SANSAD News-release January 7, 2020
Solidarity with Students in India Facing State Terror
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD), comprising members of the South Asian diaspora in Canada joins its voice to the indignation and outrage across India at the attack by a masked gang of more than 50 men armed with sticks, iron bars, hammers, and stones on selected students and professors at Jawahar Lal Nehru University in Delhi on January 5. Campus security, which is responsible for access to the campus, enabled this action and the police, who arrived an hour after they were called, stood by while the armed gang systematically and viciously attacked people—many in their rooms and offices– who had been opposing a drastic rise in fees since November, and damaged personal and university property. More than 20 people were hospitalized with severe injuries. There is evidence that the attackers were members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the RSS, the parent organization of the ruling Hindu nationalist party, BJP. The campus security was clearly complicit in allowing the attackers to enter and carry on their violent actions without hindrance and the police not only did not intervene but prevented journalists from entering the campus to investigate.
This is the latest episode in the violence unleashed by the government of India against the people of India who, led by university students have come out in the streets to defend the constitution and the principle of secularism enshrined in it against the recently enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the forthcoming National Register of Citizens (NRC) that discriminate against Muslims and establishes citizenship on the basis of religion. There is already a global chorus of outrage against India’s discriminatory legislation, the brutal violence of the police against students protesting on their campuses and peaceful demonstrations by citizens that has caused 27 deaths, shutting down of the internet, and use of colonial laws to suppress dissent. The attack on JNU reveals the range of the BJP’s arsenal of law, police, and organized non-state actors. Understandably several political leaders in India have condemned the government as fascist and following Nazi methods.
We stand in solidarity with the students in India who are leading the struggle against discriminatory and divisive laws that will destroy the India created by its founders through the movement against colonialism and grounded in its secular constitution. We applaud their struggle for the right and access to education and the freedom of enquiry and speech and their taking of their rightful place in the vanguard of India’s new freedom struggle. We stand in solidarity with the people of India who are engaged in the defense of this great nation against those intent on wrecking it to create another based on their narrow version of the vast and various faith of the Hindus. We salute the trade unions who have called for a day of general strike on January 8 in solidarity with the students.
Endorsed by: Punjabi Literary and Cultural Association, Winnipeg