The script is the same, but there will not be any more Rohiths: Umar Khalid

Fellow travellers, over the last 10-odd days, I have come to know a number of things about myself about which I had no idea. I have come to know that I have travelled to Pakistan twice. Even though I have no passport! Then, when this bubble burst, I came to know that I am the “mastermind”! I mean, the students of JNU, they have a wonderful mind, but I was the one focus, that I am the mastermind who ensured this entire programme, and I was planning this programme in 17-18 universities… So, I seriously did not know that my influence was so huge!

Then, they said I was planning this meeting for the last 2-3 months. I mean, if it took that much time to organise a meeting in JNU, the university would cease to function!

Then, they said I was planning this meeting for the last 2-3 months. I mean, if it took that much time to organise a meeting in JNU, the university would cease to function!

Then, they said I was planning this meeting for the last 2-3 months. I mean, if it took that much time to organise a meeting in JNU, the university would cease to function!

There was never any proof [against me], but the media never felt it necessary to even say “allegedly”. It was just, “He has done it!” And where has he done it? He has done it in the Gulf, he has done it in Kashmir, they said. But where is the proof? First of all, even if I had tried to do something of this kind, nothing would have come out of it — but shouldn’t there be some proof, some evidence of some kind [before allegations are made]? Indeed, these people [in the media] have no shame, and if we were to expect that they would feel ashamed, we’d be fooling ourselves.
The way, against all of us, the media has run… a parallel… a virtual media trial, a real media trial, the way they have tried to frame us, the way they have tried to profile us… Even after the government denied the so-called IB report linking us with Jaish-e-Mohammad, no one felt the need to issue a retraction or an apology.

When I saw all this the first time, I felt like laughing. I mean, if Jaish-e-Mohammad gets to know, I thought, they’d probably start a protest at Jhandewalan against my name being linked to theirs! But seriously, the kind of things that were said, the kind of lies that were spoken — if these people in the media think they’re going to get away with them, that’s not going to happen. You have started a trend of calling tribal people Maoists, Muslims terrorists; you have been carrying on a media trial, and setting the state apparatus after these people. Perhaps a lot of people are helpless, they have very few to speak for them, but bhaisaab, this time you have taken on the wrong people. Students of JNU will make you pay for this. Every media channel will have to answer…

Honestly, I was not too concerned about myself, because I knew, and I really believed, that all of you would come out in my support in thousands. But I started to feel concerned, I started to panic, when I saw the statements of my sister and my father. I have several sisters, and these people [those branding JNU “anti-national”] started writing all kinds of stuff on social media, putting out threats about what they would do to them — one [sister] was told she would be raped, one was told she would be killed. That was when I remembered the time Bajrang Dal men were raping a Christian nun in Kandhamal, and also raising slogans of “Bharat Mata ki jai”. If I may recall Comrade Kanhaiya’s February 11 speech — if this is your Bharat Mata, this isn’t our Bharat Mata, and we feel no shame saying this.

Afterward, my father was spoken to, almost interrogated, and some stuff from his past was dug up to try and frame him in some way. There are some people, some in Zee News, and there is a gentleman in Times Now whose name I wouldn’t like to take, and then there are their junior reporters — what I can’t understand is where they get all their anger and hatred against JNU from… just what is the source?

If I may focus on myself for just a moment: For the last seven years when I have been doing politics on this campus, I have never thought of myself as a Muslim. I have never also projected myself as a Muslim. And I have always felt it isn’t just Muslims who are oppressed in society today. There are several oppressed communities, there are adivasis, there are Dalits. And all of us who come from oppressed communities and identities, there is a need for us to come out of our immediacy and to look at all of these things in a holistic manner.

For the first time in the last seven years I have felt that I am Muslim, and that has happened in the last 10 days. To quote Rohith Vemula, I was reduced to my immediate identity. And that is extremely shameful… Here I say to all you fellow “anti-nationals”, Anti-Nationals of the World, Unite! Our love for the people, our struggles, know no boundaries, they know no borders. Across the world, all of us will be united, against all governments anywhere. We will not be intimidated or silenced by these despicable tactics they are using.

Fellow travellers, I do not need to say this to you, but even then — there is no need to panic today. They may be having a majority [in Parliament], the media, state apparatus and the police, but they are cowards. They are afraid of us, they are afraid of the struggles we wage. They are afraid of us because we are able to think. And in this country today, you become “anti-national” the moment you begin to think.

But as I have said before, you [the government] have taken on the wrong people this time. You have taken on several universities earlier too — be it in FTII, be it HCU, where Rohith Vemula was murdered, what happened with Sandeep Pandey in Banaras Hindu University — and we have fought shoulder to shoulder in each of these struggles. If you think JNU is a problem that you will be able to finish, let it be known that there were many others before you who had the same idea, and they all failed. Perhaps you have forgotten Indira Gandhi who was not allowed to come here after the Emergency, perhaps you have forgotten Manmohan Singh, whose government was conspiring to sell the country, and who was shown flags when he came; P Chidambaram was shown his place by the students of JNU.

These are just mind games. They are testing whether we will get scared. And let us accept that challenge: we will not get scared. We will fight back at every point; we will fight back on every issue… On every issue, every student of this campus has a right to put forward their opinion without any fear of intimidation. Friends, they are cowards, and their students’ wing, their vaanar sena, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, has got the contract to go create a ruckus wherever their agenda does not get importance, or they are criticised. They [the government] will ensure that the university’s vice-chancellor, registrar, police, MP, all back them. You replace Appa Rao with Jagdeesh Kumar, you replace Dattatreya with Maheish Girri, the script is the same. But there will not be any more Rohiths. We will not be reduced to our limited identity. We will fight back. We know what we are made of. We know this campus, we cherish this campus. We have built this space, and we will not let you destroy this space. We will not give you an inch.

Why does the ABVP show up to create trouble everywhere? They know they cannot go amid the people and mobilise people in the way that they are able to mobilise the state machinery. Over the last 10 days, despite so much propaganda in the media, such a media trial, and all their relentless efforts to awaken the patriotism that had seemingly fallen asleep, they have been able to bring out on the streets only a handful of people — whereas up to 15,000 people have come out in our support. On the day Rahul Gandhi came and was shown black flags, Zee News was reporting that the students were divided into two halves, and it emerged later that there were some 10-12 students on one side, 3,000 on the other! How well they know how to distort the truth, to lie without shame!

Fellow travellers, we need to understand one thing: A university which does not allow dissent becomes a prison. This agenda of theirs to make our universities into prisonhouses — we will defeat that agenda…

And today, let’s also not privilege ourselves saying this is only an attack on universities…. In the last 10 days, there have been attacks across the country, be it on Honda workers or on Jagdalpur Legal Aid Group, on Soni Sori. We have to collect all these struggles… we have to stand with the oppressed everywhere and anywhere, we have to keep the tradition of the JNU students’ movement alive.

Shukriya, Inquilab Zindabad!