#JNUStories no. 09. Filthy face of left academia.

Few months ago, a horrible incident happened in the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus which lies in the heart of the capital of India. This story is about a professor of ROP community. He has done his Ph.d in sociology from JNU. He was a faculty in Jamia Milia Islamia before joining JNU sociology centre. he was accused by his student of sexual harassment. The girl is persuing her m.phil from centre for social systems under the guidance of this professor. He asked her to meet him in his Flat to discuss the course work around mid-night. The girl belongs to a neighbouring country with no local guardian in India. She could not understand the necessity of discussing course work at night but still she trusted her professor. She went to meet him post dinner. This man forced himself on her and sodomised her in his house. She filed a sexual harassment complaint against him in GSCASH (Gender sensitisation committee against sexual harrassment). She abandoned her studies midstream and returned back to her country. He was suspended few months back and the suspension continues till date. Prima facie, he was found guilty and JNU administration is planning to terminate his job.

The above paragraph is not the main story. It is an incident that demanded for fair enquiry and exposure of that rapist. The main story is the hypocrisy of the left intelligentsia which goes to any extent to protect its brotherhood. The rapist himself is a cardholder of CPI-ML. The same party Kavita Krishnan belongs to. She runs an organisation called AIPWA (All India Progressive Women's Asssociation). She knows about the incident very well. JNU teachers community is silent on this issue as it puts the left brigade under bad light. The woman who shouts daily on national television about women issues is not only silent but hands in gloves with a gang of few JNU teachers who are trying to save this man. Left gang does not want to antagonise the ROP vote bank and this must be a reason, they are not taking any action against the culprit. Same Kavita Krishnan was leading a mob of thousand of people at Raisina hills to oppose against Nirbhaya rape case but this case is not grave enough for her. Even media which is full of journalists who have studied in JNU, is silent. No news paper has covered the story and no television channel has given a single minute to this criminal act.

The same set of teachers who are protecting this professor are also harassing a dalit student and a girl student by accusing them of doing havan and reciting mantras in their hostel room. Is JNU not part of India where every citizen has fundamental right to follow and practice his/her religion?

The left academic gang is trying to save this commie rapist by hushhushing the news and it won't be surprising if he ends up working for another university as no legal action is going to be taken.

If an ordinary criminal rapes a woman, he shall end up in jail for several years. Then why a professor should be given soft treatment by suspending him or terminating him from his job. This issue seems like a déja vu of the Tarun Tejpal incident. 

Do the commies have got a divine right to commit any crime and remain untouched from the indian legal system?

Can we expect a fair trial and proper punishment to this man. If the indian government pursues this case, they shall be able to get the name and all other details from GSCASH of JNU.

JNU Teachers commmunity should be ashamed that they are protecting a rapist for the sake of their sick ideology. How can they be torelant towards such inhumane acts. The hegemony of left to commit any crime and walk free is getting challenged and this is the reason the whole intolrance tamasha is going on.

Isabelle's Indian connection.

It is a story of 2004. It was my second year of graduation in JNU. I used to work as tour leader to cover my expenses. My job was to travel around several cities with French speaking Europeans, to take care of them and to act as French interpreter.

I was assigned a group of nine French citizens as they had to visit Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and Udaipur. As informed by the company staff, I had to meet them at Hotel Imperial situated at Jan path, New Delhi. Our Company representative introduced me to the group and left us to continue the tour. The group had four couples and one single lady, her name was Isabelle. As usual, I gave a small introduction and explained dos and don'ts before commencing the itinerary of eleven days.

we were indulging in small chitchat to make ourselves comfortable. While I was talking to her, She made a remark that the Hotel was 'magnifique'. Imperial Hotel is one of the most beautiful Hotels available in Delhi. I replied without much thought, 'pas comme vous', Not as beautiful as you.

This small remark of mine created a spark in her beautiful eyes. She blushed and thanked me for the compliment. It made me realize that an honest compliment can make a woman blush at any age. she was joyous for the day. We spent eleven days together and the group treated me like a boss. I would give them instructions and they would follow it verbatim. While we would travel from one city to another city, the journey was spent by singing songs and cracking jokes. By end of the trip, all those people who had never met before, we felt like a big family.

I was taking particular care of Isabelle as she was single in the group. As you may have noticed the stairs of Indian Monuments, how scary the steps are. She would climb each of those steps by holding my arms. Isabelle and I developed an emotional bonding. She would tell me how she had one son who had died and she was living a life of solitude. She would pour out stories of her life, she would even tell me about her love affairs when she was young. Her husband had died in World War II.

When we finished the tour and took flight back from Udaipur to Delhi, I was sitting next to Isabelle and out of affection, she was holding my arms and sleeping with her head resting on my shoulder. I could not move for the duration of the journey fearing that it may disturb her sleep.

when we reached Delhi Airport, the group had one day to relax before taking flight to Lyon. the first thing that she did was to make a phone call to the travel company and she requested them for my presence till their Airport departure. Isabelle was not a woman who would take No as an answer. She had already called our Swiss Travel agent for making the arrangement.

I spent full day with her, sitting next to the swimming pool at Imperial Hotel. We talked about random subjects. In the evening, I took the group for dinner at Chor-Bizarre restaurant in Old Delhi which is famous for its Kashmiri cuisine. Post dinner, I dropped them at the airport. She hugged me before entering the gates and showered me with many sweet kisses on my face. I was overwhelmed and we cried for a small moment. It felt like I was in arms of my grand mother I had no memory of.

