Students of Jawaharlal Nehru University staged a march in solidarity with the student's union president Kanhaiya Kumar from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Thursday. Kumar stands accused of sedition for allegedly shouting "anti-national" slogans by the Delhi Police. However, recent reports indicate the charges would be dismissed, given that the Delhi Police has little evidence to back up its accusations.
A poster announcing the march.
The day started with an appeal by the JNU vice chancellor to cancel the march due to safety concerns. The VC had earlier come under severe criticism from the university's student and teacher unions for allowing police raids into the campus. As a result, this appeal was mostly ignored and students turned out in force.
The march saw an impressive turnout with the organisers claiming that more than 10,000 attendedAll in the cause of free speech and civil liberties.The message was delivered, of course, with roses and love....and some tricolour face paint.Mirroring the JNU campus, the rally was dominated by the Left but the Congress' student wing also marched along.The tricolour was waved, even as powerful people attacked JNU by calling it "anti-national".And another "anti-national" was remembered: Rohith Vemula who had been called so by Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya, shortly before his suicide.Kanhaiya Kumar, jailed for being "anti-national", remembered here as a yaar, a friend.Solidarity with Umar Khalid, now being feverishly painted as an Islamist terror "sympathiser" by sections of the media.And the crowd had some snark for a few prominent media faces too, responsible for fanning the flames in this case.But there was also love for other sections of the press: here the Telegraph and its caustic comment on HRD minister Smriti Irani is held up as a placard.Shehla Rashid, vice president of the students' union furiously countered the vilification of JNU from the back of a lorry.A large company of policemen and many levels of barricades provided a grim backdrop to Rashid as she spoke.
