I am a proud alumnus of the English Department at Delhi University, where I studied from 2009 to 2013. I also went on to experience life as a teacher in the university as I taught at an undergraduate college for a few years.
The English department taught me the value of imagination and how it carries a certain revolutionary power that can bring about change. But it also taught me the opposite—how imagination has to constantly be wrestled out of the hands of those who choose to use it wrongly. That while imagination could be powerful, it could also be made to serve power.
The Idea of a Nation That Only Caters to Hindus
In the recent US elections, Trump sold an imagination of a fascist utopia to his voters — a utopia where the privileged get to call the shots and even eliminate the marginalised. Trump’s hyper-nationalistic chants of making America great again have emboldened the white majority to assert their privilege.
At the heart of Trump’s romanticised ideal of the past and the future lies a violent impulse that excludes Muslims, women, people of colour, and queer/trans individuals. The utopia he promises is immersed in the logic of violence to such an extent that it even permits physical violence — as the recent firings at people of colour attest.
But this is not true of US alone, something similar is happening closer home.
The BJP, its ideological wing, the RSS, and its student wing, the ABVP, have whipped up a frenzy over the idea of a utopic nation that only caters to Hindus.
This fantasy of our home-bred Hindutva nation is the RSS’s version of ‘post truth’—a history of a nation suffused with ‘alternative facts’ that do not correspond with reality. In this perverted fantasy of a nation, violence is normalised as the only mode through which this nation can be produced.
Such calls for legitimising violence resonate with Savarkar’s call to arms in 1941 when he said: ‘Hinduise all politics, militarise all Hindudom.’
Nation-Building Through Violence: The New Norm
The BJP’s warped nationalism oppressively demands loyalty to an exclusionary vision of the nation. Within this imaginary of the nation, the oppressed must accept their plight or leave the country.
Kashmiris and Adivasis are expected to silently tolerate state violence to prove that they are citizens. Muslims, Communists, and dissenters are subjected to endless harassment by the new online army of trolls. Women are expected to toe the line, for if not, they will have their ‘azadi’ taken away.
Violence in the name of nation-building appears to be the new norm.
A regressive, testosterone-driven language of honour to talk about the nation has replaced any constructive discussion of the kind of nation we want. Nationalism of the post-independence years has been replaced with Savarkar’s narrow-sighted model. Today, even raising any questions about the kind of nation we want has been labeled as an anti-national activity.
By this logic, Ambedkar and other progressive thinkers of post-independence India would be seen as traitors in the eyes of the BJP and the ABVP.
The danger then is that the BJP has convinced people that there is only one way to be nationalist. According to the BJP, a ‘true’ nationalist does not mention Kashmir or Bastar, it lets them go up in flames.
Fragile Nationalism of RSS and ABVP
Fueled by aggressive masculinity, the RSS and the ABVP’s nationalism is so fragile that a disabled man’s inability to stand for the national anthem can drive them completely hysterical. Not just that, it is threatened by even a slightest hint of criticism.
Several ex-colleagues and professors I know witnessed this fragility first hand on 21-22 February at the Ramjas event called ‘Cultures of Protest’— an event marked by a diversity of voices.
Umar Khalid had been invited to the event to present his research on Bastar—a paper that sheds light on the violence unleashed by the state on Adivasis, since the time of the British Raj to present day. The ABVP rushed in and attacked people who were attending the event.
ABVP supporters also assaulted professors who were trying to protect students. It is ironic that the event was called ‘Cultures of Protest’ because the ABVP gave us a preview of exactly that – their own distinct culture of protest, marked by a profound intolerant violence.
My point is that it will be a mistake to dismiss their violence as mere hooliganism as it stands for something deeper. Through their behaviour at this event, the ABVP has unwittingly exposed the violence that constitutes their toxic nationalism.
While disrupting events is the ABVP’s standard modus operandi, it is motivated by a nationalism that is frothing at the mouth and frantically looking for a target to violently attack.
It is no surprise, then, that the ABVP did not spare students who were not even connected with the event. Their unbridled assault on students should not be seen as anything other than a heinous act of terror.
The ABVP’s gundagardi is, then, an articulation of the terrorism that is embedded within their ideology. A terrorism that enjoys complicity of the state in power.
That this was indeed a trailer of the state violence that is regularly unleashed on citizens is proved by the fact that Delhi Police acted in full cooperation with the goons. What we saw playing out in the university then was just a brief glimpse of what Bastar and Kashmir are subjected to on a regular basis.
Misinterpreting Liberal Ideas to Further Violence
It is no coincidence that in the past years, the ABVP has readily resorted to violence when confronted by contrary views. The ABVP’s attitude is marked by a refusal to listen to different pockets of the nation, a complete antagonism towards the possibility that others who inhibit this nation may have not have had the same experience as they have.
There is a new trend across the world, where the right manipulates and misinterprets liberal ideas of freedom of speech by using it to further their violence. In February 2016, the ABVP raised a hue and cry about the Left misusing freedom of speech in JNU. While the ABVP desperately sets a limit on the freedom of others to speak, they misuse their own freedom with their gundagardi.
The ABVP has effectively morphed the liberal core of the notion of free speech into something unrecognisable—their understanding implies that no one should have the freedom to voice their opinion and only they have the right to not only speak but also attack others.
When confronted with divergent views, the ABVP is quick to give a lesson on the perils of abusing free speech – through a repertoire of rape threats that somehow prove their patriotic credentials.
Their intent is to not engage in dialogue but to hijack spaces, bulldoze their ideas, and intimidate others from speaking their mind.
The ball is however now in the ABVP’s court. It is time for the ABVP to set their house in order — if they want to be taken seriously in universities, they need ideas to back them up and not punches.
Worse will be if they resort to intellectual dishonesty once again, by doctoring videos to compensate for the lack of an argument — a move that disrespects the very premise of a university. While one can only hope for a reformation in the ABVP’s tactics, chances are bleak for their very identity as a political unit is mired in violent chauvinism.
A Nation Where Everyone Finds A Voice: ABVP’s Real Fear
Having been a student and teacher at Delhi University, I can vouch for the openness with which the university entertains differing views. While the university is no haven, riddled as it is with its own issues, the classroom is a highly diverse space — a microcosm of a nation that is capable of engagement and dialogue which includes people across the political spectrum.
As Shafey Danish, a teacher at Ramjas, reported from the day of the event, when a senior teacher spotted a familiar student in the gang of ABVP hoodlums, she went and tried to reason with him about the ineffectuality of violence.
This is exactly the kind of labour teachers put in classrooms — the labour of listening to, engaging with, and understanding different views.
The ABVP’s act is not a patriotic duty towards the nation, rather, it is a fascist act of cowardice that shies away from hearing what citizens have to say.
In actuality, what threatens them is not the nation breaking up but a nation where everyone is equally included and has a voice.
It is time to reject the ABVP’s definition of violent nationalism and counter it with another kind of imagination of a nation—an imagination that Delhi University has always symbolised—a nation where Kashmiris, Adivasis, Muslims and Dalits are included.
It is time to fight hard to preserve this university where you can imagine with others, listen to others, disagree with others and even dare to think of a world without borders.
(Niyati Sharma is a PhD researcher at the Department of English, University of Oxford. She can be found on Twitter at @Niyatisharma17. The views expressed are the author’s and The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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