Resistance, Silence, and Solidarity at Ashoka
Part of being an Ashokan means you quickly learn to filter through and turn a blind eye to most of the emails you get, inviting you to a guest session by this speaker and that — there’s a thousand talks happening every day, across departments, and anyway, it’s not like you could attend even if you wanted to, there’s that 11.59 p.m deadline you have to meet. A liberal arts education is understood to be just that, liberal. Allowing for multiple choices to exist, having a vast breadth. That’s why so many prolific speakers are brought in, an exercise in broadening your view of the world by accommodating varied perspectives into it.
So when your inbox chimes, notifying you about an RSS pracharak — or member — who has been invited to deliver a talk, it’s the same old thing, right? No biggie. Open, read, delete. Well, not exactly. And that’s precisely what happened over the course of the last weekend at Ashoka.
The sequence of events began with a simple email that informed students of a talk that was to take place on campus, given by a member of the RSS responsible for overseeing the organisation’s activities in four districts around Ashoka. For those not in the know (or privileged enough to not care about being in the know), according to their website, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh aims to “carry the nation to the pinnacle of glory through organising the entire society.” Read: It is a right wing cultural organisation, and firm proponent of Hindutva, highly influenced by Savarkar’s ideas regarding the need for the creation of a “Hindu nation”, the forebearer of the BJP.
That day, certain members of the student body responded with an email of their own, having decided to hold a meeting to organise methods of protest against this presence on campus. However, even within this there existed warring voices, divided largely between those wishing to deplatform the speaker completely, some wishing to destroy the speaker’s arguments through discourse, and yet others who wished to give his beliefs the benefit of doubt. The final result of this was another email sent, contained within which was a unified statement of dissent, and a plea to join the protests and/or boycott the talk.
This dissent, in the words of Nidhi Kinhal, was driven by “a moral responsibility to respond”. Further, according to their unified statement, it arose from their belief that “the violent, hate-mongering, and exclusionary actions of the RSS do not deserve space in the respectful and inclusive ethos of Ashoka.”
“I got involved in the protest because platforming a fascist organisation like RSS is very harmful. These ideas cannot and should not be debated, because there is no middle ground there,” was how Rishwajeet Singh articulated it.
The actions in question refer to several instances from the RSS’s highly controversial past, wherein the group — and its affiliates — played an integral role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, religious violence in Odisha, and more recently, violence against teachers and students. It was also responsible for instigating violence against Dalits in Maharashtra during the Bhima-Koregaon gathering. One of the most influential figures since its conception, M.S Golwalkar, openly confessed to thinking of Germany’s idea of one Aryan race, and its racial purging, as a lesson for India to learn from and adopt. Post an altercation with its student wing, the ABVP, JNU student Najeeb Ahmed went missing, and is yet untraced; instead, the RSS involved itself in maligning him — using fake news reports — as a member of ISIS. It even defended the accused in the Kathua rape case. And these are just a few instances from a long history of instigating violence.
Rather obviously, this had distressing implications regarding the university’s attitude towards its own students, many of whom belong to the minorities the RSS has targeted. What of the fact that the allowing the RSS such a platform meant disrespecting their right to equality and safety?
However, responses from the student body were extremely varied, ranging from requests to let him talk but “engage him in a tough Q and A”, to accusations of intolerance being leveled against those who had initiated the dissent. “If the organisation’s message and work ethic is questionable, then it’s our duty to invite them here and respectfully question them”, one of them declared, while another was of the opinion that “We can’t judge an individual unfairly because of some set notions about their institution (sic)”, further going on to wonder if “Maybe he’s one of the good guys in there?” Which begs the question as to why “one of the good guys” would agree to join an organisation that is highly controversial at best, and violently fascist at worst. What does it even mean to be one of the good guys in a situation such as this?
As Arush Pande put it, “This campus is, more than anything, a commitment to a safer space for religious, gender, and caste minorities, among others. At a time when right wing ideologies are occupying every safe space there is, I think it is important to prioritise the sanctity of this space over someone’s wish to ‘engage’ with the RSS.”
Of the arguments in favour of letting the talk go ahead, several attacked the signatories for being hypocrites due to their own intolerance, and betraying their ‘liberal’ values by refusing to engage with the RSS’s ideals. However, an important distinction to be made here is that many of them are not liberals, but clearly leftists attempting to fight against the oppressive power structure, as clarified by Tara Rai, thereby rendering most of the aforementioned arguments irrelevant.
Come Sunday, the stage seemed set for an inevitable clash of ideologies, as the dissidents saw the very invitation itself as highly problematic, owing to the fact that doing so seemed to imply that Ashoka sees the RSS as a legitimate organisation with valid views and beliefs, disregarding the dangers its ideology has posed, and the violence it has unleashed against several minorities. When news arrived of the talk being postponed, the tensions came to a momentary halt, as those against it heaved a sigh of relief. These events symbolise a heartening readiness on the part of Ashokans to display solidarity and put their own differences aside when required. Perhaps we are not entirely blinded to the world outside by the privileged bubble we live in.
However, the issues brought out during the course of this clash cannot, and indeed, should not be so easily considered resolved. Because despite all the efforts made, only eighty five members of a student body of nearly two thousand were willing to cement their dissent on paper. There are clearly some serious conversations to be had regarding the nature and limits of freedom of speech and expression. How far are we willing to take it? What disastrous consequences must unfold before we recognise hate speech for what it is?
The fight is far from over for the signatories. There is still work to be done, but at the very least, they’ve created space for this conversation to happen, which had until now been lurking beneath the surface, hushed by Ashoka’s smug claims of liberalism.
And if the talk does end up happening? As Nidhi Kinhal succinctly put it, “We are better prepared, and we will put up a fight.”