They reached Lyon next day. She emailed me about her safe arrival. we remained in touch for almost two years through emails. She often told me to come to France to meet her as she could not travel anymore and I would give excuses about my incomplete studies. I received her last email in December 2006. I wrote two different mails to wish her for Christmas and New Year but I did not get any reply. I believe she forgot the password of her email id due to her old age.

This is the first part of the series of stories under hashtag #NavigatorStories.

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DEATH vs DIGNITY

Whenever “Sati” is discussed, the first thought that comes to mind is of an obsolete custom in which women chose to or were expected to jump into the funeral pyres of their husbands.

Mata Sati is a reincarnation of Goddess Shakti and also known as Dakshayeni, the youngest daughter of Daksha the son of Brahma. She fell in love with Lord Shiva and married him against her father's will. She immolated herself at a Yagna hosted by Daksha when Daksha insulted Shiva unjustly. One can find a temple dedicated to this story near Haridwar called Daksheshwar Mahadev.

Vedas do not mention "Sati Pratha" nor do the Dharmasutras or Upanishads talk about it which obviously means that it wasn't prescribed by Vedic texts. The earliest mention of Sati is in Mahabharat. Madri the second wife of Pandu committed Sati. But in her case the act stemmed from a strong sense of guilt for being responsible for her husband’s death than the tradition.

The practice of Sati was mostly associated with the Brahmins and Kshatriyas which eventually trickled down as is the case with most social evils. It was reported mostly from Rajputana, Awadh, Madhya Pradesh and Bengal for a variety of social reasons.

Still, Sati was an uncommon practice followed by a handful of royal families. But it became a regular practice after the Islamic invasions began. The brute force of these invasions was mostly borne by North-Western India and it had impact on social customs in these places. In a bid to save their women from dishonor & servitude, families started forcing widows to commit Sati.

“Sati Pratha” was highly romanticized amongst the Rajputs who till date remain amongst the biggest worshippers of such 'chaste' women and also built a lot of commemorative temples or marked stones at their cremation sites which were frequented by people wanting “Darshan”. Down South, Sati was a rarity which was observed by very few families.

It took strong effort from social reformers to wipe out Sati especially since people had begun to revere it. 

“Jauhar” was a culturally similar practice to Sati and emerged around the same time that the islamic invasion of India began. It was mostly limited to the Rajputana kingdoms though there have been a few isolated incidents down South and elsewhere.

Jauhar is derived from two Sanskrit words, Jiv meaning "life" and Har meaning "defeat". The difference between Sati and Jauhar (Saka) is while the former is practiced by widows only; the latter was committed by both men and women during war time.

The process involved the self-immolation of the royal women and young children to avoid being captured by the invaders in the face of imminent defeat. One of the reasons that it started was because Hindu kingdoms could not deal with the barbarity of the Islamic hordes and on occasions when a few Rajput kings had surrendered, their entire families had been slaughtered and women enslaved for sexual barbarity. Hence they decided to follow Jauhar to prevent capture and dishonour to the clan.

The earliest recorded instance of Jauhar happened in the era of Alexander and the people were most likely Agnikula Kshatriyas who having lost to the Macedonians committed Jauhar rather than face servitude.

Ideally Jauhar would take place in the night amidst Vedic chants; women dressed in their bridal finery would jump into huge pyres made for them along with their young children to commit suicide. The next morning, the men would follow this sacrifice by carrying out “Saka” in which they would wear saffron clothes after taking a bath and smear the ashes of their wives and children on their forehead and put a Tulsi leaf in their mouth and head out to war. The men would fight till death avoiding capture, to annihilate or get annihilated.

There are numerous instances of Jauhar on record starting from the times of Alauddin Khilji  Tughlaq. the Jauhar of Rani Padmini of Chittor is very famous & has inspired a lot of folklore in Rajasthan. It was after her brave act that suicide became something of a “virtue”. There have been 3 instances of Jauhar at Chittor & various across Rajasthan but it wasn’t restricted to the Rajputana only. There have been a few incidents towards the South also to avoid capture and enslavement. One can still find the vermilion smeared hand imprints of the women who committed Jauhar at Chittor Fort.

The bravado of these women who would readily jump into a pyre along with their young children gives me goosebumps. While some may call it a "glorified suicide", for me it remains as the final act of defiance against dishonourable invaders. Fact that these women chose a dignified death is thought provoking and it always left the enemy camp impressed, be it the Macedonians or the Muslims.

Loss in battle was often followed by the plundering of forts and massacre of the civilians. Akbar  the "Great" massacred 30000 innocent residents of Chittor after defeating them. Temples were destroyed and idolaters were beheaded or forced to convert to the “true faith”. The Hindus were made to pay the mandatory “zaziya” tax for being infidels. The people who got captured faced a different hell, quite similar to the methods that the modern ISIS follows in treating Yezidis and other prisoners.

The captured women were raped/enslaved or sent off to be sold in the Middle Eastern slave markets as all of them were treated as property irrespective of whether they were married or single. Muslims had the sanctions for all of these acts in the Quran which allows Slavery, sexual abuse, mutilation of POW’s (4.3, 4.24, 23.6, 23.50, 70.30). The captured men were usually castrated before being sold and sometimes used as guards for Harem's.

Point to be noted is that intellectuals might claim that ISIS isn’t Islamic but the truth remains that they follow the same methods which their ancestors i.e the Mughals etc used centuries back. The beheading of infidels and the enslavement of their women which are distributed amongst their men as spoils of war is not at all different from what happened in our country.

