Newsclick Production, February 13, 2016
An interview with Prabir Purkayastha, who was in jail during the Emergency, on the arrest of JNUSU President, Kanhaiya Kumar, on sedition charges. Prabir pointed out the parallel between this attack on JNU and the time during the Emergency when many students were dragged out of the hostels and put behind bars.
Prabir added, that the intervention of the Union Ministers — Smriti Irani and Rajnath Singh — in the present case shows first, that they are fighting the battle for the sangh student outfit, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), just as they did in the University of Hyderabad recently; secondly, that this is the broader agenda of the government to curb voices of dissent.