A half house

Azadi...Azadi...Azadi!!

Kanahiyya is out on bail. The JNU campus celebrated like a freedom fighter has come out of the jail of an enslaving government. Thousands had gathered to celebrate, jeer, laugh, mock and shout at his homecoming. It at least proves that those who shouted anti-India slogans are not just a minority, there are thousands of JNU students in general who pay lip service to their ideology and follow them in spirit, who share the belief, who agree with the few who have been in the news recently for ant-India posturing and sloganeering.

In his homecoming speech Kanahiyya and Co. were shouting repeatedly, ‘Ladke lenge Azaadi!’ I just want to ask what freedom you are asking and fighting for? You get a room at the monthly rent even less than a snack at a junk food outlet. You pay fees even less than a cinema ticket in a multiplex in a mall. Your lunch and dinners are subsidised to the extent that even a daily wage earner pays more on a roadside stall to quieten the hunger rats in his famished stomach. You are absolutely free to follow your basic instincts, so that you simply focus on scholarship instead of wasting time like typical non-JNU youths in curiosity following the opposite sex. You are free to get education from the best scholars in the country. You are free to grow up and spend your formative years in an environment that puts you ahead in competition to become IAS officers and build lucrative careers in MNCs. The Government of India gives you all these facilities because you are considered to be students par excellence. Just because you crack an entrance exam! But do you consider yourself to be just students? Aren’t you jumping too far ahead into future to be petty politicians even before you complete your scholarship? Scholarship and research has taken a backseat; politics is driving the students’ psyche now in JNU. And it is sad and pathetic. The Indian Government spends hundreds of crores not to hear political shouts, it does for research, growth of minds, discussion, better citizens, not the ones who shout, jeer and cock a thumb a the Indian state almost on principle.

Being a JNUite has been misinterpreted in a way so as to mean only anti-establishment. The problem with a premiere institution is that its students might carry a superiority complex that in turn makes them think that whatever they act, feel and do is better than the ordinary. The JNU fame over the decades has developed a mentality that they are exclusive and better than the rest and hence need to hold privileged, apart-from-the-rest attitude and opinions and only this mentality can instigate some of them to shout pro Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhatt slogans. There cannot be any other psychology other than this. The highest seat of justice has decaled them to be the enemies of the state, who are these little extra-idea-fed hatchings to question the procedure of justice dispensation at the highest level in the country. It’s a direct declaration of distrust in the state. As sun warms up, rain gets us wet, this leftist ideology has inherent tendency for chaos and disturbance that ultimately leads to violence. These little intellectuals are just in infatuation with the idea. It’s better they go romancing with the girls instead of being sloganeering paper tigers playacting the show of revolution on a safe stage in a highly-subsidised educational institution. How many of them go to the real mess in slums and bring ‘Azadi’ for the hungry and the destitute?

It’s highly deplorable that JNU campus is now politicised beyond imagination. How can students pursue scholarship in such surroundings? The management has to stamp its authority and put scholarship over politics. That is what JNU should be known for, not slogans like ‘India go back!’ If India goes back, will most of them even be able to pursue their education in costly institutions outside? They come from very poor families. Isn’t it freedom that they are privileged to get the best education at the cheapest rate? Isn’t it freedom that Kanahiyya whose family runs on 3000 INR dents Indian democracy with his anti-state propaganda and hogs national limelight? They are getting damn subsidised education from the poorest of the poor man’s money that directly indirectly goes into government’s coffers. They are just supposed to be good educated citizens of India and do something extra than the lesser mortals to make India better.

I got my education from Jat College in a small town in Haryana and always held a grudge for not having studied at JNU. Thanks to our extra-brained JNUites, my grudge lies in a dustbin now. I am happy for getting my education where I did. At least I believe in Indian democracy as it stands. Who knows what an intellectual-psychopath I would have turned out had I joined that institution! At least considering myself luckier after watching the jeering crowd yesterday night after the freedom fighter came out of the jail for the cause of the masses.

