ABVP muscle grows

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) no more wears its peculiar brand of nationalism merely on the sleeve. It believes in spilling it on the streets, and if there is a bit of "anti-national" blood along with it, so be it. The RSS-affiliated student organisation's provocative attitude that was seen in Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hyderabad University, IIT-Chennai, and other institutions of academic repute, is turning into an offensive that does not even care to have a pretence of righteousness. Violence and tension that have rocked the Delhi University campus for three days running, by all reasonable independent accounts, was a one-sided affair of unhindered assault by ABVP goons.

The pattern of ABVP activity does not suggest that it is simply the doing of a group of young people with a heightened sense of nationalism. From JNU to DU, on all occasions the police have extended a helping hand in facilitating, if not abetting, the subversion of free speech by the ABVP on campuses. Prima facie evidence is that the students who were aggressively pursued by the Delhi Police in JNU have not faced any meaningful prosecution thereafter. Yet the students' "conduct" was used to put university administrations on a leash by the government. The manner in which the police allowed an event to be disrupted at Ramjas College and the subsequent violence was complete capitulation of authority by a force meant to at least ensure law and order, if not uphold fundamental rights. That it reports directly to the Union Home Minister, and it is the National Capital we are talking about, makes the government complicit.

A democracy by definition will at all times be a cauldron of ideas, kept boiling by divergence of thought. The BJP has brought to it a thought distinctly different from the rest of major political parties. However, it seems to be giving up on winning over minds through debate, and is using the full weight of its majority government and muscle power to silence any counter narrative. It must not forget 1.25 billion is too large a number to wrestle into submission.