The most recent example of such barbarity against Hindus was at the time of partition where trains from what wasn’t yet Pakistan started arriving with the mutilated bodies of Hindus and Sikhs trying to cross the border back into India. Women were usually dragged off of these trains to be raped and tortured by the Muslim attackers. In many cases when attacked, fathers/husbands or brothers would kill the women of their families to protect their dignity. The women who were caught were sold to brothels, some were forced to convert and get married to their rapists. Only the lucky ones would die a quick death.

Unfortunately our history texts don’t do justice to the tortures that were meted out to the Hindus to keep up the secular facade of our society. While we continue to suffer from Islamic influences in our social system, like the “Ghunghat (veil) system” in the North.

The Irony is such that a lot of us don’t know about these historical incidents and continue to blame the Hindus but the truth remains that our Vedic social structure started unravelling with the advent of Islam in India. Most of us choose to ignore the suffering & sacrifices of our ancestors & coincidentally, history is repeating itself with the advent of ISIS today.

Yagyaseni likes to tweet about social issues. she is a dog lover and she can be followed on twitter by clicking here. 

Modi's package: Bribe or Indemnity.

Las Vegas makes an average of 90 billion dollars per year with 150,000 hotel rooms with 85 percent occupancy throughout the year. How was this city built? labourers working for Hoover dam would spend their free time gambling. Small gambling dens opened in Las Vegas to serve them. By 1935, Hoover Dam was completed and thirsty soil of Nevada could get soaked in the water of Colorado River and huge business empires were built with regular supply of electricity and water.

After devastating Floods in Bihar in 1954, Second dam similar to Hoover dam was to be built by India to protect the fertile plains of Bihar from constant risk of flooding by Kosi River. Suitable location for Kosi Dam lies in Nepal and high handed treatment by Nehru or economic embargo of Nepal by Rajeev Gandhi did force Nepalese rulers to keep this project awaited till now. 73% land of Bihar is under constant threat of flood as it is plain land with all the rivers originating in Nepal. While Kosi Dam building was being planned, Nehru took abrupt decision to shift the funds for construction of Bhakra dam. There could be many reasons behind this decision.

He may have wanted to compensate Punjab for its division. Punjabi lobby may have affected the decision of Central Government. If Koshi Dam had been built, it would be in Nepal technically and Nehru could not boast of it as "India's modern temples" in his own words or he could not build his goliath height statue at the entry gate as he built at Bhakra dam. May be because of his anger against Bihar for 1947 riots when Bihar was the only place where Muslims were at receiving end, or may be because of his ego tussle with Bihar CM Krishna Singh. There can be many speculations but end result is that Bihar remained far below in the priority list of Congress.

Even British penalised Bihar for having a defiant approach towards their Government. While they used Bihari labour force around the world for agriculture. The reason many countries like Mauritius and Fiji have bhojpuri as its second language. Still British never invested money for development of Bihar or for basic amenities like health and education.

At present, average per capita income of Punjab is 4 times higher than Bihar. If you survey the farms of Punjab, majority of the farm labourers come from Bihar. When NREGA income stopped labour migration to Punjab, Labour shortage in punjab was a common news in papers and punjabi farmers would offer free train ticket, higher wages etc to lure them to Punjab. 
An article written by ex deputy chief of Planning Commission Mr. N.K Singh shows more light to the issue of Step Motherly behaviour of Centre towards Bihar. you can read it here.

When Bihar was still not divided, it was one of biggest producers of minerals and coal which was transported to different cities of India. While cheaper raw material at source  and cheap labour force could help establish factories in Bihar and Jharkhand and give leverage to compete with States having upper hand because of access to seaports etc as they could easily earn revenue through import and export.  

In 1948, the then Finance Minister T.T Krishnamachari introduced Freight Equalization policy. Under this policy, basic raw materials were made available at the same price across the nation. The stated objective of this policy was to encourage development nationwide. But when have good intentions trumped market realities! This policy made sure that industries found no incentives whatsoever to invest in mineral rich but extremely poor states like Bihar. It subsidized the cost of transporting raw materials and thus nullified the advantage of Bihar and other such states.

In words of Arnab Mukherji and Anjan Mukherji,(1) "The asymmetry was acute, since there were no reciprocal benefits in terms of either industrial or agricultural goods and services that Bihar might have needed but did not have. There was no parallel industrial incentive given for capital to enter Bihar either. In the process, for a period slightly longer than four decades, the policy environment directly hurt industrialization and growth possibilities in Bihar and other mineral-rich states and created the paradox of a mineral-rich state also being among the poorest in incomes."

This policy was totally biased and still our central leaders drunk with socialism could not raise finger against it. No compensation was ever paid to balance this gap. While Bihar could have many factories but this policy ensured the decline of Bihar.

As this table shows, Bihar was never allocated the amount of money as per projected plan allocation on basis of national average. It has been compared with Punjab which is also a land locked state with agricultural economy. The source of this table is : Central Planned Inequality by Mohan Guruswamy which you can read here.

Another major factor for backwardness of Bihar was volatile political situation. Congress high command never allowed any CM to last for 5 years after 1961. From year 1961 to 1990, in 29 years there were twenty three chief ministers and 5 presidential rule. Due to this highhandedness of Congress, socialist parties formed by leaders who were output of JP movement gained power and Laloo Yadav became chief Minister. By his second term, he had become ruthless. He formed his own party and won elections after elections with help of Gundaraj and MY equation. If a stable Government was allowed to rule Bihar, it would be a different   story.

