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Tank or no tank

By Suhas Palshikar. Dated: 7/27/2017 11:40:40 PM

People, including students, do trust the armed forces. But JNU VC's suggestion should concern us all. The broader debate may be imagined as consisting of two parts. One concerns the idea of nationalism, the other concerns the idea of the university.

The vice chancellor of JNU an army tank to be placed in the university to "remind students of the sacrifices" made by the soldiers.
It is not easy to grab headlines while speaking in the presence of two Union ministers (including an ex-army chief) and an ex-cricketer. The vice chancellor of JNU has just achieved that feat. He requested the two ministers present to help him procure an army tank to be placed in the university to "remind students of the sacrifices" made by the soldiers. It won't be a surprise if taking a cue from him, other vice chancellors queue up at army headquarters for a tank or two - though it is another matter that paucity of space may push some of them to settle for a smaller replica. It is also not clear whether the nationalism instilled by the replica would be of a lesser order compared to that instilled by the real one.
Let us begin by assuring the JNU vice chancellor that people of this country - youth included - are generally favourably inclined toward the armed forces. In a survey conducted in 2013, it was found that 67 per cent young citizens (in the age group of 18-25) had "great deal of trust" in the armed forces - in fact, ten percentage points more than the rest. What should really make us worry, therefore, is not the lack of respect and trust in the army but the finding that over 15 per cent Indians thought that the army should govern the country (13 per cent young citizens held this view - both findings are from a survey conducted by Lokniti, CSDS, as part of the South Asia study). As any teacher would vouch, (dis)respect for the armed forces is not a real issue in most parts of the country and where it indeed is an issue, it requires much introspection for us as a nation and also for policy-makers and the leaders of the armed forces.
So, tank or no tank, people, students included, do trust the armed forces. But the extra-ordinary militaristic suggestion by the JNU vice chancellor should nevertheless concern us. One only hopes that this school-child idea of "tanks-to-nationalism" generates a broader debate beyond the predictable posturing. That broader debate may be imagined as consisting of two parts.
One concerns the idea of nationalism, the other concerns the idea of the university. This takes us beyond JNU. After all, compared to the total number of universities and number of students entering various universities, JNU would account for only a fraction. Curiously, however, at the same event, there was reportedly talk of "JNU being conquered" - without tanks. It is this ambition to conquer the university, and to conquer also the space called critical thinking, that should send a signal to all those interested in both the world of ideas and the world of universities.
The controversial events on the JNU campus in February 2016 led to the debate over the question of nationalism. But that debate was quickly dissolved into a binary of nationalism vs anti-nationalism, ensuring that all nuance would get lost. There were two different questions in that debate. One was whether we can critique the idea of the nation. The other was whether there can be only one nationalism.
Historically, India has witnessed many shades of nationalism, from Savarkar to Nehru to Gandhi. They grappled with the issues of nation vis-à-vis world, nation vis-à-vis internal diversity and nation vis-à-vis humanitarianism. Their differences were not merely about the means (of achieving nationhood), but about the end (about the nature of the nation) itself. If the arrival of Modi's BJP on the centre stage privileged one of these ideas, one could understand that as a natural fallout of the dynamics of social and political power. Instead, what seems to be happening is the expulsion of different ideas by labeling them as anti-national. That closure of debate signified the coronation of one idea of nationalism as final, non-negotiable and official. There was no space left to either be self-critical as a nation, or to occupy the worlds of nationalism and humanism simultaneously, or to differently posit the idea of nationalism. This loss of nuance and the impossibility of taking positions that straddle non-binary spaces have become quite common.
While the suggestion to have a tank on the campus is obviously a grim reminder of that controversy, it also has an independent logic of its own: To instill certain values. The unstated argument seems to be that the university should shape the citizen of the future and that this citizen should be taught to uphold specific values. The idea that education should produce (docile and obedient) citizens is typically colonial in its approach. The colonial powers used education for instilling the value of obedience because from them, the subject-citizen needed to uphold the value of voluntary servility born out of a moral training. The question is, do we go back to that colonial approach, both toward education and citizenship, or evolve a democratic approach?
From a democratic perspective, the most important value in a citizen would be the spirit of fearless questioning of the powers that be. Education - university education much more so - would be aimed at strengthening this value. A university has to be an open theatre of questioning the authority of the political powerholders but also the authority of ideas and theories, a terrain of arguments (whether fashionable, socially acceptable or otherwise) and at the same time a training ground for co-existence of different ideas and worldviews. Above all, a healthy coexistence with non-conformism is the essence of education. The invitation to tanks symbolically denies this core idea of the university. It seems to be implying that in certain respects, non-conformism will not be tolerated.
There would often be social forces and processes that discourage or challenge non-conformism but when the disincentive comes from within the system, the corrosion of the idea of university is inevitable. In this sense, the invitation to tanks is not only about one particular ideological predisposition; it is not about one set of values; it strikes at the heart of the fledgling idea of the university.
Much has been said of JNU or Jadavpur. If they have shown a tendency toward intolerance of different viewpoints in the past, that can hardly be a justification to now have reverse and compensatory intolerance. It is also said that the Congress always politicised the universities. But our real concern should be about the enthusiasm with which we seem to be actively destroying the idea of the university. Previous regimes allowed that to happen through disregard and/or petty interference. The present regime is actively contributing to it.
A tank may not dampen the spirit of critical inquiry, but the logic behind bringing it onto the campus may terminally hit the idea of debate.
(The writer taught political science at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune and is chief editor of 'Studies in Indian Politics')
—(Courtesy: Indian Express)