JNU mayhem was Modi show

A silly question is doing the rounds after the long evening of terror inside the JNU campus. Everybody wants to know why the police stood guard outside the JNU gates while masked goons went on a rampage inside, attacking students and faculty inside the campus. Well, the simple answer is that they had instructions from above not to intervene till the goons decamped after terrorising the university. Both Delhi Police and the media are claiming that the JNU Vice-Chancellor didn’t give permission to the police to enter the campus. So, they waited outside. On the face of it, the police need any university VC’s permission to enter a university campus. But, as so many people have pointed out, the same police entered Jamia Millia Islamia on the night of December 15. Naturally, Delhi Police virtually connived with the goons who let loose a reign of terror inside the JNU campus last Sunday.

But why did the police behave like this in the JNU case? We all know well that the police dance to their political bosses’ tunes. Who did then restrain Delhi Police from intervening in JNU? Two names are doing the round in this connection. They are JNU VC M Jagadesh Kumar and Union Home Minister Amit Shah as the capital’s police force is answerable to the country’s Home Minister. No, none of them took the decision to enact a night of terror in JNU. They were both just pawns in the game that actually Prime Minister Narendra Modi was playing on that January night inside JNU.

But why would Modi plan something which could bring him disrepute? Simply, Modi wanted to teach a lesson to the Left and liberal constituency which he calls the tukde tukde gang. But there must be some provocation for Modi to hit back at this constituency. The provocation was Jamia Millia Islamia. It is now evident that Modi picked Jamia Millia Islamia for police action after the citizenship law was passed to polarise the country on the NRC issue. It’s a Muslim-dominated university. It would have sent the right signal to Modi’s Hindutva constituency that Muslims are up to mischief after the new law has been passed. And, that the Hindu Hriday Samrat Modi fixed them right before they could harm the Hindus.

But the JNU Left and liberals across Delhi nipped Modi’s conspiracy in the bud. A large number of JNU students and scores of liberal youths rushed to Jamia in defence of this Muslim-dominated university. They laid siege to the Delhi Police Headquarters. The next morning, youths across the country were on the streets opposing the CAA and the NRC. It took shape of an anti-government movement that put the Modi government in a spot.

Narendra Modi’s entire political game plan went for a toss after this eruption of the anti-CAA/NRC movement across the country. Narendra Modi only knows the politics of polarisation. He owes his political rise to the Gujarat riots of 2002 that transformed him into Hindu Hriday Samrat. He hasn’t looked back since then. He has won elections after elections, by polarising voters along communal lines. He was obviously banking upon CAA and NRC to polarise the country on Hindu-Muslim lines. Modi must have been pretty sure that his game plan would deliver dividends. But the JNU and the liberals put a spoke in his political plan in his second term.

It unnerved Narendra Modi who went berserk and decided to teach the Left-liberal constituency a lesson. JNU is a symbol of the Left and liberal stream of thought. It is essentially a nursery of youths who come out from this campus steeped in the Left-liberal ethos. So, JNU was picked to convey to the Left and liberals to back out or face the consequences. Therefore, JNU was singularly a Modi show while Union Home Minister Amit Shah and VC M Jagadesh Kumar were only the executioners of the plot that the Prime Minister personally conceived.

Now, there are attempts to lay all the blame on the JNU VC’s doorstep. He is apparently guilty too. A cacophony is being built against the VC who may be sooner than later turned into a sacrificial lamb. Who knows even Kumar may be rewarded for playing ball with his bosses. In any case, the government has to take some action in the JNU episode before the Budget session of Parliament rolls out later this month. The obvious scapegoat can only be the JNU VC who may have to resign soon to put cold water over the JNU fire. But make no mistake about Modi being the man behind the JNU mayhem because the Jamia-JNU combination turned his political plan of polarising the country on CAA and NRC upside down.