With barely two hours of sleep last night since I spent it watching Kanhaiya Kumar's brilliant address at JNU campus, I woke up today morning to realise I had a host of deadlines to meet. Kanhaiya's call for freedom (Azaadi) kept lingering in my ears and the utter brevity to see so many people share their thoughts on social networking sites about his stance on socialism, secularism, equality and freedom from politics. With that fire in my belly, I wrote a first draft for a friend's branding consultancy website. I have no previous experience on writing corporate profiles but as they say, if you read well, then you can write well. (I would like to whole-heartedly believe this statement.)
I realised how scattered student movements are in India. When I was in college, we didn't have any association, no affiliations with political parties of course, but no inkling towards social realities as well. All the students did was attend classes, sit at campus hot spots sipping chai and mostly, just compete fiercely amongst themselves for grades. I cannot recall any social activism or anything of significance that ever happened in my college considering it was in its sesquicentennial years. I often think of that time as devoid of any rebellion because perhaps, we had nothing to fight for. There were no debates on social issues save some classroom discussion during humanities classes but limited to an extent. Nobody went overboard with literary quotes or magazine articles apart from that which included architecture. It was such a closed shell atmosphere that it reeked a stale whiff of air. May be our priorities were different. Studying in a professional college that demanded a hefty schedule left no time for political debates and stand on social issues.
Coming back from my reverie, I was reading a bit into the history of sedition law and some famous examples from the Indian Freedom struggle. I was surprised to read that Indian Nationalists were booked under Rajdroha (people against British Government) and Deshdroha (Government against Indian people). Aren't the definitions interesting here? If I ask for my rights whilst going against the government opinions, I am an anti-national, but if I fight against those the government incites me to perpetrate violence, I will be a true nationalist. I am still reading and searching answers for my own questions. Brandishing patriotism on one's sleeve has become a necessity to pass as a true citizen of our motherland and you cannot deny doing it. For in doing so, you go against your very nation that educates you, gives you an identity and also accommodates you for a lifetime on its soil. We cannot play by gender and identity politics for long since now we have to justify why boys and girls aged 30 pursuing a Ph.D education are eating the tax payer's money? Shouldn't we all stop our education after turning 25 since it will save a precious 5 years' worth of the common citizen aka taxpayer's money? We know politicians don't pay taxes. They invest wisely. No student ought to take part in politics while they are studying in universities too. Never mind, if the current lot within the regime have themselves risen through student politics in their heydays. Yes, we must ignore such little details now. Those were different times. Now we must invest our student energy into the making of India, condensing their passage way within the national boundaries, going back to purer channels of education and citizen well-being. The future is all our past, rolled into one giant civilization genius. Why then search for the mockingbird that imitates in the west when we have our own eastern cuckoo who voices the seasonal change with such vigour?!
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