Bihari labour force worked in Punjabi farms for several hours under effect of opium added in the tea by the Punjabi landlords to get more work and many would die or end up on sick bed for years. After the rise of BJP, Bihari voters got another option and alliance of JDU and BJP won handsomely. But the period when Bihar was being ruled by NDA, India was being ruled by Congress led UPA. They had no interest in Bihar as Congress has negligible presence in Bihar. It is a Congress mukt state in true sense. Nitish Kumar dumped BJP because of miscalculation that Modi won't be able to win. Nitish did not want to disturb his Muslim vote that he had nurtured for a long time.

"Centrally Planned Inequality:  - Centrally Planned Inequality: Before liberalization, center through Planning Commission was the main engine of economic growth in India. As we will see the data, Planning Commission discriminated among states in granting outlays and funds. As Dharma Kumar succinctly summarize it, "the financing and assistance given by the central government over the first three plans were ad hoc and based on the need of ongoing schemes, many of which were initiated by the central govt. In fact, much of the distribution of resources continued in the line with the same sharing norms that existed before independence; the colonial past institutionalized inequality and uneven regional development, and the immediate post-independence period only accentuated it further, much to the detriment of Bihar"source: Chapter 12 "The Fiscal System" of book "The Cambridge Economic History of India Vol 2" by Dharma Kumar

Recently Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a package of 125,000 crores for development of Bihar. It created unease in few people from other developed states with complains of unnecessary favour for Bihar. This state has got most fertile Gangetic plane but not of use because of regular flood fear, It has potential to become the food bowl of India. With such fertile land and hard working labour force, Bihar can produce 6 crops a year and same farmers who are forced to become rickshaw pullers in Delhi and die of tuberculosis, they can afford a good life too. This amount is very small if compared to the budget difference of last 60 years and losses due to freight equalisation policy. 

If Koshi Dam project had not been shelved, Bihar would serve as backbone of India. Talent pool of Bihar is strong to get big margin of seats in IITs, UPSC and other engineering colleges. If BJP wins, this will be the first stable government which will be  in Centre too. It will help change the face of Bihar. It is most important to note that package announced by our PM is not an electoral bribe but a long awaited reparation for all the wrongs that Bihar faced. It is time to help this state get its share of honour, the state which gave birth to religions, the state which gave great emperors like Ashoka and Chandragupta Maurya. The state of Kautilya. Time has come to regain the lost glory.

Hope is one thing Biharis have never abandoned.

Kill Theory and Bihar.

In a 2009 Hollywood Movie 'Kill Theory',a psychopath creates a situation for few close friends that they end up killing each other to  prove the theory of survival of the fittest. The same drama was being played long before this film was produced in a place thousands of miles away from Hollywood. That Place was Bihar.

Last week, there was a report by Cobrapost related to Ranvir Sena which gave insight into how politicians supported it. The timing of this expose is suspicious as this was planted to break the social harmony by scratching the old wounds and help anti BJP alliance. But it also reminded of the future, if Lalu Yadav wins this time, a major class war is waiting to happen in Bihar. 

And this time, Laloo shall be even more brutal to break the opposition against him. These attacks will not even be reported in our media as this is what many psychopaths sitting on that high table want. Class war amongst Hindus makes secularati feel better as they believe divided Hindus are good for India as it helps avoid Hindu majoritarian state of their imagination. Christian missionaries use this to grab opportunity of conversion. Church-Maoist links are well documented.

A state in India which was always out of favour of the kings sitting on the throne of Delhi because of its defiant nature and it had to pay for it by remaining backward thanks to criminal negligence of Leaders of India. A state with an agrarian economy where half of the Bihar is affected by Flood and half of the Bihar is affected by drought. Any agrarian society creates two classes of people. Either you are a landowner or a farm laborer. A farmer never gets good price for his crop as major share is earned by hoarders and middlemen. But as far as landlords are concerned, they have to face the grudge of laborers because of their paltry wages. No government support or other job opportunities ensures that farmers never use modern and economical farming techniques to keep their cost of production low. This system works since centuries with allegations of exploitation which were always blamed on landlords even when British would charge heavy taxes on landlords to fill their coffers.

In Early eighties, Maoist movement began to spring up in pockets around India. They are a very strong force in few states which requires a whole army of Paramilitary forces to fight them with modern weapons, helicopters etc and still they are prospering by killing policemen, collecting levy from every person with a little money in pocket and holding kangaroo courts for punishing police informants.

Somewhere in the world, A gang of psychopaths sitting in their comfortable sofa decided to push maoist agenda in India. Indian intelligentsia drunk on marxist literature chose to be their foot soldiers. Poor adivasis and Dalits were recruited to fight the gun battles. 

Now we return to Bihar, how it affected the whole populace of this state, the ruler of Bihar forgot his Raj Dharma and decided to use maoist movement for his own political agenda. More the Maoists would harass the landlords, more he would raise the pitch of social justice. Turning two classes of the society against each other was helping Laloo Yadav rule Bihar with impunity. The landlords were being killed or their crops stolen by force or they would find a red flag in their farmland one day and that would mean that their land was gone. An average apartment in Mumbai may cost enough for 10 landlords to sell all of their land and even after that, they won't be able to buy that urban property. Land prices are worth nothing and average holding of a so called landlord is not more than an area of a football field which is always at risk of getting drowned under the flood water.

As maoist harassment got serious day by day, many farmers who were at the receiving end, they had no place to go for justice. Police won't file an FIR, Political leadership would do open sloganeering of killing the upper caste farmers and opposition was running for its own life. People would do night duty at house roof with country made guns to protect their villages from maoist attacks and random deaths continued. Figuring out the caste in a public place was a serious risk and you could die because of it. This gave birth to a very interesting social change. A whole generation of Biharis can be found with their official names with no surname which can hint to their caste. Kumar is the most common surname.

