"Something Has Certainly Changed But It's Not Me"

When Union ministers are forced to make snide comments about a student leader in Parliament and outside, there can be little doubt that the student is seen as a formidable threat. Blindly adored by some and ­a bete noire to others, Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested on the charge of sedition and ­released on a conditional interim bail, doesn’t disappoint at all, even as he admits to being tired of replying to the same questions over and over. Excerpts from a conversation he had with Anoo Bhuyan:

How did it feel to find hundreds of people commenting on you while you had no chance to respond?

One day I saw an article by Kuldip Nayar and it was all in favour of JNU and me, but the headline had made it seem otherwise. I searched the entire article for that line and didn’t find it. I wonder how many people had read the entire thing before making up their minds. Another channel asked me if I raised slogans. I said yes. Then they ran it as if I was admitting to raising anti-national slogans, but didn’t bother to clarify if the slogans were on social issues which I had previously spoken about. Eventually the turnaround came when some channels began to talk about the videos being doctored. Sud­denly the atmosphere changed. Even so, it was quite funny how people were still making connections between me and Afzal Guru having been in the same cell, or me asking for cigarettes from Umar. The jail staff also used to laugh at these rumours with me. There was no Zee News so I never got to watch it but India News was there and I got to watch that.

How do you view the cases of sedition against you, Umar Khalid and others ?

I witnessed, first-hand, how an average student can be targeted by this powerful government the moment s/he appears to be a threat. I am certain now that this is how young men are picked up across the country and branded as terrorists. We keep hearing about this happening to Muslims. You must have heard of Moha­mmed Amir Khan, who was recently ­released after 14 years in jail. When he told me about his time in jail, I couldn’t really comprehend it. Now I can.

Did the hostility ever upset you?

Well, people were asking why I was wearing a nice jacket when I was released from jail or why I was driving out in a car after I was released and how I could afford prominent lawyers. But they didn’t know that the police gave me that jacket and that the car belonged to a professor or that the lawyers had appeared on their own!

There is the argument that universities are subsidised by the state and should be kept out of politics. What are your thoughts on that?

What we give to the poor are called subsidies but what we give to the rich is known as incentive. The government gives thousands of crores in bailout packages to corporations. On other hand, a university budget is usually much smaller in scale. Yet people whine about money being wasted. Even if a few people have seemed to have gone out of line, is it appropriate to ask for the university to be shut down?

But there are people who argue that students and researchers have no business to engage in politics on the campus. They fail to comprehend it.

Why exactly should scholars not be critical? If they are not critical, what’s the meaning of their education? If they are critical, they must voice it. If they voice it, the system will clamp down on them, maybe send them to jail. And if you are going to jail anyway, you might at least have the satisfaction of having fought for what you believe to be right. At JNU, there are 8,000 students and 80 per cent of them come from modest milieus. Shouldn’t their future change? They talk about being a chaiwallah and about farmers but why is there no interest in improving their lot? And why can’t researchers talk and discuss things anymore?

People are raising the issue of soldiers risking their life for the nation while students complain against it.

I find this binary between jawan and kisan dangerous. I respect soldiers but that doesn’t mean what the farmers do for the country is less valuable. In the name of the jawan, the very essence of ­democracy, which is the freedom of our speech, is being curbed.

How did your experience of being ass­aulted in court change your perception of the police?

Police constables come from families like mine, they are also the children of people who are not powerful. They are also struggling. We need police reforms. You know, I used to talk to them about this sometimes. Some have failed badly but others did try to protect me. The ones who failed, maybe it would have been different if I had the opportunity to interact with them before.

The ones who spent time with me got close to me. They would comfort me, “we are your elder brothers. If anything has to happen, it will happen to us first and then you.” So how can I say they are all bad? The police is also a very hierarchical organisation. When people at the top were so vicious, what was there to be done? I can understand their weakness and therefore I harbour no antagonism for them.

Was the time you spent in jail in any way a disorienting experience?

During the past few years, we have come out on so many issues. We knew the pol­ice would come for us. But I didn’t think they would call me a terrorist. Also, my subject is sociology. Civilisations have always had the idea of jail. Are you asking me if I became more or less civilised by going to jail? My politics hasn’t got harder. It’s just that I had a perspective on the world. And now I have an add-on practical experience. The problems are far worse than what I had known or thought before. That’s what I learned.

Were you hopeful throughout this process or did you often feel hopeless?

I was very hopeful. I had only one bad day—when I was attacked. Throughout this ordeal, I saw police, lawyers, others, who were opposing me, begin to understand the situation and then support me. The police, after seeing the videos and not finding me in it, said, “Come on, let’s have tea together, Kanhaiya.” People with vitriol or confusion were turning supportive. There was no way I could feel hopeless. I am not a supporter of Afzal Guru. But in this process, I understood how the system makes people support agendas and who actively turns them into supporters. This reign of RSS is tyr­annical. What we are facing is not a campaign against just JNU or myself. It’s against the Constitution and the institution of democracy. It makes me despair.

Do you fear that your stint in jail and the conditional bail on which you were released will leave lasting scars?

I am not anti-national. What I was never supposed to say earlier, I don’t plan on saying even now. What I am allowed to say, I will say and won’t be stopped. And those who are really anti-national, you can’t stop them from saying anti-national things anyway. It is not my aim to do ­anything anti-national. This is a guideline for every citizen. So obviously I won’t be doing anything anti-national. Sec­ondly, the bail asks me to be responsible for others. But even in the past when I was able to stop people from going against the Constitution, I would.

Do you think it would be possible for you to remain just a student or just a student leader after this?

I still see myself as a student but I can’t decide how people will choose to see me from the outside. Even now my ambition is to be a teacher. I want to open a school in a village. I’ll need to earn money so I plan on lecturing in some college first. The meaning of education has changed—it’s become about just taking a degree, whether people are interested or not. It’s become a matter of getting a job. The apa­thy is appalling. But if people are still coming to interview me, it makes me feel like something has changed.

Yet, if I do anything wrong now it won’t be forgiven as a mistake but be viewed as my cunning. But even now, I don’t think much of myself. Now people are talking about me but that will soon come to an end hopefully. I am not interested in any one political party. I am interested in saving democratic values and stopping fascism. If there’s a movement or campaign for this, that will take this awareness to villages, I’ll be right in front. I’ll be part of a movement that spreads awareness on democracy, patriotism and goes from village to village.

If I have to sacrifice my academic career for all of this, I won’t mind. But I am not ­interested in petty politics or publicity.