Wednesday, January 20, 2016

102

Dear Readers and all my beloved students,
                       As I write to you at this hour I feel immense pride in sharing with you my deepest regard, love, gratitude and salutation for two martyrs who have shown us the way at a time when our vision is marred by the cold, chilling fog of hate, ignorance and injustice. Never before in my life, as a student, scholar or teacher, have I felt so emboldened about our dream of improving our lot by the means of enlightenment through true and meaningful education. 
                         On many occasions before, my disdainful remonstrance on the state of higher education in our nation has got reflected in my writings here. From the way curricula is designed to the procedure followed in recruiting University Professors, even the smallest cog in the giant machinery of Higher Education is lubricated with a slimy, slithery and pungent liquid of 'status-quoist', reactionary, supremacist, backward and discriminating forces. Our Universities snub original and free thinking and a genuine debate and scholarship. Today, however, I wont speak of the darkness.
              Dear Students, today we should be thankful for the sacrifice of Rohith Vemula and Professor Syed Hamid Hussain which will, beyond doubt, infuse a new spirit in the degenerating education system of not only India but the entire Indian sub-continent, our home, South Asia. Rohith's activism, his articulation, his appeal to justice for forthcoming generations and his call for ending the old ways will pave the way for future mobilisation of students on and off campus. Here, we are talking of students mobilising themselves in terms of rationalist ideas and not as vote-bank buffoonery which Rohith also condemned strongly in his last words. 
          Professor Hamid's daring resistance to the brute force of terrorism in the face of all oddities and in the immediate hour of crisis is so brave that it can make even the limp rise on his feet. Nothing can be more dangerous than a man who is deft with the pen as well as the gun. The attackers at Peshawar failed to fathom the grit of the Professor's defiance or yet still the aftereffect that his dare-devilry will have on many a students and teachers to come. 
                      Qatil ko yeh ghuman, 
                                 ki dehshat ki jeet hui, 
                                 ki zulm ke tabbooton main band hue ashar sabhi
                      ghafil ko yeh bata, 
                                  qatl hue yun ki nayi reet likhi, 
                                  naye lashkaron ki fasl boyi gayi.....
                                                                                   (self)
                             

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