On Umar Khalid and the Right to dissent

First , watch this video:

https://youtu.be/G9K8ZM_6Tc4

Now, please tell me, who dares paints these kids Anti-nationals without first painting themselves buffoons plus thugs plus enemies of reason, with the same brush!!

As long as we have been in existence as a people our respect for the dissenter, or the other view has always been more inclusive than any other nation known. The standoff vs. Modijis Govt. and the students at JNU is a special point in the case to be made about the attempt to stifle dissent and the fallow hope of trying to make a bankrupt ideology sound good by using "sexy" words like Patriotism and fear mongering terms like "Terrorists" , " Antinationals", " Jihadis", "Maoists" etc.

All the same while the attempt is on to malign and denigrate any differing viewpoint be it Secularism "Sickularism" or the voices that cry foul when personal liberties are trampled - the so called Anti-nationals and Reservationists- the folk the RSS and BJP right wing hardliners would "Shoot at Sight" (Their actual words!).

But here, in the video shared above, contrary to the media painted image of some medieval Islamic unschooled Umar Khalid and his equally silly followers at JNU doing some seeriously seriously stupid and objectionable things, you see an Umar Khalid addressing an audience of students that took my breath away when I heard him speak here [the first time I took notice of this issue really - as I'm. breaking my self imposed hiatus from Political posts on the web! :) But I really had to!]

We are dealing with educated, balanced and suave students here at JNU. Students who've done far more than merely read books and pass exams. Students who have applied their minds and thought about what they are being taught and how things are unfolding in the Nation and the World around them. Students smart enough to know their rights and the tenuous limitations that curtail those rights illegally. And as youth they quickly spot the bluffs they are and impatiently give tongue to their frustrations. But THAT IS THEIR RIGHT!

As Umar Khalid, the student at the eye of the storm over the JNU issue states - " Anti-nationals of the world unite!" - in peace. It's time. We've seen enough and more bloody wars as a species all these last hundred odd years. We can't handle another such century , let's be clear!

If being Nationalist means one has a monopoly on what the Truth is and What the Right is, then it's time to break this fake monopoly.

No man, no club, no group, no mob, no school, no religion, no university, no nation and no group of nations even can ever claim dominion or monopoly over what's the Truth. Nor over what's RIGHT.

These students are fighting for what's RIGHT. The irony of their raising Leftist slogans isn't an irony at all unless one subscribes to the rather bankrupt view that Capitalism is somehow a far better system. It may have proved be longer enduring than Communism but is it really any better??

One must remember the greatest examples of how great either Communism or Capitalism can be are respetively a bankrupt war mongering Nation that collapsed in the early 90s and a bankrupt war mongering nation verging on collapse perhaps very soon unless it changes its direction drastically.

These Students are inpiring. In them one is confident, the future of our country is secured. They have guts and conviction. Poise and inner steel. More Power to them. More Power to them!

#IStandWithJNU