An Indian Student Leader Fighting Intolerance, Charged With Sedition
from the Progressive:
An Indian Student Leader Fighting Intolerance, Charged With Sedition
Posted: March 28, 2016
Barbara Miner
[font size="1"]An Indian doctoral student has been charged by the national government for participating in a protest to mark the anniversary of a controversial hanging of a Kashmir activist. Here, students gather on March 12 in his defense. All photos by Barbara Miner.[/font]
Across India, students are organizing against an increasingly intolerant, right wing national government. A soft-spoken 28-year-old doctoral student at India’s top public university has unexpectedly become a focal point for the growing protest movement.
Two months ago, Kanhaiya Kumar was focusing on his dissertation on “Social transformation in South Africa.” Today he is charged with sedition and facing a possible life sentence for allegedly shouting “anti-Indian” slogans at a February protest at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi.
The controversy is about far more than freedom of speech. Kumar has become the face of opposition to policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that are seen as furthering Hindu nationalism and religious intolerance, exacerbating caste and class divisions, and undermining India’s commitment to democracy.
Kumar, in person, is soft-spoken and deliberative, far from the media image of a rabble-rousing revolutionary eager to foment the breakup of India. In a recent interview on a quiet Sunday afternoon, in an outdoor courtyard at JNU, Kumar discussed a range of issues, from the crisis of finance capitalism, to his hopes for equality and democracy in India, to the need for international solidarity. ...........(more)
- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/03/188639/indian-student-leader-fighting-intolerance-charged-sedition#sthash.3oQJuawE.dpuf
