Hearting democracy

India is reeling from protests – by student unions on the one hand and far-right elements on the other – after Jawaharlal Nehru University students protested the hanging of Afzal Guru and called it a judicial murder.

While there have always been episodic attacks on free speech in India, this time it feels different. India’s free-thinking and best minds are being systematically eliminated. The silence maintained by the Indian state over these incidents, and its failure to bring the attackers of JNU student Kanhaiya Kumar to book is very disturbing. Attacks like these should not be seen as limited to secular writers or liberal thinkers in India. They should be recognised as an attack on the heart of what constitutes a democracy.

Afia Ambreen

Rawalpindi