Delhi police constables are getting lectured on subaltern studies, class warfare, development concepts in South Asia and perhaps even dialectical materialism. This is not a back to college initiative. These are the responses they are getting while questioning Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, two JNU students under arrest on sedition charges for raising pro-Afzal Guru slogans at an event in JNU.
A The Times of Indiareport details how the two students circumvented many of the key questions posed to them about the identities of masked men who allegedly raised anti-India slogans in the university. Instead, they chose to answer in details about their own studies in JNU—speaking in theoretical and high brow literary terms that left the team of interrogators on day one completely confused.
"By narrating in detail the concept of subaltern studies and development concepts in south Asia when asked what they did at JNU, the two left the team of an inspector and two sub-inspectors befuddled."
Even as the cops apparently tried to stick to specific questions—like the organisers' motive behind planning the event which questioned Afzal Guru's hanging—the students chose to refer to folk history, differing narratives, and class exploitation, reported TOI.
Khalid is a PhD student of tribal history, and his answers have reportedly been mostly vague to the police. He has apparently denied raising any anti-India slogans, alleging that outsiders who he did not know were behind these slogans. Meanwhile, the two students denied taking any external funding for the event, and said that discussions on Afzal Guru's hanging happen every year in the campus.
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