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AS the state-sponsored Hindutva assault on the Jawaharlal Nehru University progressed recently, an economics professor said she suspected the hand of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in staging what appeared to be a false flag attack on the students who were predominantly of leftist orientation.
She implied that unidentified masked persons had shouted politically vile slogans at a student rally to put the blame on Kanhaiya Kumar, Anirban Bhattacharya and Umar Khalid and their supporters. All three are followers of a new, formidable blend of Marxism with Ambedkar’s anti-Brahminical caste analysis. All three were at the forefront of student politics in JNU before the right-wing assault catapulted them on the national stage. They are currently out on bail but have been expelled by a biased university administration.
The slogans were so regressive they could only have been conjured by stunted ideologues of revivalism and certainly do not fit any progressive worldview. The masked men have not been caught. It is safe to surmise that the media that carried the doctored videos or doctored the videos to show them was part of the conspiracy. The marriage of the religious right and IB in India and Pakistan goes back to colonial days.
I went back to Jawaharlal Nehru to confirm this fact. What I can conclude from Nehru, in a nutshell, is that the IB, of colonial pedigree and little public oversight today, may not have acquired the unbridled powers yet of Pakistan’s ISI but it could be getting there. Apart from India’s first prime minister who is in the cross hairs of the country’s resurgent Hindu right, for many good reasons no doubt, we have two other responsible men to lean on for this perspective. The men are no less than the former top cops of India, Julio Ribeiro and S.M. Mushrif.
The quality of Indian police in public affairs has come in for criticism routinely from the public.
In The Essential Writings of Jawaharlal Nehru put together by professors S. Gopal and Uma Iyengar, there is a footnote, which forms the background to a resounding censure of the Intelligence Bureau for meddling with school and college students.
In a circular dated Oct 7, 1950, addressed to all the chief secretaries of states, the home ministry, without the minister’s knowledge, had suggested measures for countering feared communist subversion in schools and colleges. Seeing the suggestions, some of which related to “spying on parents and guardians”, Orissa governor Asaf Ali asked C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) and Nehru: “Was the Intelligence Bureau going to decide education policies?”
Nehru expressed his horror in a letter to Rajaji. “I confess to a feeling of shock on reading this circular. The whole approach appears to me so entirely misconceived as to amount almost to a crime. Any student with a spark of life in him would react violently against the methods suggested in the circular. In fact, these methods are more likely to produce indiscipline and make students go to communism than any appeal from the Communist Party.”
Nehru goes on to wonder how he might have reacted to the IB’s intrusions. “I have tried to think of what the reaction on me would have been when I was a student. People have changed since then no doubt, but still the normal urges and passions remain the same. So, I suppose the present day student would not be very different in this respect from the students of my generation. What amazes me still more is the complete lack of intelligence shown in issuing such a circular.”
The quality of Indian police in public affairs has come in for criticism routinely from the public. Nehru had his own sharp observations to share. “After reading this circular, the first idea that struck me was that if policemen have to meddle with these affairs, they should be given a course of instruction in political, economic and like matters. That, I suppose, is difficult. Perhaps if they had that course of instruction, they might cease to be good policemen.”
The advice that lectures should be imparted to students advising them to keep away from communism intrigued Nehru. “I do not know of any country outside the communist fold, or perhaps Franco’s Spain, where any such thing is suggested or done. The more I see of the police outlook in matters outside the scope of the police, the more I am frightened at its utter lack of intelligence and the dangerous results it might produce.”
Mushrif who was director general of police in Maharashtra has accused the IB of playing a diabolical role in the mysterious murder of anti-terror police officer Hemant Karkare. He has said in his book Who Killed Karkare? that the IB had been virtually taken over by the virulently anti-communist Hindutva cadre. Karkare has been accused earlier this month by newly assigned investigators of planting evidence against Hindu extremists who he accused of staging false flag attacks on Muslims, including in Malegaon and the Samjhauta Express. While Pakistan-based militant groups were involved in the 2008 attack on Mumbai, Mushrif has blamed Karkare’s death on elements in the IB.
Writing in the Indian Express, about the arriving subversion of Karkare’s findings, Julio Ribeiro was saddened that his friend is not alive to defend himself “against all the forces that have been unleashed against him in his absence”.
Ribeiro recalled that the well-respected public prosecutor, Rohini Salian, bemoaned the attempt by the newly formed NIA to influence her to soften the case against the Hindutva ultras. “I expected them to be let off. But, even in my wildest imagination, I could not have dreamt that to achieve this objective a national hero like my friend Hemant Karkare, would be sacrificed. His reputation was all that was left of him and that is being buried.”
JNU students and faculty members have stood solidly together in their struggle to thwart the evolution of a police state in India. They will need and find the guiding hand of Nehru in this life and death fight for democracy.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2016
