Imagine a young girl, who had just finished her Bachelors' from one of South India's premier Catholic, all-women's college run by nuns, entering the heart of the highly political, liberal campus South of India's capital, Jawaharlal Nehru University.
That girl was me. I was one of the chosen few who passed a rigorous all-India entrance exam followed by an interview, to get into this, one-of-a-kind central university. Why, a chosen few? Well, in a populous country like India, the fact that in the early 90s, we were 16 students in our graduating class from our Center in the School of Languages, goes to show just how exclusive the honor is.
What the nuns had taught me were the values of patience and politeness, of being graceful and yet powerful by being an instrument of social change, doing social service- not social work, but service and not letting your left hand know what your right hand did. There is a huge difference between those two words.
JNU was an entirely different world. The rules were about flouting any kind of possible "threat" of system or authority. You did not call your professors Sir or Madam, you called them by name. You would not "ask" for permission to use the restroom or enter a class "late". You came to class if you chose to do so, because you chose to have a lively debate with your professor or classmates. If society frowned upon women smoking, women would blow smoke in your face.
If the "oppressive" government of those times (we were moving towards liberalization then) and one of the outcomes of that policy was raising the monthly bus pass for using DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) for an entire month from Rs. 11 to about 14 or something (don't remember the actual numbers now), the campus would erupt in slogan shouting and buses getting stoned. I was a day-scholar, ie lived at home, outside campus, and took 615 towards Poorvanchal every day and I thought this was an issue that impacted me more than those living on campus as I had to take the bus. Coming from Chennai, where I had paid a lot more for the monthly student bus pass on PTC, that was around Rs. 18 (plus had to pay extra for a coupon book that let me travel on other routes), I found DTC to be already highly subsidized. That Rs. 11.50 monthly pass let me board any route under the jurisdiction of DTC. I had no qualms of paying more as my fee for an entire semester was next to nothing. Paying for a service to transport myself to and fro from home, I understood the ramifications of what that small hike did to the overall deficit budget of the beleaguered transport corporation.
The cloistered hostelites of JNU thought otherwise. Their rhetoric was that the government was swindling the public and had no right to even suggest a hike in bus pass rates.
Faced with this situation, the 615 drivers would drop us passengers off at Vasanth Vihar or Munirka itself and refuse to enter campus as it would involve getting stoned and windows getting smashed. That meant an extra 30 minute walk into campus as "Freedom of Speech" demanded that we support the cause of keeping the bus fares low, to facilitate low-cost transport for the "poor" student. It was another matter that those very "poor" students had the money to pay for their cigarettes and limitless cups of cheap tea.
I was "protected" by my "Freedom of Speech" too- I could give my counter argument as to why I was okay with the rate hike, but my voice was drowned out by the louder protests against the hike. My only "minor win" was when I supported our canteenwala who wanted to hike the rate of a cup of tea from 25 paisa to 35 that soon went up to 40 paisa a cup as the cost of LPG kept going up (remember the Iraq war- Desert Storm?) and that poor fellow could barely keep up with the "subsidy". The price of sugar was also going up. It was easy to just climb onto the top of a table and call for attention through the cigarette haze and tell the "chaiwala's" perspective as to why he needed to charge more for his cup of tea. Those days, we had small china cups and no plastic ones. That involved paying one guy to wash the cups too. Labor never is cheap, even when exploited.
The nuns taught me to look at the "downtrodden" in society and see how I could be of some service to them. Small was beautiful to them- one "soul' at a time. JNU taught me how to look at the "collective" and design policy that impacted the "big picture". The argument against the bus hike was not really about Rs.2, rather, it was about demanding more accountability from the government towards the crores already being spent ineffectively and inefficiently. However, the manner in which the protests were done, where the "poor" bus driver with recklessly thrown stones at his person and his vehicle, were argued away as "collateral damage".
What I learned during those years of my life was that Freedom is absolutely essential in a democracy. However, that very freedom needs to be tempered with responsibility. I remembered the story that my 10th grade Civics teacher had shared with us when she introduced the Fundamental Rights in our constitution along with the Duties of an Indian citizen: She told us the story of Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan who was a teacher par excellence, who would say that the freedom of an individual would end where the freedom of another began. He illustrated that by saying that he had the freedom to walk on the street swinging his cane, but he also had the responsibility to ensure that he never hurt anyone with his swinging cane.
The current situation at JNU clearly shows enjoyment of freedom with absolutely no responsibility. What the students, the media and all the academics who are writing blogs and articles are forgetting is that the very basis of Freedom needs to have the temperance of social responsibility. Just because you take an "anti-government" stance does not mean that you take an "anti-national" stand. Nor does it behoove anyone to denigrate other people's personal beliefs or their religious symbols/ gods. In the current context, there was absolutely no cause for even starting a "debate" on Afsal Guru. It was clearly a politically motivated drama with absolutely no basis for a "need" to support any wrongdoing in a "democracy". No one in media or the opposition is asking the basic question why Afsal Guru is even an issue today when he was hanged years back and by an entirely different government that had followed the steps of due process.
Some time back, when someone had done a controversial documentary on Prophet Mohammad and put it up on youtube, I thought that was wrong. American media was debating the value of "freedom of speech" (it is our favorite past time here) and thought it was fine to have it up. But the government was clear in its position on the said freedom and convinced youtube to take down the video. It was taking Freedom of Speech to a level where you denigrate a faith's core beliefs and that is not acceptable. It goes back to Dr. Radhakrishnan's definition of freedom. Same argument against the denigration of Durga. Same against the support of a hanged terrorist. Same argument against the support of Azad Kashmir- Article 370, for even a rudimentary student of History was a temporary provision that is long overdue it's removal from the constitution.
So, readers, critical thinking is something we all need to do, more so in a democracy than anywhere else. And just because some groups make a lot of "noise", it doesn't mean that they are right. Any freedom we enjoy has to be balanced with responsibility. Anyone who argues to the contrary is being fascist in nature and has no room for a fair debate in democracy.
I am reminded of Pathanjali's first verse in the yoga sutra: Athah yogaanushasanam"- the "self-discipline" of Yoga. Democracy works when the "self discipline" is imposed by ourselves, not because someone is shouting a slogan for a "perceived right" or a "perceived wrong". That self-discipline comes with greater understanding of the bus driver's point of view before stoning his vehicle. Until then, it is a true case empty vessels making much noise.
