It was Nietzsche who said, ‘The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.’ If Nietzsche was alive today, he’d probably be driven to insanity – yet again. After all, how and why have our educational institutions — that were meant to be the temples of higher learning — turned into blazing bludgeoning battlefields?!?
From Delhi to Srinagar…from JNU to NIT…our students are busy waging a proxy war, which sadly pertains to issues that are not even remotely related to education or their own future. Without even ascribing an ulterior motive to them, it does make one wonder as to how did they manage to get caught in this hate-mongering that is being propagated by petty politicians for their own pilfering program. And as much as we’d like to hope that we are seeing the last of it, truth is that we are battling a multi-headed hydra, which must be slain quickly and completely.
Of course, for people out there, who do not completely comprehend what actually transpired, let me share a quick run-down of the recent events at NIT Srinagar. So, how did it all start? Actually, it was a strange aftermath of the recently-concluded India v. West Indies ICC T20 World Cup semi-finals (which India lost of course and West Indies went on to become the T20 World Cup Champions).
Following India’s defeat, a group of Kashmiri Muslim students of NIT Srinagar took out a celebratory procession to “celebrate India’s defeat”. As the procession started sloganeering [wherein the slogans raised were eerily similar to the ones raised on Jawaharlal Nehru University campus on February 9th this year, such as calling for India’s destruction, etc.], it led to a heated verbal spat between the Kashmiri students and the non-Kashmiri patriotic students. But that wasn’t all!
Soon after the verbal spat, stones were pelted at the Indus Hostel, which exclusively housed the non-Kashmiri students. What, of course, followed afterwards (and is being followed even today) is a systematic persecution of the non-Kashmiri patriotic students on campus, who are of course a minority group – both on campus and in the state.
This persecution of non-Kashmiri students not only came about at the hands of the Kashmiri students, but outsiders as well, including…lo and behold…the Jammu & Kashmir police force. In fact, the sad state of the situation was subsequently made more grim when it was revealed that even teachers (who were supposed to be the last standing bastion of sanity within the sea of insane voices) joined the ranks of the persecutors to threaten the protesting non-Kashmiri patriotic students of dire academic consequences.
In fact, how did we reach this sad state of affairs was eloquently predicted by Nietzsche, who foretold that the surest way to corrupt a youth was to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who thought alike than those who thought differently. Alas, our educational institutions have taken it upon themselves to prove Nietzsche right.
And so…it has been…that since the fateful night of March 31, the students of NIT Srinagar have been battling the elements and protesting for their right — their right to live without fear! Now, is that really an extraordinary request?!? [Well, you already know the answer to that rhetorical question…and for those of you who don’t…shame on you!!!]
