From Tihar Jail to Pune, Kanhaiya Kumar manages to be the headline

JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar on Sunday alleged that a BJP supporter had tried to strangle him on a Mumbai-Pune Jet Airways flight. Following the incident, both of them were deplaned and the alleged attacker had been detained by the Mumbai Police.

Hours after the incident, questions about Kumar’s allegation surface, suggesting he was actually involved in a scuffle.

This is not the first time the student leader has been involved in controversies. Ever since his 6-month interimbail in the sedition case, Kumar has made headlines for several reasons. 

Business Standard takes a look at how Kumar has stayed in the headlines after his bail.

Campaigning for Assembly Elections for Left

After his speech at the JNU campus upon his release fromTihar Jail in March that caught the popular imagination, CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury had said that Kumar would be campaigning for the party in the ongoing assembly elections. This was later turned down by Kumar stating that he was a student and would like to move on to teaching and had no interest in mainstream politics.

2002 and 1984 riots are different

Kumar said recently that there was a fundamental difference between the riots of 2002, which took place in Gujarat and which happened in 1984. “There is difference between emergency and fascism. During emergency, goons of only one party were engaged into goondaism; in this (fascism) entire state machinery is resorting to goondaism,” he had said, leading to a huge debate over his views.

Critics pointed out that the Congress government had been accused of being complicit in the anti-Sikh pogrom that ravaged Delhi in the wake of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards.

69% of people voted against Modi

During his speech at the JNU, Kumar said that 69% of voters had not chosen Modi as their leader. “I want to remind our government that 69% voted against you. Just 31% voted for you and some of them were caught up in your jumlas,” he said.

Visit to Hyderabad Central University campus

The JNUSU President visited the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) Campus to protest against Rohith Vemula’s suicide. He also met Vemula’s mother during his visit there. His visit to the campus had led to increased security and media being barred from entering it. Read More.

Ambedkar birth anniversary: Politicians compete to claim inheritance to his legacy

On his 125th birth anniversary, political parties and leaders competed on Thursday to claim to be the true inheritors of the legacy of B R Ambedkar and to abuse the rest as charlatans.

If Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanded that the Congress repent for “undermining Ambedkar’s legacy”, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati launched her party’s election campaign for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh polls and termed the Dalit outreach of Modi and Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi as “eyewash”.

The PM visited Ambedkar’s birthplace in Mhow, Madhya Pradesh. He said India's development won't happen through five or 50 cities --- the foundation of villages will have to be strengthened. And, reiterated his commitment to double farmers' income by 2022.

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao laid the foundation stone for a 125-ft statue of Ambedkar near the Hussain Sagar lake in Hyderabad. Even the United Nations commemorated the anniversary.

In Mumbai, amid the countrywide melee of competing claims, the mother and brother of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula, who committed suicide at Hyderabad Central University in January, sparking strong protests from dalits across the country, embraced Buddhism. Rohith’s mother, Radhika, and brother Raja Vemula, were given deeksha at a function in Dadar in the presence of Ambedkar’s grandson, Prakash.

Ambedkar, to protest the discrimination of Dalits by upper castes, had converted to Buddhism at Nagpur in 1956, shortly before he passed away.

“My brother Rohith Vemula was a Buddhist at heart although he did not convert. He took his own life as he was discriminated because he was a Dalit. We are against the caste system in Hinduism and have, therefore, decided to embrace Buddhism, which does not have such an oppressive system of castes. We want azadi (freedom) from the caste system,” said Rohith’s brother.

In Lucknow, BSP chief Mayawati defended putting up her statues beside those of mentor Kanshi Ram at various memorials her government built over 2007-12. She said it was done to honour the wishes of her mentor but her party would now concentrate on development, not on building memorials if voted to power.Read More About Dalit Scholar Rohith Vemula