Indian Defence Review

They danced and partied all night when about 75 CRPF personnel were killed by Maoists in Chattisgarh. They beat up two army officers when they objected to anti-India themes by Pakistani poets invited specially to the campus. They indulged in religious sloganeering while calling for splintering of India. They called the Indian Army an army of rapists. They objected to calling their institution ‘temple of learning’ and their teachers being referred as ’gurus.’ In that they were right– many of their teachers are not gurus but patrons and peddlers of anti-India isms, i.e. who sell Jihad and Maoism, both imported ideologies, both with terrorist underpinnings and both having external benefactors, Pakistan and China respectively. The institution is Jawaharlal University (JNU).

So, bereft of all reverence for gurus and institutions , it was not surprising at all that the students held hostage their Vice Chancellor and teachers and other campus officials, not allowing  any access even to their wives on’ Karva Chauth’ day. Violence and intimidation was implicit in the entire campaign. It was a criminal act. They had the rudimentary literacy and political subversion to couch a hostage situation as a ‘democratic protest.’ In fact, the leader of these semi-literates called Indian army jawans illiterates, little aware that the latter have far ‘deeper cognitive education’, character and commitment to country.

In their 30s, most of these criminals can hardly be categorized as’ youth’ or ‘students.’ Mostly they have overshot their courses by years. Unable to clear their exams, they are condemned to masquerade as intellectuals and activists. Healthy sports is an anathema to them. Vices that they nurture as tonic for pseudo intellectualism kill all their youthful physical endurance. The vigour and creativity that characterises youth never made tryst with them.  They have been robbed of these by inimical external powers and ideologies peddled by teachers and political parties fashioned and fed on foreign ideologies. There are over-ground and underground facets to these terror and anti-national ideologies. We saw the merger of Jihadis and Maoists of all hues in the recent student elections. Staring at obliteration, they had no choice but to dissolve their pretensions. Should these anti-nationals be allowed to persist with their activities even as security forces are engaged in combating Jihad and Maoism. Why does the State continue committing the omission in giving them legitimacy?

The worst disservice that these anti-nationals have done is to buffet Indian values and soft power. The most cherished being the ‘’guru-shishya’ (teacher-student) tradition, a tradition that has stimulated genius in every field. Can a group of students and teachers at the bidding of terror sponsoring agencies and powers be allowed to turn campuses into epicenters of abuse of India’s soft power and purveyors of lethal intellectual terrorism?.

In the beginning of 80s, a formidable jihadi machine was forged into factories of Pakistan to defeat Soviet forces in Afghanistan. William Casey, the then Director ofCIA, acknowledged that the use of Islamic fundamentalism was not just directed against Soviet forces in Afghanistan but had a larger purpose of organizing the Muslims to wage global jihad against Soviet communism. The US wove the entire narrative as’ Islam versus Communism.’ The Soviet Union disintegrated. Communism suffered the most debilitating blow. But, both foreign ideologies, Islamic fundamentalism and Communism, and their respective violent progenies Jihad and Maoism, concurrently made fresh and vicious inroads into India. Jihad was confined to Kashmir for a decade and half. Nevertheless this period witnessed the mushrooming of Saudi funded Wahabi madrassas in the Valley, hitherto an insignificant feature. The mullahs came from UP and Bihar.

During this period, had the veteran Jihadis of War in Afghanistan not suffered so much attrition at the hands of the Indian Army otherwise so many 9\11s would have taken place. In fighting Jihad India acquitted itself much better than any super power. Pak orchestrated jihad then made its journey from Kashmir to the Indian heartland and on to Mumbai, culminating in 26\11. Meanwhile Maoism continued to consume one state after another i.e. Telangana, Andhra, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Bihar. The jihadi factories, i.e. the madrassas continue to proliferate. Together it spawned a Maoist-Jihadi industry comprising politicians, journalists, academics and activists. It is no coincidence that a communist leader first questioned the surgical strike and then suggested that India should talk to Pakistan. The Jihadis meanwhile unfurled the Chinese flag in the Valley to coincide with Xi Jinping visit to India. Both events had reverberations in JNU. Both forces combined together to plan and stage the hostage crisis.