It would often happen that there would be murder of someone in the night and next day hundreds of policemen would come to the village looking for the culprits. They won't find the men so the wooden butts of their guns would be used to hit the women in places no one can describe. One old woman was thrashed so brutally that she died but before dying she sent her broken bangles to her son. The resentment boiled up to the extent, people who were at receiving end of maoists decided to die fighting in place of being lined up and shot by a firing squad. Youth was anyway jobless so people started gathering guns and self defense became the key word.

But as it was shown in the movie Kill Theory, the real culprit were not on the front of the battle, they were sitting in their cosy homes in Delhi or somewhere else sipping coffee which a common villager of Bihar would have never tasted.. Maoist foot soldiers would attack at night, mingle in the crowd by day and no police investigation would happen. As it has always happened, when state fails to deliver justice to the people, they take law in their own hands and these hands are not trained to reach the culprit, they kill randomly.

In this process, several private militias were formed in which Ranveer Sena got the maximum press coverage. After mass murder of landowners, retaliation happened and it was so brutal even the supporters of retaliation squirmed with pain. There was no proof of association of those Dalits killed in the retaliatory attack and even when FIRs were filed, random names were given in absence of any evidence. The reason these prosecutions failed to punish anybody from both sides. 
 
Lalu Yadav had no intention to stop these attacks as it suited his politics very well. He was in touch with both sides and making fight each other so that many upper caste landowners would abandon their land for peanuts and migrate to Delhi, Kolkata, Assam and where not. Lalu's henchmen would grab that land. Under the garb of Maoism, Lalu was making his foothold stronger. He knew peace in the society would force him to deliver prosperity and jobs which would go against his politics.

Lalu Yadav was not the only psychopath who was running this puppet show in which one puppet was killing another puppet. But he was sharing the table and he forced the people who were living peacefully for centuries to become enemies.Many of us find fault of Ranvir Sena for the massacres, Many of us support Ranvir Sena and justify its brutal acts because of the simple reason that they did not start this class war. Many of us would also blame those People who joined maoist forces and decided to kill people at night at orders of maoist leadership.  The interview of Brahmeshwar Mukhiya gives an interesting insight of that period. Now the question is- Are they the real culprit?

Or they were similar to the characters of Kill Theory who were best friends and one day they had to kill each other for the sake of their own survival. Should we punish the psychopath Puppeteer or those people who were recruited to fight for maoist ideas and their role was nothing more than cannon fodder or those Militias who would get access to people's sympathy and young blood to commit those barbarous crimes. And this time, It is in the hand of Biharis if they want to be the puppets killing each other or they want to be responsible citizens contributing to our Nation's development. 

Think over it!!

To read about the general law and order situation of Bihar you can read this post http://aimless-walker.blogspot.com/2013/03/bihar-untold-story.html

You can follow me on twitter by clicking here.

Building ABVP in JNU - The Long Struggle.

It was in early eighties when a RSS Pracharak began to visit JNU campus on regular basis. He befriended a student who was quite influenced by the communist ideology. Dominance of communist ideology in JNU campus deservedly earned it the sobriquet – Kremlin on the bank of river Yamuna.

The RSS Pracharak and his friend began to spend evenings discussing and defending their ideological beliefs. Those were the times when JNU used to be a place where presence of a RSS flag-bearer was equivalent to being a Jew in Nazi Germany. The RSS man continued his evening chats with his communist friend, a rare JNU student who didn't mix ideology and human relationship.

One day the student invited the RSS pracharak for dinner in his hostel. To the shock of RSS man and his friend, everybody eating there chose to leave the table. This was a scene directly from a feudal village and totally unexpected in an University which is in the heart of India’s capital and claims to be socially progressive. The friend of RSS man was so disgusted with this hypocrisy that he took a vow to fight against the communists. He became one of the first vocal voices of ABVP in JNU.

Many high profile RSS leaders started to visit the university and most of their meetings would be held in small 8X12 hostel rooms. ABVP created an alternative space. Very basic steps, like differentiating themselves from the ‘attire’ of JNU students, were attempted. Given that sporting a dirty Kurta, along with torn jeans and slippers, became the trademark of any JNU student, ABVP cadres ensured that they would always tuck their shirts, turn up in a sartorially pleasing manner, and would never smoke or drink in public.

JNU had many students who yearned to celebrate national festivals but they hesitated as no organization was there to make the first move. Left wingers mourned India’s Independence Day as a black day. In spite of JNU having a huge Bengali population, Durga Puja celebration was treated as communal. Bengali students would go to Chitaranjan Park to celebrate the festival but they would wipe the tilak before entering the campus. ABVP ensured that all these festivals were celebrated. Durga Puja Samiti was formed which was in itself a very long battle as Puja started in a room at Periyar hostel. Now the times have changed as even AISA-SFI leaders can be seen taking prasad at Pooja Pandal where hundreds of students gather for evening aarti.

As Parishad evolved in the campus, Left used same modus operandi, tried and tested in Bengal and Kerala, to suppress it. The techniques included political violence, social boycott, threats to ruin the career, public humiliation, character assassination, wrath of prejudiced professors and vicious rumor mongering about Parishad leaders mainly among girl students.

