One can’t agree with Bhaskar Chakravorti (‘Don’t write off campuses’, IE, May 1) more, when he says “While we can legitimately worry about the state of American universities, I have confidence in their resilience.”
There is little doubt that the US universities, inspired by ideas of pluralism, liberty and democracy (as opposed to a Left-fascist paradigm) will soon bounce back to their former glory. The fabled institutions have survived much worse in the past, particularly after the Vietnam War in the 1960s, and eventually emerged unscathed as centres of academic excellence and free thinking. However, the last line of the article — “With a Trump return, campus protestors will have much more to protest about” — reveals the trigger responsible for the present crisis. It is this trigger that has thrown several American and European universities into chaos and ignited sporadic bushfires that continue to singe several parts of the world, including India.
Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency is possible only if the American electorate approves of him and his policies. He would, of course, be perfectly within his rights to act on the mandate received. If he doesn’t, he would be rightly accused of cheating his mandate. His critics and detractors too have a right to criticise or censure him, as per their understanding of the issues involved. That’s what democracy is all about.
However, the problem arises when a small, organised and determined minority tries to hijack the mandate and seeks to disenfranchise the majority through strong-arm tactics. This reduces democratic processes to a farce. For want of a better monicker, this toxic minority can be termed “wokes”, an expression used by the US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson in the present context.
This vocal minority usually draws heavily from the archaic leftist lexicon to build its narratives and suffers from a sense of entitlement. It takes a stand on an issue of public importance and holds a gun to the establishment’s head. Its war cry is submit or perish. Its toolkit includes prolonged sit-ins, selective violence, mob action, disruption of the normal life of other citizens, intimidation and bullying — all under the aphorism of “peaceful protest”.
In such circumstances, the state, pushed to a corner, resorts to coercion to contain the anarchic situation. The agitators then play the victim card. That’s what happened in India during anti-CAA, NRC and farmers’ protests, and it is happening in the US now.
The current protests in the US and Europe were started by students against the American government’s support of Israel in its war against Hamas, a dreaded terror outfit. To begin with, the ostensible demand was that colleges cut their financial ties to Israel and divest from companies that are “enabling” the deadly Gaza conflict. Soon, the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and sit-ins were reeking of anti-semitism. Scores of Jewish students have said on camera that they are feeling insecure and are afraid to enter campuses.
“We are Hamas” is reportedly a chant and placards saying “Al-Qassam’s next targets” have been spotted. Al-Qassam is the armed wing of Hamas. Footage of loud threats that the October 7 attacks on Israel will be repeated, not once, not twice, not a hundred but ten thousand times, has gone viral.
What does the ongoing mayhem on the American university campus mean in practice? Four things.
One, shorn of hyperbole, the agitators — students and non-students — are seeking to encroach on the realm of both the elected government and universities. The mob, accountable to no one, wants to appropriate the universities’ right to manage their finances. It’s also seeking to hijack US foreign policy, which is essentially the domain of the US president and legislature, both democratically elected.
Two, the American establishment will likely give in to this blackmail. The National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said President Joe Biden believes students occupying an academic building is “absolutely the wrong approach,” and “not an example of peaceful protest”. Trump is even more harsh on the protestors. According to media reports, he said, “To every college president, I say remove the encampments immediately… vanquish the radicals and take back our campuses for all of the normal students who want a safe place from which to learn.”
The ruthless crackdown on the agitators matches the American establishment’s words. In less than two weeks, thousands of students have been arrested, suspended, put on probation and, in some cases, expelled from the institutions they were enrolled in.
Some of the videos (in circulation on social media) of the demonstration are graphic, revealing brutal police action against the agitating students and even senior faculty members. Among those arrested at Washington University was Jill Stein, presidential hopeful, of the Green Party, who accused the police of resorting to aggressive tactics that provoked the sort of trouble they are meant to quell.
Three, the American establishment has double standards. When India faced similar sponsored protests against CAA, NRC and the blockade of national highways for months together in the name of “farmers protests”, the US was pontificating India on respecting dissent and democratic norms. That too when India had hardly used any force against the agitators. In contrast, the US police have used excessive force, even in dealing with many of the student groups, who were peaceful, and merely squatting on the university lawns.
Fourth, in the new emerging multi-polar world, wokes too are a powerful pole, capable of paralysing functioning democracies, rendering legislatures redundant. There are loaded moneybags to fund such dubious operations to refashion the nations and societies as per their playbook, sans any public mandate, accountability and legitimacy.
There are serious allegations in the American media that many outsiders have infiltrated the students’ protests, and the usual suspect, George Soros, at least partly funds the messy show. This scenario would surely resonate with many in India who have suffered Shaheen Bagh and months-long fracas at the Singhu border.
Punj is the author of the recently published, ‘Tryst with Ayodhya: Decolonisation of India’
