JNU : freedom too has limits

Nation Building is as much a project of forcing nationalism down the throat of people, as it is of institution building. Throughout history promoting "nationhood", which is ultimately just an idea, has always required both conviction and coercion . Some may have moral qualms about using force and there are limits to its usefulness, but at end of day it is a utilitarian philosophy, often leading to greatest good for the greatest number. "Peace of Empire" is often a phrase to describe phases in human history when large nation states kept together both by force and consensus have held sway of large and disparate geographical areas, ensuring peace, and making possible both cultural and material progress. Force by itself can't keep countries together but there is no denying that it has always had a part to play.

As to the decision of when to use force, it is true that a certain threshold needs to be crossed before it is used. This gives enough freedom to the society so that new ideas can ferment, proliferate and challenge the existing status-quo and also lets political and ideological margins of society let off steam. We could limit the use of machinery of the state leviathan only to instances when a imminent threat to the nation is forseen. Slogans and speeches, whatever their nature, may seem comparatively benign, and often are. But aggressive sloganeering is also many times a precursor and call to arms of insurgents ultimately intent on violence. Kashmir insurgency of 90s started with street slogans of bringing in Nizam-e-Mustafa, followed by ethnic cleansing of KPs, following with bloodshed lasting more than 20 years and bringing harm and misery to all sections of society.  In the United Kingdom, the government long allowed preaching of extremism in the name of freedom of speech and multiculturalism which consequently lead to much social upheaval, discontent, and finally and inevitably violence against the state and its people. The ill-effects of these "freedoms" are only now realized and the Cameron government has recently reversed them after many decades of folly. 

You can't allow "freedoms" which ultimately lead to subversion of democracy and finally curtailment of the said "freedoms" themselves. Whether such threshold was reached in JNU or not is debatable. I myself think that it probably had not. And police machinery could be kept out with the university authorities taking adequate disciplinary action. Still there is a historical context with JNU and this is not just a one-off instance. See here and here,. Ultimately it is neither acceptable to charter of a the national university, nor to the most of the tax-payers who fund the university, that the university becomes a breeding ground for people intent on destruction of their nation and their future.

While we could debate on whether the current course of action was appropriate to the challenge or not, I certainly don't think people defending or only mildly condemning those students as "misguided" are either appreciating their own extant freedoms or doing service to well-being of their countrymen.