Silencing Dissent
The arrest of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar and his colleagues was certainly the continuation of the escalating effort to impede free speech and democratic right to protest in India. The police were still on witch-hunting the activists around the campus and more police atrocities would ensue. This was most certainly, a deliberate attempt of the Modi Government to suppress the left opponent. How a Vice-Chancellor, who was supposed to be the guardian of the students, can hand over the list of the contending students to the police is open to question. The way the Vice-Chancellor wanted to suppress the free speech in the name of Constitution resembled the occurrence happened in Jadavpur University two years back and it clearly showed that the administrations of the higher educational institutions in India had become part and parcel of the fascist ruling establishment.

The chauvinist activists of ABVP— the student wing of BJP—were worsening the situation and the Government deliberately brought them into play to spread hatred and communalism, the sole purpose of which was to choke the protesting voice.

JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar be released unconditionally without delay.
M M Parvez Lelin, President,
Faisal Mahmud, General Secretary,
Bangladesh Student Federation, Dhaka

JNU Arrest
The PCC condemns the arrest in Delhi of the JNU students' union President Kanhaiya Kumar for the "crime'' of organising a protest meeting on the anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru.

We further condemn Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani, two Union Cabinet Ministers, the BJP and its student wing for inciting this arrest and orchestrating a frenzy of false patriotism and communal chauvinism.

All citizens have the unfettered right to hold any and all opinions and organise peaceful protests on all issues including Alzal Guru's innocence or otherwise in the attack on the very Parliament which must guarantee such a constitutional and human right.

The fascists' minions of the RSS should not be allowed to take away that right. If the secular and democratic forces retreat before his latest episode of fascist frenzy, then Hitler's Reich, much admired by these medieval ideologues, will not be very far away.

We call upon all democratic forces in the land to resist such so-called patriotism and communal chauvinism.
Vaskar Nandy,
Provisional Central Committee,
CPI (ML)

Frontier
Vol. 48, No. 36, Mar 13 - 19, 2016