugglers. Every student of JNU can remember that the political parties have come in action after the media reports in all important newspapers (3 days later). The political parties didn’t bother to inform media same day.

Now the death of Aishvarya has become an opportunity for every political party and they are trying to encash the issue with full capacity. I won’t feel any hesitation to call them vultures who want to feed their apatite with the dead body of Aishvarya. Why don’t they come without any political tags? If we simply believe that they are honestly trying hard for the better medical facilities in the campus, what the guarantee that they will not negotiate on the other issues when administration will ask them to come on the negotiation table (They have the past of mobilizing students on some issue and using movement for their vested interest, like revoking rustication in Registrar’s harassment case). I simply feel that people should not let the political parties participate in the struggle. As a student everyone should be welcomed but not with the party tags.

By Arsalan Javed

I don’t know about every Muslim student in JUN, but some of the Muslim students are fed up with the Muslim vote bank politics in the campus. Actually left parties are also equally communal (some time more than others), but they always show their other side (Minority friendly or Muslim friendly side). They have expertise in converting any issue into a communal or casteist.

For example, take the incident of fight between the two groups in Mahi Mandvi hostel at the time of their hostel night.  It was simply a fight between the two groups (incidentally some of the students in other group were from ABVP) but our friends from left parties converted it into a clash between minority and majority. They consulted every Muslim student with the story of Minority suppression and when someone denied participating in the signature campaign, they questioned his Muslimhood (not before him but before other Muslim fellows).

Our friends from ABVP also give them the opportunity to polarize the campus (after all they also need polarization for their wrongly interpreted “Hindutva” and to pave the way for national politics). We can say that ABVP and left parties (sometime AISA sometime SFI and some others) are working hard for the survival or each other. There is no difference between ABVP and the left parties.

I and some likeminded Muslim students always feel that these parties are making the life of Muslims more miserable. What is the fault of Muslim students? People who exploit them are not Muslims. Actually Muslims are the victim of the vote bank politics and they are the people who face the ire and anger of other students. Other students think that Muslim students are standing behind the left parties, but let me tell you very frankly that they are self proclaimed “Thekedaar” of such issues. No one invites them to make anything a communal issue.

Now come to the facts. What have they done for Muslim students? They have done nothing but using them as fuel for their survival, and damaging the image of Muslim students in the campus. Sometime we hear interesting claims from left parties. They use to tell us that only because of them the proportion of Muslim students is being maintained in JNU. I simply request them not to count numbers of Urdu, Persian and Arabic (because very few Non Muslim students come to these centers) and then show us the same result in other schools.

Dear friends you are no one to speak anything on behalf of Muslim students and tarnish their image for your political mileage. We (Muslims) are the part of this country and we are not different from others. We live together in society but you people always try to draw a line, or deepen the line drawn by the political forces for your own interest. Go and encash Marxism, Maoism and Leninism for you political hunger. We don’t need pseudo atheists to speak on behalf of Muslim students.