Had Najeeb Ahmed not gone missing on the intervening night of October 14 and 15, 2016, where would he be today? He could have proudly finished his degree, like the rest of his batchmates who have now moved ahead in life; he might have been on the lookout for a job or tried to apply for a PhD. In an alternate universe where Muslim students are not attacked in their own hostel rooms and then painted in the media as having fled to Syria to join ISIS — in that world, the possibilities are endless. However, in reality, there has been no clue to take us closer towards the truth, whether from the legal process or the investigating agencies, which closed the case in October 2018. It took seven months for the case to be handed over to the CBI after the abject failures of the Delhi Police. The CBI however, failed to make much headway, unable to even crack the passcodes of some of the accused’s phones or recover any valuable data.
The six years that have passed since the disappearance are a bundle of what-ifs and other unanswered questions. Annually, student organisations on the JNU campus, led by Muslim student organisations and their allies, take out a march on the night of the incident. With little recourse to substantial justice, such programmes are more of a struggle to keep the memory alive, ensure that Najeeb is not forgotten and that the unblemished facts are placed before the student community, many of whom have entered the campus in the post-Covid period, with little connection to the events of 2016. Without any witness or proof, some had painted Najeeb as being the original provocateur of the alleged attack, following which he disappeared, and had claimed that he had allegedly slapped another student merely for having worn a kalava (sacred thread around the wrist).
Memorably, as many of us had gathered on the first anniversary of Najeeb’s disappearance at the CBI headquarters in Delhi as a mark of protest, an unknown man crossing the street approached the gathering and berated us for making a big deal out of nothing when thousands of people go missing every year in India. That is certainly a reality — a depressing one. But the fight to remember Najeeb is precisely about that — firstly, to remind the authorities that no one is merely a statistic to be forgotten in the larger scheme of things and secondly, that the journey of a young person like Najeeb Ahmed to a university like JNU is the story of the difficulties that students from marginalised communities in India face as they attempt to enter the hallowed portals of higher educational institutions.
Higher education in India, particularly in the post-Mandal era has been a space of flux and immense change. Students from historically oppressed communities and minorities, including Muslims, have entered central universities, changing the elitist demographic, landscape, politics and academic discourse. But it has not been easy; entering these spaces is only the first step. After that begins the arduous journey of transgressing established hierarchies of language, region, caste and in the case of Muslims, overcoming the many stereotypes and tags attached to them that have little basis in reality.
The post-Rohith Vemula era — if it can be thus described — has brought to light the complicated reality of exclusion and marginalisation in the most elite of Indian campuses. While there have been many such traumatic stories, there is also a stubborn streak of survival and resilience, which data around increasing Muslim enrollment — particularly that of Muslim women — testifies to. Most Muslim students are far from cowing down in fear or giving up on their dreams. It is undeniable that such incidents have further fuelled the anxieties of many parents who fear similar fates for their children when they send them to universities. But it is the image of Fatima Nafees, Najeeb’s mother, who remains hopeful that every possible call could mean the return of her son, that drives the hopes of many other students who wish to enter higher education at any cost.
It is the task of the government not to add to these onerous burdens, and instead, ease the path. The recent Karnataka hijab case is a testament to the fact that far from the ideals of the welfare state, ensuring the right to education, there are obstacles being tossed in the path of young and vulnerable students at every step. As Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia wrote in his lucid and empathetic judgment on the hijab case, it is the task of the judiciary and the state to reflect on whether they are making the lives of marginalised students, who are already struggling to reach the college and school gates, harder or easier. If the lofty goals of educational enrollment and literacy that the government has set for itself in its policies, including the NEP 2020, are to be realised in any meaningful way, it ought to begin by ensuring justice for the families and loved ones of people like Najeeb Ahmed, a boy who had set out from Badaun to fulfill his dream of studying in JNU — a dream that was violently interrupted. As Justice Dhulia said, quoting Lord Atkin, “Finality is a good thing, but justice is better.”
The writer is a PhD researcher at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, JNU