The Jihadi-Maoist industry went on an overdrive cursing anybody who castigated Pakistan, China, and China Pakistan Economic Corridor. Even this author was not spared of vicious and fabricated attacks by a newspaper, known for creating the fiction of Hindu terror at the behest of Pakistan and colluders in India. This paper known for selling lines and not merely stories labeled this author ‘rabidly anti-Pakistan’, questioned his rank in the army, his period of deputation in R&AW, his knowledge of Pakistan. This anti-national journalist chose to ignore the that this author,  author of several books has also written internationally acclaimed book ’The Military Factor in Pakistan written under the guidance of Late Mr RK Mishra (Chairman ORF) known for his  backroom diplomacy (Niaz Naik-RK Mishra talks) with Pakistan and Gen VP Malik, former chief of army staff. This author himself has participated in Track-II diplomacy with Pakistan along with a former RAW chief. Nothing troubles the Jihadi-Maoist industry than intellectual expose of China and Pakistan, of Maoism and Jihad on TV.

The same industry keeps Kashmir separatism alive. Frenzied reactions gushed from so called paid intellectuals belonging to this industry once this author portrayed a visual reality of Valley which occupies only 7 percent area of J&K, and of which only five districts are pro-Pakistan. The Shias, the Gujjar muslims and the Pahadi muslims love India.  To the Jihadi-Maoist industry’ loving India’ is blasphemous. Since patriots are rapidly gaining ground in the national intellectual discourse, campuses like JNU too are increasingly getting violent.

The ideologues of jihad are in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Wahabism has pervaded Indian muslims in a substantial measure. The jihadi ideology has made significant in-roads into JNU as well. It has emerged as a madrasa of different sorts where Jihad and Maoism have begun to ideologically feed on each other.

It was only a question of time that both Jihadism and Maoism that ideologically subsist on terror, made common cause for the stated objective of destroying India. Many common platforms were organized in the Capital for the synthesis of two terrorist streams. Arundhati Roy, shedding her literary pretensions joined separatist leader Geelani and the Maoists in launching an ideological tirade against India. Majority of the people in attendance of this seminar were students of JNU. Meanwhile the Pak ISI through operatives in Bangladesh and Dawood Ibrahim exerted to hammer strategic partnership between the Maoists and the Jihadis particularly the Lashkar-e- Taiba (LeT).  Politicians too were leveraged. In the Red Corridor leveraging of Maoists for electoral purposes has been a reality for some years. The latest evidence of this unholy nexus is of one Chief Minister instructing his police to swallow national interest and declare that some Maoists caught with arms and explosives in NOIDA and planning to attack targets in the Capital in concert with the jihadists, did not belong to any ultra-leftist organization.

There is also a relatively new reality of Jihadi organisations leveraging on politicians and political parties through funding of elections by their patrons in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, but not without caveats of promise for promoting their brand of fundamentalist and militant Islam. Promotion of militant Islam is an imperative for creation of fertile ground to harvest the crop of Jihadi organisations and proxy soldiers.

The cocktail of these ideologies and terror was in ferment for a long time in JNU. It finally demonstrated its obnoxious fruition in the Kanahiya chapter of anti-nationalism (JNU had many such chapters) wherein slogans were raised’’ Bharat tere tukde honge, Insha Allah ‘’ i.e. God willing India will be torn to pieces. Does the Indian State subsidise education for its citizens to produce literate beasts who yearn to tear the country? The ideologues and the followers in the campus, most deservingly the former, need to be treated at par with Ajmal Kasab. An educational institutional cannot wait in the vain hope for a counter ideology to evolve and waste generations. The ideologues in this case are teachers who do not retire so easily, but have the capacity to subvert generations, making them unproductive citizens, while enjoying their pay and perks. If some products have excelled it is because of their good fortune of receiving the right intellectual and character guidance at home, school and graduate levels– before enrolling for JNU. There are definitely many sane and erudite personalities but they are unfortunately not the ones determining the campus environment, which is toxic. The toxicity now is on regular display.

The moot question is that if an educational institution becomes a curse for nationalism and for the security of the nation, then how should a government deal with it? The obvious answer is to purge the institution of anti-national elements. These are elements that are baying for the blood of India at the behest of external inimical powers. In the case of JNU the situation has gone beyond ordinary purge. With the teachers being the controlling colluders the cancer has invaded the vitals. Mere amputation won’t help. JNU has to be midwifed for a new birth. The onus lies on the govt.

The govt ought to realize that the festering anti-national narrative in JNU can be infectious. Not long ago the Kanahiya chapter had its reverberations on Jhadavpur University and Osmania University. It was unprecedented in its anti-India content and acerbity. For consequences we need to look at Syria that has suffered half a million killed and caused equal number to flee the country. It all began in the universities. Orchestration was by external powers. The fate of the country seems irreversible.