JNVU controversy: A dirge to Dr Ambedkar’s annihilation of caste?

For once, we should be happy and thankful to the Indian society that it has not heeded Ambedkar’s call to annihilate caste. For, had it not been the reality of caste asserting itself against the abstract modern notion of community, the silence suffocating Dr Rajshree Ranawat, who is facing intimidation from her university and rightwing organisations affiliated to the RSS, and her sense of total isolation in her institution would not have been broken.

Ranawat had organised an academic seminar at Jai Narayan Vyas University, Jodhpur after which the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad objected to one of the lectures, delivered by Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Nivedita Menon. The ABVP had protested in JNVU on February 3, on the charge that Menon’s lecture was ‘anti-national’. Menon has since clarified on her blog that her lecture was not ‘anti national’ and that the local media reports about her lecture are incorrect. But the university has also filed a police complaint against Menon and Ranawat.

Ranawat, now suspended by her university and threatened with the possibility of termination by the Vice Chancellor, is lonely in her campus. Professional solidarities failed to rise to the occasion. Neither the teacher’s union or the union of non-teaching employees of her university spoke for her.

The government, which is responsible for defending constitutional principles and rights of the individual arising out of it, is silent. The political parties which matter in Rajasthan have been watching in silence. We do not expect the BJP to react against its father organisation, the RSS. But the Congress Party has failed to speak up. Perhaps it is weighing the possible gains and losses if it speaks for the rights of Dr Ranawat. It is already stigmatised as a secular party and the defence of the right of academic freedom is a secular principle.

A RAJPUT SABHA STEPS IN

It is in this context that the members and leaders of the Marwar Rajput Sabha have come out openly in Ranawat’s support. They are aggrieved and angry that Ranawat, one of their own, is being wrongfully persecuted. She is being punished for something she has not done. The Sabha has a clarity which modern education failed to impart to the VC and other officers of the JNVU, that organiser of an academic seminar cannot be held responsible for the views expressed by the speakers in it. They have also pointed out that if she is to be held accountable for the opinion of the participating speakers, how can the VC escape his own complicity as he was the chief patron of the seminar.

The Marwar Rajput Sabha gheraoed the VC of JNVU to express their disapproval of his unjust act against Ranawat and demanded her immediate reinstatement.

We, who do not belong to the Rajput community and by that logic, Ranawat does not belong to us, are, however, relieved and happy. Because, as said earlier, now she has a real, authentic solidarity which would be able to face, resist and combat the larger religio-nationalist appeal that is working against her. This appeal alleges that she willingly and conspiratorially participated in an act of sacrilege against the unearthly, or heavenly, holiness of the nation.

Not that Ranawat did not have other, casteless or caste-free voices rising for her. The Rajasthan chapter of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties immediately spoke for her. Students and academics from other universities are signing petitions supporting her, and the numbers are growing in her support. We know, however, the arguments of civic nationalism and disinterested knowledge would return unheard.

This is an irony of our times that the language of civic nationalism is not understood in the place of intellection, which is what a university is supposed to be. Civic nationalism seeks to build solidarities beyond religions and ethnicity. It leads to a cosmopolitan vision or, rather, emanates from it. Universities are also meant to educate our young and not so young into cosmopolitanism. But this incident demonstrates that our universities have failed to do precisely this.

Caste is communicable. It is also dialogic. That is why the VC couldn’t not allow the Rajput Samaj to meet him. He and their members are seen sitting across the same table.

So, Dr Ambedakar, this is it. We suspend thinking about your project indefinitely.

Apoorvanand teaches Hindi at the University of Delhi, and is a literary and cultural critic.

This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. National Herald neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.