‘Writing should not be a dangerous activity’: Meena Kandaswamy says on 10th martyrdom of Gauri Lankesh

Writing should not be a dangerous activity. It should be a pleasurable and happy activity, but such simple things are becoming perilous for us. We need to take lessons from the lives of people like Gauri Lankesh, who stood for what they believed”, said author Meena Kandasamy at a discussion titled ‘Campuses to Streets: Is Democracy Under Siege?’ organised by the All India Students’ Association (AISA), Karnataka, at Loyola Hall in Bengaluru on Saturday.

The event was organised to mark the 10th martyrdom of journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh and witnessed the participation of a large number of student activists and citizens. Kandasamy, AISA JNUSU Joint Secretary Danish Ali, and sociologist and Sahityashree awardee Dr C G Lakshmipathi were among the speakers. The discussion centred on the right to dissent and the state of democracy on college campuses, with speakers raising concerns over what they described as growing attacks on education under the BJP-RSS government.

Speaking to News Trail, Danish Ali said, “Bengaluru is one city that we have been constantly observing, even while we were on hunger strike there, because students here have been fighting their own battles and raising demands of their own. There are questions about why campuses are not receiving enough funds, along with multiple other issues. At large, this whole fight against the centralisation, saffronisation and privatisation of education is going on”.

On strengthening student activism in Bengaluru, she said the biggest challenge was ensuring that campus politics remained connected to ground realities. “Sometimes we remain constricted to our own campuses, and that should not happen. There should be a connection between student politics and ground reality, between village-level politics and politics in urban centres. That bridge has to be covered”, she said. Danish urged students from major universities, where there is relatively greater space to express dissent, to come forward and extend solidarity to students who do not enjoy the same freedom.

Kandasamy recalled Gauri Lankesh’s courage and said her assassination marked a disturbing shift in the manner in which dissent was being dealt with. She said the right wing was no longer merely seeking to imprison activists but had demonstrated a willing ness to go to the extent of killing them. She also spoke about what she described as heightened censorship, both online and offline, under the BJP government. Referring to the term ‘Dimagi Naxal’, Kandasamy said it was a deliberate attempt to delegitimise ideas that did not conform to Hindutva ideology.

Referring to the controversial fashion event in Chhattisgarh where former women Maoists walked the ramp wearing traditional handloom attire, she said the manner in which the issue was orchestrated showed how such identities are trying to be “domesticated”, “commodified” and “marketed”. She stressed that demands for accountability should go beyond symbolic resignations and highlighted the importance of students participating actively in politics. She described the NEET protests as an initial step towards citizens asserting and claiming their democratic rights.

Dr C G Lakshmipathi fo cused on caste discrimination, patriarchy and com munalism in educational institutions. He said casteism and patriarchy begin at home and are subsequently reflected on campuses, where Dalit students continue to face discrimination. He also alleged that Muslim students face persecution in several colleges in Karnataka and said classrooms were increasingly becoming “caste-rooms” and “communal-rooms”. Lakshmipathi further criticised the saffronisation of education and the erosion of scientific thinking, besides opposing the increasing privatisation of education in Karnataka. He attributed these developments to “the influence of Hindutva ideology” and said challenging the ideology remained central to the struggle for an inclusive and democratic education system.