Student Politics or Student Slug-fest

Student Politics reached its all time low yesterday when a supporter of the BJP's student wing ABVP entered the hall of Delhi University campus, where SAR Geelani, a professor of Zakir Hussain College who seclaim to fame(or should i say defame) was when he was tried as an offender in 2001 Parliament attacks though he was acquitted later by the Supreme Court. Yesterday he was invited by the varsity to give a lecture on Democracy and Communalism, when a group of approximately 50 protestors of ABVP along with their vociferous leader Nupur Sharma entered the campus and started ransacking the place. Just then one of their supporters went near Geelani's dais and spat on him twice. When later asked by the media that what actually happened and whether the act of spitting should be condemnable or not, Miss Sharma said-that the protest was basically 'peaceful' but they haed just pelted a few stones hear and there and continued by refusing to confirm that the offender was from her party said that she sees no need of an apology and refused to express remorse as she would done the same and went on to say that the whole country should spit on such a person, who according to her jurisdiction is an offender of the Parliamentary attack and was only let off on lack of technical evidence. The reason for such an act of violence as upheld by Miss Sharma was that Mr.Geelani was allegedly spreading communal discord by spreading anti-'Hindutva'(which is very secular according to them!) pamphlets. For a moment lets be generous with Miss Sharma, the lady who came on a television channel and made her voice hoarse in proving the fundamental, vigilante, mobocritic and right-wing ideologies she follows,anyway i grant her that the person who spat wasnt from her party, Geelani was trying to preach communal disharmony etc. But my argument is even if she is granted all the right in the world to be infuriated by Professor Geelani, should she be left alone for supporting the despicable act of spitting on a person or anyone for that matter? The answer is a resounding No. We could have all the right in the world to agitate against something but should the freedom of expression of one's anger could ever be the derogatory act of spitting? It is against the basic tenet of humanity ( i grant her that as she has the mean streak of a fire-brand Indian future politician) and is the most unparliamentary and ignominable way of expressing herself (which i don't grant Miss Sharma as she is a law student). Moreover, being a law student she should respect the verdict of highest court on our land and should not demonstrate against anyone on pure whim regulated by her fundamentalist Hindu ideals granered in her by ABVP (whose protestors a few year back had killed one professor in Uttar Pradesh as the elections were called off by him). But i can't blame her much because our country has had the legacy of people taking law into their hands and not turning a deaf ear to what the court has to say. Since we have bred our children in a culture of persistent delinquency, a bunch of MNS and Shiv Shena supporters can always beat up taxi drivers from UP and Bihar as a part of their chest-beating over the Marathi Manush, Raj Thackeray can always spread disharmony among people by engineering lingisutic divide( we can't blame him either, like uncle like nephew). We don't care about court verdicts, we think the judgement of our personal court should rule the land. I agree that the common man is disillusioned about the tedious judiciary and has become impatient and they have every reason for it but instead of breaking into a law-breaking ruckus a properly etched out PIL and protest regarding the reformation of judiciary in terms of introduction of more judges and mobilising the process of imparting a jurisdiction over a partivular case would help us in the long run, as mobocrisy can only lead us to a dystopian, undemocratic world in which anyone can do anything without being brought under the purview of law. We also need to learn how we should protest. A proper and effective agitation cannot tend to get violent as then we confuse the cause with personal emotions and the basic tenet of every constitution and democracy abhorrs such violence. And when an African American has rose to the status of a liberal leader and is all set to usher an age of positive change by imbibing gandhian values, i don't know why we are lagging behind and why can't we learn moderation in demonstrating the way we think. So ABVP had no ground of protesting against SAR Geelani as the man has been acquitted by the highest court on our land long back and unless there is substantial proof to distrust him, any further agitation will lead to victimisation of Geelani is reprsents his community, so if that happens we cannot be disgruntled about the Muslims not considering Indian polity to be less accomodative of them. And even if i consider that Geelani was trying to spread communal discord (a) there is a way to protest against it and (b) the reason given by Miss Sharma that he was spreading anti-'Hindutva' pamphlets is not a very suitable argument for one's defense which Miss Sharma (and the supreme leader of her party should know before their campaings for general elections nosedives before its launch) as a future 'lawyer' should know as the idea of Hindutva is not a very secular ideal either. As a closure to this discourse all i have to say is that the spit on Geelani didn't actually scathe him with any humiliation yesterday, it created a blotch on the parliamentary politics that all of us who are involved with student politics in colleges across the country are supposed to follow. So while he virtually spat on him and his party, the whole nation needs to apologise to Professor SAR Geelani. And for Miss Sharma all i have to say is that, i hope she gets a job after she passes out as given the precedent and her lack of knowledge about parliamentary affairs and judiciary, would seriously not fetch her brownie point in the job market in the age of a global recession.