AISA Shows the Black Flag to P. Chidambaram in JNU !

Students Protest Against UPA’s Assaults on Democratic Voices, Tribals and Minorities !

Hundreds of students participated in a massive protest dharna on the night of 5^th May 2010 in JNU, greeting Home Minister P. Chidambaram with black flags and slogans when he came to address a public meeting on ‘Naxalism: A Threat to Indian Democracy and Internal Security’. AISA activists turned up in full numbers to participate in the protest and were at its forefront throughout.

The students protested black acts like the UAPA, as well as the imposition of draconian acts like AFSPA which provides the Indian Army complete immunity to arrest, illegally detain, torture, rape, and even kill innocent people in Kashmir and the entire north-east. Slogans were also raised against the Home Minister’s inaction in bringing those responsible for the Babri Masjid demolition and communal violence to justice, as well as the continued witch-hunting of innocent youth belonging to the Muslim community.

The meeting was organized by the NSUI, the student-wing of the Congress that has always foolishly believed that it can make up for its lack of work on the JNU campus and lack of involvement with genuine student issues, by inviting its ‘luminaries’ to speak. They wished to give P. Chidambaram a red-carpet welcome and an opportunity to propagate his war-mongering in JNU.

The fact is that Chidambaram and his Government are uncomfortably aware that intellectuals and students are heard with respect when they expose the real agenda of Green Hunt. Hence, the Home Ministry feels the need to lash out at intellectuals and brand them all as ‘over-ground representatives of Maoists.’ Chidambaram himself, who is nothing but an over-ground representative of the corporates, came to JNU precisely to try and claim a ‘victory’ over JNU – where the overwhelming majority of students are deeply opposed to the abhorrent Operation Green Hunt and his anti-minority witch-hunt. He wished to believe that the students of JNU will silently lap up whatever the ruling establishment will say. But this will never be the case, for the students of JNU have never shirked from posing uncomfortable questions and speaking out in protest.

Not surprisingly, during the Home Minister’s visit to JNU, he found support from activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) – who raised slogans in favour of the Operation Green Hunt. Today, Chidambaram’s greatest supporters are the BJP and RSS. It is, after all, the UPA’s Home Ministry led by Chidambaram which backed the Modi Government by giving the dubious affidavit to the Court that Ishrat Jehan (the teenager killed in a fake encounter) was indeed a terrorist. Today, the RSS masterminds of many of bomb blasts such as those at Malegaon, Mecca Masjid and Ajmer are coming to light — but these are only the tip of the iceberg. Mr. Chidambaram, meanwhile, is refusing to order a thoroughgoing enquiry into the links of the Sangh Parivar with terrorism. Quite expectedly, then, the RSS and BJP have been showering praises on him for his ‘war on Maoism’.

But against the right-wing forces of the NSUI and ABVP, and against Chidambaram’s own war-mongering and propaganda, the students of JNU asserted that although Chidambaram’s white veshti appears spotless, his hands are splattered with the blood of innocents. This is the true face of P. Chidambaram, behind the suave assurance and the corporate polish:

• He is a ‘Home Minister’ who is more at home with the corporates  than the people of the land; who is determined to eliminate the hearth and home of the poor and tribals.
• A ‘guardian’ of Internal Security who imposes draconian laws like AFSPA and UAPA.
• A ‘secular’ politician who gets the most vociferous applause from the communal fascist BJP-RSS-ABVP.
• A ‘democrat’ who refuses to allow a judicial enquiry into the Batla House ‘encounter’ and who presides over the communal witch-hunt of minorities and people’s movement activists
• His corporate credentials include the fact that he was one of the Directors of Vedanta and a favourite lawyer of the mining companies.
• His notion of ‘democracy’ involves the suppression of dissent. His notion of ‘development’ seeks to eliminate the poor and homeless, the dalits and adivasis, the struggling masses of this land.

From Bastar to Kalinganagar, from Jagatsinghpur to Niyamgiri, from Batla House to Azamgarh, from Telangana to Kashmir and Manipur: P. Chidambaram has blood on his hands. This is not to speak of the millions who are facing a daily death through the malnutrition and poverty that are part and parcel of the UPA regime. In their protest, the students of JNU showed the Home Minister that they would never forgive or forget the lives that have been lost on account of the UPA Government’s assaults on democratic voices, tribals and minorities.

To support AISA, Click here to donate.