Keeping this in mind, ABVP started to nurture many women student leaders, but it faced massive resistance from the leftist forces. They would do weird things like calling the parents of the girl student, putting peer pressure in the girl’s hostel and if she would not give up, every form of intimidation was used. All this was done to stop the growth of ABVP in the University campus

After arrival of ABVP in the campus, the nationalist movement took proper shape and every communist act were spiritedly challenged.Leftist forces used to revel in inviting Kashmiri extremists, extending open support to Naxal armed struggle, opposing economic policies which would help India in long run, supporting Chinese government, and providing a platform for Pakistani elite to ridicule India. One such incident had happened when a Pakistani poet was bad mouthing about India and an Army personnel was present there. He opposed what he perceived to be a treacherous act and instead of letting him have his say, the Army man was badly beaten by the leftist goons.

Parishad activists were often manhandled by communist thugs to demoralize them. Being weak in numbers, ABVP had to lick its wounds and remain silent. Best example of such communist thuggery can be seen in Kerala where ABVP leaders are killed without any fear of law. By mid-nineties, ABVP emerged stronger and cadre base grew. A big chunk of students from Sainik school tilaiya cleared JNU entrance exams. This is the time when ABVP could stop the violence of left groups by showing numerical strength and this is how ABVP activists stopped being apologetic about their ideology. Continuous intimidation by left wing started to get strong retaliation and left wing recognized hesitantly that ABVP was going to stay in the Campus.

ABVP began to win few school level councilor seats and the tally kept growing. By early nineties, ABVP was already winning union seats except JNUSU president post. Piyush Mishra could not win the President seat only by two votes. Oriya community produced many Parishad leaders and Oriya students would vote across ideological lines for any Oriya candidate. Many students from Orissa were elected on different union posts on ABVP ticket. Bihar and UP students were strongly challenging Left by giving a huge cadre support to Parishad. RSS had already started to run two Shakhas in JNU campus and several students were participating in these Shakhas.

Prominent RSS officials visited JNU every year on Guru Dakshina Karyakram and no event or activity, which provided platform to subversive elements, went unchallenged.

SFI used to be strong with its Bengali support. AISF served as a lobby group for Muslim community in JNU campus. AISA espoused far left ideology as it was the student wing of CPI (ML). It gained popularity after its Leader Chandra Shekhar, was killed by RJD MP Syed Shahabuddin. AISA got a martyr in Chandu.

There were few other student  organizations like DSU and PSU which used to talk openly of armed struggle against Indian state. JNU has provided a veritable supply chain of Maoist and communist leaders. The most prominent JNU alumni include Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury and Baburam Bhattarai. Bhattarai was one of the top two maoist leaders who overthrew the nepalese Kingdom.

As the ABVP got stronger, and left parties started to lose seats, they were forced to unite and coalitions were formed. SFI and AISF chose to contest together on seat sharing basis in 1996 when ABVP won 3 central panel seats for the first time and ABVP presidential candidate Pushkar Mishra lost by only four votes. in 2000, Sandeep Mahapatra won the JNUSU president seat on ABVP ticket. By this victory of one vote, the discourse of JNU changed forever. Campus, which used to debate on several interpretations of left ideology, was now divided into distinct ideological compartments –  the left and the right.

2002 was also a landmark year in JNU history as ABVP invited Shri Ashok Singhal of Vishwa Hindu Parishad for the Guru Dakshina Karyakram and more than 600 cadres participated in the event. Whole leftist student community joined together to protest his visit. ABVP had by now decisively forced the left to squeeze itself into a limited space.

JNU has a history of not allowing Indian politicians in the campus. The list of such leaders is long. Indira Gandhi was not allowed to enter JNU campus, Lal Krishna Advani was stopped at JNU gate. But it has also tradition of inviting Naxal leaders in post dinner mess meetings. When Parishad began to protest the lectures of those, who are identified with subversive forces working against the unity of India, Left wing cried foul and the prime logic was ‘freedom of expression’. Arundhati Roy was shouted down when she told that Indian Army is army of rapists. The same left which had not allowed even Indira Gandhi who was PM of India, to use her freedom of expression was advocating for it. Such is the communist hypocrisy. AISA JNUSU president refused to give a bouquet to APJ Abdul Kalam when he visited JNU.

ManMohan Singh, who is professor emeritus in JNU economics department, was shown black flag as he supposedly represented the state, against which these communists want to have an armed struggle. Left’s shocking hypocrisy was on display when Sitaram Yechury denied that Chinese students were brutally suppressed in Tiananmen Square and called it a capitalist propaganda. ABVP ensured that many top nationalist leaders including Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Govindacharya and others were invited to JNU for public talks and these programs always attracted huge gathering.

SFI and AISF were already contesting together but  due to dissension within ABVP in 2003, it stood divided. A rebel group announced the formation of a breakaway unit and ABVP State unit could not handle the situation well. Several reasons explained this divide. Sangathan Mantri, who was an appointee of RSS, was not as ideologically sound as the students of JNU. ABVP had most of its cadre base from foreign language school as they were young and energetic but most of the leaders came from history and International studies departments.

JNU history department professors rule the roost in NCERT history books but few students were challenging these professors in their own bastion. ‘Yuva Itihaskar Manch’ was challenging left interpretation of Indian History regularly in History department seminars, debates and discussions. This group of ‘Yuva Itihaskar Manch’ needed to be dealt well. It could be used to nurture the talent which would have formed an intellectual nucleus of those seeking to correct the distorted history in future but higher authorities of ABVP Delhi state erred at this moment. A small group joined NSUI in frustration, ABVP performed badly in 2003 but consolation was that ABVP was still having a strong cadre base. Activists with no political ambition were humiliated due to the defeat in 2003 and they chose to fight back in 2004 elections.

