Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) is a secular University and one of the prestigious educational institutions of the country. It has a history of contributing to the promotion of a secular and democratic India. It is one of the first Universities of India. The police and administration however appear to have carefully forgotten the University's secular credentials and used the incident to inscribe a communal colour to its students, teaching faculty and other members ...

The Jamia Incident in Perspective

The brutal attack on the students of JMI by the Delhi police is not a isolated incident. It needs to be analysed within the context of the growing communalisation of the state and the community-centric discourse of the state which is being developed by the RSS and BJP. The basic objective of the RSS and "Sangh Parivar" is to raise socially divisive issues and subvert the secular agenda of the Indian State. The BJP led coalition government at the Centre has been making concerted attempts at saffronising the various state institutions. Political institutions and processes increasingly becoming a threat to the security of its citizens, especially the minorities. Within the context of a communalised state apparatus, the definition of citizenship based on secular, modern and democratic notions of inalienable rights undergoes severe stain. Incidents such as the one at Jamia indicate that secularism as state ideology is not being transformed into secularism as state practice since those who controlled state power are either perpetuating - or turning a blind eye to - violence against a minority group.

With the state talking on a community-centric approach to politics, one needs to discern the underlying framework of relationship between police and minorities. Our investigation in the aftermath of the Jamia incident has brought to light the vicious mindset of the police who perceive religious minorities, especially Muslims, in a communal manner - the police question their patriotism, their legitimate rights as citizens and their socio-cultural mores and values. The conduct of an average policeman is guided by. the same preconceived notions and misconceptions which influence the mindset of a fundamentalist or a person from a communalised civil society. It is such a psychology that governs police reactions during incidents like the one at Jamia. The act of violence and the attempt to rationalise the same after the incident is an indicator towards a dangerous trend of the communalisation of police and other state institutions.

The RSS/BJP attempts at communalising state institutions are part of their larger agenda of changing the character of educational institutions run by minorities and the recent violent attack on missionary run schools in Uttar Pradesh and the Jamia incident are testimony to this fact. Subversion of secularism and the attempts at changing the character of an institution like Jamia, where Muslim students are in large numbers cannot be done without covert assistance from state institutions. In a liberal democratic and plural society, the police are considered to be a living expression, an embodiment, an implementing arm of democratic law which is not an end in itself, but a means to higher ends on human affairs, such as good order, justice and liberty ...

As is expected from a democratic, informed and proactive civil society, the Jamia incident has evoked sharp criticisms and condemnation from various sections of the people. Peoples' representatives cutting across party lines have joined hands and raised their voice against the police and the government in the Parliament. Dharnas, protest marches and rallies have been organised by the student's community. in New Delhi. The teaching community of the University also stood by the students and provided sureties for 66 students in the courts. The incident has also been taken up by civil society groups to call for change in not just the laws but also the mind set of the law enforcers.

Even with all this action one can claim that the civil society has not done enough. The "false cases" against the student's have not been withdrawn and the state officials who were responsible for this reprehensible act have not been booked. It is time that citizens, not just in Delhi but across the country, express their solidarity with the unfortunate students of Jamia who had to undergo this traumatic experience. Citizens need to come out of their narrow and parochial interests and condemn such acts and their actors. Given below are some of the responses of the different groups:

State, Police, Higher Education and Ideology

For the State and Police force JMI is a. "Muslim" University. What makes it a minority University is that roughly 50 percent of its students hail from the minority community and the name of the University is in "Arabic" (sic), even though the University was established by an Act of the Parliament. Do our other Universities which have practically 100 percent students from the majority community become Hindu universities because the student population hails from the majority community. The manner in which the state and police handled JMI as an institution of higher learning is communal.