Jats and JNU

Jats and JNU have jolted the peaceful march of Indian democracy. It’s really tragic how politicians and masses ganged up to destroy the civilized norms in Haryana. Jat reservation issue has been misdirected and mismanaged to just end in loot, arson, killings, inter-caste conflicts, loss of public and private property, and above all the destruction of social bond in Haryana. Socio-economic standing of Jats in Haryana does not seem sufficient to put them in the backward category. There are strong proofs that violence was politically instigated to garner political mileage. The sinners of Haryana have to be brought to justice. Post the storm, the positive elements of society need to take out a helping hand to those who unnecessarily suffered. It’s the time to rebuild the fractured fabric of society. Jats have to realize they can become famous for far better things than they are presently.

Elsewhere, gangs of straying intellectuals in JNU are playing into the hands of anti-establishment elements. It is highly deplorable that a premiere institution where per student annual subsidies are to the level of 300,000 INR is found to be involved in such activities. It’s high time that the students and staff in JNU realize that they can do a lot better than they are doing now in return for all the crores of subsidized education. Crying against system all the time is no sign of an extra-evolved brain. Extra-smart brains bring more positives for the society, instead of shouting ‘India we will destroy you!’

You tube promotional video of my upcoming book 'A Half House'

You tube promotion of my book 'A Half House'

Sandeep Dahiya - Author

Sandeep Dahiya is an emerging writer, poet and blogger. Taking inspiration from his see-saw existence drawn between a traditional Haryanvi village and metropolitan Delhi, he mediates to carve out a reliable identity from the two opposing worlds. He holds a decade of editorial experience with reputed academic publishers in the country. His works include: Footsteps Lost (Minerva Press); Verses from the Land of Farmers’ Messiah (ABC Publishers); A Half House (Invincible Publishers); Beyond and Beneath (Invincible Publishers); Chimp, Champ and Chops (Invincible Publishers).

Sandeep Dahiya grew up at a village in Sonipat district of Haryana. Having his education in a village school and graduating from a small town college, he just did marginally better than other students and dreamt big. Moving further he completed M Sc in Ecology and Environment, and Masters in Journalism and Mass Communication. His teachers at the small village school thought he could become an IAS officer. However, during summer vacations in Shimla, a lady official who decided the best travelogue prize for the camping students made a still better remark that he could write. He remembered it all the way while he tried his best for the IAS and the PCS.

Coming from that part of north Indian countryside, where literature will be the last thing on anybody’s mind, where agriculture is culture itself, where perhaps people would prefer a buffalo over a book, he tried to be the black sheep that is trying to get out of the herd to set its own offbeat course. Following a self-possessed and self-nourished dream comes with its own set of trials and tribulations. More than once he abandoned the dream of full time writing. Many a time he realised his limitations as a writer. Still many more times he felt himself a victim of the forces beyond his control. Having spent a decade in the editorial departments of academic publishers, he gets up again to try further and get a slippery foothold led by the anticipating whispers of the inherent voice.

He fought for the most prestigious civil services examination in India. Fought decently well also, given his own limitations and more importantly the literary limitations of the socio-cultural unit he came from in the village in Haryana. The harder he worked, the more distant became the goals. He saw the worst of politico-bureaucratic-judicial game. When he finally fell his inner voice told him, it is more on account of the system’s failure than his own. So he has sips of justice in the form of inner thumbs-up by his soul.  

Every time he falls, deeper are the analytical impressions on the neurons of his brain; graver have been the bruises on heart. If nothing more, it gives him the mood and inclination to write. Churning out reflections and sentiments that  life’s thousand catapults give to all of us uniquely, Sandeep Dahiya writes to basically satisfy the inner cravings, and more importantly to create scenes and visualisations for a better world both for himself and the larger cause of humanity.http://www.sandeepdahiya.com/