JNU has a very unique tradition of organizing Admission assistance camps. It is unique as assistance doesn't stop at admission process which is very hectic and includes a lot of running around several centers, JNU students accommodate the freshers in their small rooms till they don’t get their hostel rooms allotted. This helps the students as most of them are from economically weak background but at the same time, it helps the student organizations to impact the thinking of the new students and this is how new activists are cultivated.

JNU campus is a cultural shock for many newcomers as they have never experienced an open environment where post dinner processions happen with full throated sloganeering, everyday debates are staged on world affairs over a cup of tea, beautifully handcrafted student union posters are used for electioneering, teachers ask their students to address them by names, presidential speeches and debates are conducted as part of election campaign, no concept of ragging exists and many theater groups are open for students to join them, Air conditioned libraries and classrooms, are seen by many students coming from village background for the first time. All these things induce a sense of grandeur in the mind of newcomers.

ABVP actively worked for admission assistance and many new students participated in organisational activities. 2004 elections again proved that ABVP had a strong presence in JNU campus. There were incidents that were responsible for the upsurge as few weeks before the JNUSU elections, S.A.R Geelani was invited for an evening talk. He was accused in parliament attack case but acquitted on technical ground.He is still very actively involved in Kashmiri secessionist movement . 

ABVP decided to oppose the event and all other left parties including NSUI which is student wing of Congress, stood against ABVP again with the logic of ‘Freedom of expression’. We always see how the human rights is always valid for terrorists,dreaded criminals and anti-nationals but not for their victims. Young students in age group of 18-20 years literally chased away the car of Nandita Haskar. Geelani hid himself inside the car, which he later denied. Campus was once again sharply polarised into left vs right. Many newcomers, who were being indoctrinated by left, could not reconcile to such open invitation to Kashmiri separatist leaders and chose to be part of ABVP.

2004 elections was also notable as it was for the first time a bus load of police personnel had to come inside the campus during elections. The whole issue started with a small incident when a senior ABVP leader, who is now working as a professor in Auckland University, raised the issue of voting hours being over and hence nobody should be allowed to enter the school building. Around twenty ABVP activists tried to block the gate. JNUSU election committee closed the gate and voting continued for those who were already inside the building.

A strong rumour went out that Parishad activists were beating SFI leaders and a crowd of 200 SFI cadres and leaders came to School of language gate, broke it and entered with tube lights, chains and sticks in their hands to teach a lesson to Parishad. ABVP had few girls contesting for councillor posts and they had to be locked up in a classroom to protect from this violent attack. ABVP was outnumbered many parishad activists had to be hospitalised. This infuriated the ABVP base in JNU and later on,SFI leaders went into hiding for weeks fearing retaliation.

ABVP won most of the councillor seats and one joint secretary seat. Parishad lost presidential seat but got more than double votes on each seat than the last year and could be defeated only by tactical voting of left wing. ABVP victory procession was much bigger than the SFI procession as nobody from SFI dared to turn up in public.

ABVP activists wanted a Parishad JNU Unit president and team chosen by popular will of cadres but as the RSS tradition goes, the decision had to come from the above. The higher authorities failed again to read the minds of activists and ABVP got divided. 18 Persons who were at the root of the extraordinary performance of 2004 were suspended and another organization called JNU patriotic front was formed by them as these activists could not compromise with their ideology. This resulted in two organisations with similar nationalist ideology inside JNU. JPF proved to be a very strong cadre based organisation which was more aggressive due to its younger crowd. ABVP remained with senior Phd students but they could not shout louder, nor they could resist the communist gang without the raw energy of school of languages.

2005 elections were fought by both ABVP and JPF separately. Relations between ABVP and JPF turned so bitter that when ABVP leaders, tried to protest against Brinda Karat for her remarks on Baba Ramdev to maintain the relevance of Parishad, they were chased away by SFI and few of them were beaten. No JPF cadre supported Parishad but on the same night, one JPF cadre was slapped by SFI cadres and JPF ensured that the SFI president was found that night and slapped by that JPF cadre – to give a message that manhandling of their cadre will be strongly retaliated. JNUSU Presidential candidate of SFI wrongly blamed a cadre of JPF of sexual harassment to avenge the retaliation. This tactics was often used by left to pin down ABVP supporters.

The student who had completed his course was declared out of bounds of JNU campus and thus 6 JPF boys sat on indefinite hunger strike to revoke the order. The strike continued for 6 days. Their health was deteriorating. JNU administration negotiated with striking students and issue was resolved, but the concerned student was still out of bounds.

JPF decided to avenge this false accusation and at the time of 2005 elections, many supporters of JPF voted for AISA presidential candidate Mona Das tactically so that SFI candidate could not win. SFI candidate Sona Mitra, who had used sexual harassment as a political tool, was defeated and lesson was taught to her and SFI. As it happens with organisations that have no organized system, JPF faded away.

Lyngdoh commission forced JNU to introduce certain rules for JNUSU elections. Those rules like age limit were not suitable for JNU as most of the student leaders were Ph.D. scholars.  This led to JNUSU elections being stopped for few years.This depoliticized JNU and most of the ABVP leaders passed out and new team could not be developed.

