Must watch! Sugata Bose: TMC MP defines Nationalism, JNU Protests in Lok Sabha Speech

• Report rights infringement
• published: 26 Feb 2016
• views: 114

We unequivocally condemn those slogans and posters [at JNU]. However, we strongly oppose the attempt being made to portray the entire university as a hub of anti-national activities. We were horrified to witness the scenes of students, teachers and journalists being assaulted within the court premises of Patiala House. It was not the students, but the black-coated stormtroopers affiliated with the ruling party who defiled and desecrated the image of Mother India. You cannot be a true nationalist if you are opposed to freedom. We must give our students and youth the freedom to think, the freedom to speak, the freedom to be idealistic, and, yes, the freedom to make mistakes, and learn from them. What must be avoided at all costs is the criminalisation of dissent. We insist that no group within the Indian polity or in its diaspora is the univocal spokesperson for the nation. History shows us that state-sponsored or state-condoned campaigns against so-called anti-nationals lead to authoritarian rule and the destruction of democratic principles… We learn our lessons in nationalism from great figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose. I was wondering whose definition of nationalism might be acceptable to my friends in the treasury benches. I thought that at least I would try by citing before them the example of Aurobindo. Aurobindo touched upon “the secret of the difficulty in the problem of unifying ancient India”. He said the rishis from the Vedic age onwards, propounded “the ideal of the Chakravarti, a uniting imperial rule, uniting without destroying the autonomy of India’s many kingdoms and peoples from sea to sea”… According to his ideal, unification “ought not to be secured at the expense of the free life of the regional people or of the communal liberties and not therefore by a centralised monarchy or a rigidly unitarian imperial state”.