One of the disadvantages of a democracy is nothing comes in absolute black or white. (No, I don’t mean the money, of which there is plenty of the former! At least in India). No debate on any issue of national significance seems completely right or wrong, white or black. There are many shades of grey in between. Because everyone gets to shout his opinion on every subject, it’s mostly grey that prevails. And with it confusion.
When the Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance was in power, all sorts of allegations of corruption had erupted. Even the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG), the country’s highest ‘accounts keeper’, had declared that billions had been lost due to non-compliance or favouritism. The media had a scam to reveal almost every day.
But for each one of these allegations, the government and the party in power had their own explanations. It got to such an extent that one of the senior ministers even claimed that the loss in the 2G allocation was “zero”! While many did not believe him, there were those who thought Kapil Sibal had indeed made a point. And so with other scams where opinions were divided.
While the general feeling was that many people had lined their pockets heavily during those days, no one is sure who exactly and by how much. Surely rumours that Sonia Gandhi’s Italian relatives were carrying suitcases full of cash in private planes out of India cannot be true! Or did they? Did Suresh Kalmadi take huge cuts while awarding contracts for the Commonwealth Games? Was Andimuthu Raja funneling billions into Chennai or wherever on behalf of Muthuvel Karunanidhi and his family? No one has the exact answers. Turths, half-truths and lies. In short, grey.
When Narendra Modi rode to power on the plank of development and a promise to fight corruption in high places, it was the breath of fresh air that all India - well, almost all India - was dying for. To the majority of Indians he was the deliverer. But a very conspicuous minority warned of dire forebodings. “Look at the Gujarat pogrom”, it said. “Can’t you see that the whole of India will soon be engulfed in such vicious extermination,” it asked.
Did Modi actually give orders to kill? Or did he simply look the other way? Or did he, as he had claimed, do his best to control the situation by calling in the army to keep the peace? At least as far as the courts - trial, High and the Supreme Court - are concerned, there was nothing to nail Modi with. But somehow the feeling that his hands are not altogether clean would not go away. After all, 1,044 people (official figure) had been killed in the riots within a few days. You simply can’t place Modi in a totally black or a completely white square. Grey would suit better.
The current crisis in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) should, therefore, naturally fall into the same category. Student activism is nothing new in India. The world’s first democratically elected communist government - the one led by EMS Namboodiripad in Kerala - was felled in 1959 by Congress-led agitators, most of whom were college and even school-going students.
The communists soon learned that academia can be good hunting ground for young revolutionaries. They have never let up after that. JNU is the culmination of those efforts although it must be conceded that it has also produced some outstanding diplomats - current Foreign Secretary Subramanyam Jaishankar is one of them - and writers.
As with everything there are two versions of what had happened in JNU on February 9. It was the third anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru who was convicted for his role in the 2001 attack on Indian parliament. A group of students with allegiance to the Left parties wanted to stage a play called “A country without a post office” which borrowed its name from a book of poems by Kashmiri writer Agha Shahid Ali. Like the poem, the play too was essentially a criticism of the Indian government’s Kashmir policy.
But as students began gathering for the “cultural evening”, things went beyond control with some indulging in blatant anti-India slogans. A rival group of students, which owes its strength to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), informed the university authorities who, instead of trying to control the situation from within, promptly called the police in.
Protesting against policies of the government of the day is one thing and seeking to destroy India through war and dismemberment is another. The students, or whoever they were, had certainly crossed the line. The police took Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the students’ union, into custody and filed a first information report (FIR) based on eyewitness accounts and video evidence invoking Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code which deals with sedition, the maximum punishment for which is life in prison. (Kumar is yet to be charge-sheeted as that will come only after the police complete their inquiry).
JNU is no stranger to such controversies. There had been instances where students had been approached by agents of forces inimical to India. So when slogans threatening the nation’s destruction are raised they have to be taken seriously and the authorities have to act. Diplomatic immunity is reserved for foreign missions. Universities are very much part of the nation and cannot claim that status.
Delhi police maintain they have enough evidence to nail Kumar and a dozen others but have as not yet revealed anything to support its claim. This has led to a series of counter-allegations by the Left as well as some members of the JNU faculty. Much of the mainstream media also joined issue with Delhi police, and by extension the federal government, after some reporters and cameramen were manhandled by lawyers when Kumar was produced there. It will be some time before the media forgets this.
Matters got further complicated when the country’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh, under whom Delhi police work, in a monumental display of ham-handedness relayed a fake tweet supporting the Leftist students from Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistani leader against whom India has mounted terror charges.
The basic premise of the opposition argument is that the videos produced in support of the sedition allegation were doctored. The Left views this as Prime Minister Modi’s attempt to malign the last bastion of leftist ideology.
The opposition Congress Party says Modi is trying to further polarise the nation and is also attempting to deflect what it calls “the economic failures” of his government by getting the media to focus on JNU politics. Respected columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta called it an “act of tyranny” and a “disproportionate response” by the government. Editorial writers were also sharp in their criticism.
The BJP says the opposition is raking up issues only because it can’t suffer to see India progressing under Modi. It points out that each of these issues - intolerance, beef, temple entry and now JNU - has a shelf life and the opposition picks up one by one in its attempt to malign the government. Speaking at a farmers’ rally in Odisha earlier this week, Modi said there was a conspiracy to “finish” him.  
The BJP wants to know why the media is silent on the brutal killing of an RSS worker in Kerala’s Kannur district allegedly by the CPM cadre while it is shedding endless tears for Kumar and debating what is patriotism. It is also wondering why after two years of silence suddenly there was a need to remember Afzal Guru’s hanging.
How a country that the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) describes as the “only bright spot” in world economy can be called a failure is a question only the Congress can answer. (OECD projects India’s growth in 2016 at a world best 7.4% against the international average of 3%). Also, how can the Congress Party explain Rahul Gandhi’s presence on the JNU campus in support of the students protesting against Afzal Guru’s hanging when it was under the Congress government’s watch that the incident happened?
Modi is the product of the RSS. So its ideology will never leave him. But if his intention is to polarise the nation on the lines of ideologies, would he want to do it now or after he has fully delivered on the promises he had made? Surely Modi is intelligent enough to know he could garner more support, and come back for a second term, if the economic agenda he enunciated bears fruit. He would also know that Indians will desert him if the opposite were to happen. So why should he embark on a suicidal mission when he is not even half way into his tenure? Let’s just say it’s all grey.
Long, long ago a very powerful man said: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” In other words truth lies somewhere in between - in that grey area. The man was Marcus Arelius, Emperor of Rome in the 2nd century. But how true his words ring in 21st century India!