Such perceptions can lead to serious consequences. We could see that the police had homogenised the University and its environs. Everybody in the constituency was viewed as a culprit, anti-national and thus lacking participation in nation building endeavours. The crime of two criminals, who were not directly connected to the University, becomes the crime of the entire JMI if not the entire "Muslim" community. Slogans like Jamia Millia students are ISI agents, Pakistani infiltrators, anti-Indians are a consequence of such perceptions. The slogans and behaviour of the police is a mere reflection of a communalised civil society. The police force represents our civil society. To the extent civil society remains communalised, the police force can be no different.

There are reasons to believe that the police did not act on their own. The police had to receive their orders from the Union Ministry to enter a University Campus. That the situation was "extraordinary", as was allegedly told by a police officer to a University official present in the hostel, and police entered the campus on their own will not have many. takers.

A communal government acts communally and through its communal orders further communalises civil society. A consequence of such communalisation is that the distinction between citizen, community and society get blurred. Every "Muslim", even though he/she is a citizen of this country and a responsible member of the civil society is seen with prejudice. So is the Muslim community. This is communalisation of civil society ...

What has happened in Jamia is merely a reflection of the furtherance of the ideology of "Hindutva" adopted by the BJP, the leader of the NDA coalition government at the Centre. With BJP in power the police force is further communalised. They are willing to do whatever their political masters want them to do. Society cannot go on in this manner. The fascist forces have to be defeated.

Recommendations of the Fact Finding Team

a) The Police Force should have proportionate representation of people from the minority communities. Immediate steps should be taken towards its realisation.

b) JMI should evolve an effective Proctorial Committee consisting of students, teachers and administrators to handle all anti-social activities inside the campus.

c) A special professional police force be created to deal with students' unrest, if at all needed, when University administration requests for the same.

d) Attempts should be made to reorient the police force on the secular ideology of the Indian state through seminars, workshops and training programmes.

The public reaction to the crimes committed by the police in Jamia Millia has been subdued. It appears as if civil society is silenced or paralysed. In a secular country if secular and progressive groups do not come together to publicly denounce and discourse such acts of police vandalism, the future of the country may be at stake.

CPI: National Council on Jamia Violence, 23 April, 2000

The National Council of the Communist Party of India expresses grave concern on the growing attacks on the renowned educational institutions of the country. The latest in the series is the police violence on the campus of JMI on April 9, 2000 ... Earlier in January the UP police has meted out the same treatment to the students and teachers of the Shibli National Post Graduate College of Azamgarh. There the police collaborated with the frontal organizations of RSS in organising anti-minority violence ... These attacks reflect the saffronisation process of the police force under BJP. The CPI National Council wants the secular forces to take notice of the sinister designs of the BJP in regard to such educational institutions.

The CPI National Council supports the demand of the JMI students for a time-bound judicial enquiry ... and also demands withdrawal of all cases against the students.

CPI Leader Shameem Faizee On Jamia Violence

The brutal lathi-charge and merciless beating of students of JMI by Delhi Police is not an isolated event. It is almost the repetition of what the UP Police did to the students and teachers of Shibli National Post-Graduate College on January 27 this year. The two institutions founded during the freedom struggle to impart nationalist education are now facing the ire of BJP controlled Police ...

The Police claim that it resorted to lathi-charge on Jamia students stoned them when they went there to arrest a former student of the university for some crime committed months ago. It seems to be a cooked up story to cover the atrocities committed on the students ...

A: PUCL inquiry in the events on April 9 has concluded that the incident reflected "saffronisation process" within the police ...

Jamia whose foundation was laid by none other than .. Mahatma Gandhi has received a big blow ... It appears that this institution has been targeted with ulterior motives ... The ... inquiry teams that visited Azamgarh ...

have concluded that the whole incident was pre-planned and pre-mediated by the RSS and its allied organizations (and) Police ... collaborated .with the hooligans ... (A) section of judiciary too showed communal bias in dealing with the matter ... Coupled with these two incidents, the continued attacks on the missionary schools in Gujarat, .Haryana and now, Western UP, the picture becomes clear.

It appears that RSS is targeting all those institutions, which have stood out as the symbols of communal harmony, secularism and patriotism ... (Source: The New Age, 23-29 April, 2000)