SFI was divided as their central leadership supported UPA but Prasenjit Bose took position against it and as a result, he was suspended. His team formed another group which contested till this year and this is how AISA, which used to struggle, came back in reckoning and it is winning JNUSU elections continuously. Iftar Parties are organised in every hostel and every student is charged the extra mess bill but AISA opposes celebration of Janmashtami Pooja in hostel mess after dinner time! just because it would hurt ‘sentiments’. The combination of Bolshevik and Shariat can be seen in the double standards followed by these communists. The illegitimate child of this combo is the ideology which is followed by Likes of Javed Akhtar or Mani Shankar Aiyar

NSUI is hardly relevant in the context of JNU. It has been unable to convince JNU students despite huge money power. One notable leader of NSUI who climbed the  political ladder is Ashok Tanwar who came in good books of Amit Jogi when he was studying in JNU and now he is MP from Haryana and strong contender for Congress State president post. But NSUI could never gather more than 200-300 votes.

The winning methodology of left parties has changed drastically as JNU has 3 departments (Arabic, Persian and Urdu). They attract students from Madarsa background only. This vote bank is used for tactical voting. Apart from voting tactically, these centers have failed completely in creating job options – many of the ex-students from these centres are running Dhaba, grocery stores,  typing thesis of PhD students, and don't be surprised if some day some autowallah tells you that he was a JNU student as many Urdu Centre alumnus are forced to run auto-rickshaw in Delhi due to lack of job opportunities.

Hindi Centre has been hijacked by communist professors like Manager Pandey, Namwar Singh and Purushottam Aggarwal. The stranglehold is such that they have completely suppressed the nationalist literature of poets like Ramdhari Singh Dinkar but these professors have been blamed several times of being casteist in their approach. JNU is witness to left hypocrisy where seminars on poverty are held and speakers talk about hunger after eating a mouth watering plate of Gajar Halwa. Left ideology has diluted and Durga Puja is celebrated with lot of joy which was a huge issue earlier.

Murli Manohar Joshi, who was HRD Minister in NDA regime, started Centre for Sanskrit studies and this Centre was strongly opposed by all communist student groups and this step was projected as promotion of black magic and superstition. At the time of Deepawali, all hostels are decorated by students as tradition was started by ABVP activists. In past, Diwali night seemed like a mourning night with darkness all around. Students who wear clean clothes are not treated as outsiders any more. Language students earn money through freelancing and this has brought prosperity in campus, many new motorcycles are being bought and cars are not a big deal any more.

One thing that is most important to mobilize activists for any organisation is slogan shouting, catchy slogans that incite the students. Some popular ones, I would like to mention.

1. Chor chor mausere Bhai, AISF-SFI.

2. Abki hogi Kiski  Pitaayi- AISF-SFI.

3.Ho-ho-ho chi Minh Bharat chhodo jao cheen.

4. Chao-Mao jo kehte ho to Bharat me kyun rehte ho.

5. The Communists frustrated shall always be defeated. (sing it)

6. The parishad united shall always be victorious.

7. Na maowad na jaatiwad, sabsey upar Rashtravad.

8. Gyaan sheel ekta, Parishad ki visheshta.

9. Vampanth ki kabr khudegi, JNU ki dharti par.

10. Kashmir ho ya Guwahati, Apna Desh apni maati.

11. China ke dalalon ko ek dhakka Aur do.

12. Prakash karat ko bhejo mail, SFI ki ho gayi tel.
13. Jahan hue balidan Mukherjee, wo kashmir hamara hai.

do watch this video to feel the pride. :)

The slogan that was used to convey the message to left that Parishad was not going to be intimidated anymore was ‘ haarenge to hurenge, Aur jeetenge to thurenge’ which loosely means that we will beat the communists in both cases either we lose or we gain.There are many more slogans which continue to attract students towards Parishad.

Notable ABVP leaders from JNU are now working at several important positions.Nirmala Sitharaman is national spokesperson of BJP( not sure if she was active for ABVP though), Dr. Manish Kumar who is editor in Chauthi duniya, Ashok Sharma is professor in Auckland university Newzealand, Shiv Shakti Nath Bakshi is editor of Kamal Sandesh (BJP magazine), Swadesh Singh is National Vice president of BJYM, D.D Gautam is media in charge of BJP SC Morcha, Sunil Mohanty is pracharak of RSS in Arunachal Pradesh, Siddharth Rai is working as senior journalist in Mail today.

Editor and sub-editor of RSS publication panchajanya are from JNU, many of JNU parishad team are working as professors in several renowned universities in India and abroad, many of them are journalists and well placed in several news organisations, Sandeep Mahapatra, the only ABVP JNUSU president till date, is working as supreme court lawyer and frequently joins debates on news channels,  Pushkar Mishra worked as secretary to national president BJP and actively working in nationalist politics, Amitabh Thakur who was ABVP president in 1996 was in charge of election of 5 states in 2003, Jatin Mohanty is state secretary for Odisha BJP, Irfan khan is heading development projects for a notable NGO. Vidhan Pathak, Amit Singh, Vivekanand Upadhyay and many others are professors in universities around India. Dhananjay Singh is Assistant professor in JNU itself. Science schools which use to be passionate supporters of ABVP produce eminent scientists and researchers who are working around the world. Many ABVP supporters are working in Indian Administrative, police and foreign services. Many ABVP activists are successful in their career and supporting nationalist ideology at several platforms. Bangalore IT sector has a big community from JNU foreign language school which was the most active school for JNU ABVP. This list doesn't include every notable name but it gives an example as how ABVP presence in JNU is important and needs to be maintained as this university produces intellectuals which the Right wing needs badly and Leftist discourse must be challenged at the source of it.

Note: It should be treated as a tale from eyes of an observer. Many stories could not be mentioned as it would require a book to do so.

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