The Student Solidarity March in Pakistan has whipped up a lot of hoopla and brouhaha not only in Pakistan but also in the wider Indian subcontinent. The sight of the leather-jacketed Arooj Aurangzeb singing Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai has created great excitement, as if a revolution or some great change was on the doorstep, like an Arab spring.
While I support the students' movement, my own view is that this burst of youthful enthusiasm will last only for a month or two, and then end up as a damp squib, like the Anna Hazare anti-corruption agitation in 2011 and the agitation in Delhi after the Nirbhaya gang-rape case in 2012. Then, it will be business as usual. It reminds me of a line in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Most of these students in the Pakistan protests have no scientific understanding of historical processes, but are only well-intentioned youth with little in their heads.
The ‘revolutionary’ heroes of the 2016 JNU ‘Azaadi’ movement in Delhi ended up being exposed as careerists seeking to advance their political careers. Kanhaiya Kumar contested the recent Lok Sabha elections (which he lost badly) and Shehla Rashid joined the J&K People’s Movement of Shah Faesal.
While I generally support Indian and Pakistani youth in their demands, I have no illusions about them. While many pose to be modern minded and revolutionary, in fact most are casteist and communal, with feudal mindsets, and what I call gobar (cow dung) in their heads. It was students of Abdul Wali Khan University in Marian, Pakistan, who lynched the liberal Mashal Khan. It was some students of the Vanniyar/Thevar castes in Tamil Nadu who physically assaulted dalit students and it was Rajput students who attacked dalits in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
I can quite accurately foresee the future of these agitating students in Pakistan. They will end up seeking cushy jobs in the civil services, or in a multinational corporation, or become professors or venture abroad to the US or Europe, seeking permanent residence. That will be the end of their revolution and tamanna for sarfaroshi!
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The Student Solidarity March in Pakistan demands legalisation of students unions. I too support this demand. But I have no illusions about students unions. Most of the students leaders in these unions are affiliated, or will get affiliated, to some political party, and everyone knows that the leaders of these parties have no genuine love for the country but only an insatiable desire for power and pelf.
The student leaders will undoubtedly follow the example of their gurus in later life. Many of these student leaders are hardly students, and often remain ‘students’ well into their middle age. Some are rank goondas. That is what I personally saw when I was a student of Allahabad University (1963-67).
So good luck to these students in Pakistan. No doubt hungaama hai barpa because of their brave ‘revolutionary’ activity, but I fear it will end not with a bang but a whimper.
Justice Markandey Katju retired from the Supreme Court in 2011.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author's and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.
