Video Editor: Ashutosh Bharadwaj
Contrary to what several people would expect, JNU PhD student Aparajitha Raja is unperturbed as her name goes down in history for being involved in the ‘sedition row’. Delhi Police on Monday, 14 December, had filed the charge sheet naming 46, including Aparajitha, in the three-year-old JNU controversy, where it is alleged that seditious slogans were raised by some students.
A day after she was named by Delhi Police in the charge sheet – in a column which says police ‘does not have sufficient evidence’ against her – Aparajitha sits down at the JNU campus to talk about the allegations against her.
“Things have changed drastically after the incident, which defamed our university. There’s backlash physically, apart from the ostracisation in public spaces. We have to avoid wearing hoodies which read out ‘Jawaharlal Nehru University’ in buses and wherever we travel,” she says.
The shaming of students, Aparajitha adds, who have been the torchbearers of student politics of India by the government is a “vindictive act, to say the least”. The branding and witch-hunting of students as “anti-national”, who study at India’s revered varsity of research, is a “testament,” she says.
'This Government is Vindictive’
“It clearly shows that the government is very vindictive, it just wants to witch hunt people, harass people and clamp down on dissent. We call it jumlebaaz ka sarkar. What they’re doing is keeping up with their tradition,” the 28-year-old student activist says.
Aparajitha says the government has not “focused on issues that actually matter to the people”.
“From going on foreign trips to giving reservation on economic criteria, there is no sanity left. The very idea of democracy is being hampered,” she says in a conversation with The Quint.
Did D Raja’s Political Background Cost Aparajitha Her Student Life?
Does this case haunt her because she is the daughter of Communist Party of India leader D Raja, we ask her.
In response, Aparajitha stresses that it shouldn’t involve any of the 46 people named at all.
“Not just my name because I have a father’s name behind me, but even the names of all the other students, why are those names there? They don’t have political connections. Those names are there for a reason. That reason is clearly politically motivated. It is serving the interest of the right-wing forces of this country,” Aparajitha says.
She laughs at the mention of a ‘huge steel bunker’ which supposedly carries documents, evidence and a 1,200-page charge sheet against them.
“Police has taken forever to file this charge sheet,” she says, as she talks about the extent of her involvement in the JNU row.
She adds that while she may not remember the exact time when the event spiralled out of control, she does remember what her political position is on a campus fight, which she says was fuelled by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-backed student wing.
Aparajitha also reminds us that this furore has taken a massive toll on her studies. It is difficult to focus amid all this on her PhD on political identity, but it is nothing she cannot manage, she adds.
She will also not offer any explanation, she says, about the extent of her involvement in this event that started the whole JNU controversy.
“An explanation should be sought from Delhi Police and the current ruling dispensation. It is surprising that any of our names are in the charge sheet, for which Delhi Police took three years [to write]. All the claims that this case makes are completely cooked up and all the accusations are fabricated. We have not indulged in any ‘anti-national activities’, or anything ‘seditious’, as they dub it,” Aparajitha stresses sternly, till the very end.
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