There has been enough media coverage now of what happened in JNU day on the January 5th "a night of terror". This was not a "clash" as Godi media would like to portray it. This was an organised attack by bloodthirsty Hindutva fanatics from the ABVP (there is enough evidence coming out on national television debates for naysayers). I'm trying to digest the absurdity of living in a country where violent mobs are allowed free reign to lynch young students as police watches and even enables them. Violent, drunken youth break open the heads of others like them who they consider enemies, and that too with complete impunity. Caravan's report highlights the fierceness of the backlash. Nivedita Menon, firebrand activist and professor at JNU points out that the state did not expect the unprecedented resistance and protests across the country. The courage displayed by young people across the country only illustrates the words of Yogendra Yadav who likens students to a spring " the harder you push them, the stronger they will come back".
I had been thinking of curating Piyush Mishra's brilliant writing in Gulaal for a long time. In all likelihood I might have shared "Duniya" or "Sheher" (songs I might curate in the future some day), but the fact that Anurag Kashyap took a brave stand, lashing out at Modi and Shah openly, and even quoting some lines from "Yaara Maula", made this the obvious choice. The song which talks of young people being used as private armies for hypermasculine predatory communities is a direct commentary of the events that unfolded in JNU on the 5th of January. There is s a deep anguish that lives in the youth who having taken to arms, begin to understand that they are puppets - but now that they've "tasted blood" what are they to do? The song illustrates the futility of this cycle of hate, this fissure that gashes open the naive dreams of young people who have been dragged into the politics of hate; whose books are replaced with daggers.
I have shared excerpts from the song. Do listen to the original song and find a rough translation of the Hindi lyrics here
