Kanhaiya Kumar looks back at the sedition case that took Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University by storm in February 2016 and put him in jail for 20 days with tremendous clarity.
“I can say this with confidence now that the government and the deep state created this design,” he told Scroll. “It was meant to capture the university and criminalise dissent.”
Kumar, who was the president of the JNU students’ union at that time, is now in charge of the Congress party’s student wing.
In the decade since the 2016 controversy, he has contested and lost two elections. In 2019, he was fielded by the Communist Party of India as its Lok Sabha candidate from Begusarai, Bihar. Two years later, he exited the CPI, which he had come into association with as a teenager, to join Congress.
He lost another Lok Sabha election in the summer of 2024, this time from Delhi.
Despite his back-to-back electoral defeats, Kumar remains a prominent political figure in the Hindi belt, where he is loved and hated in equal measure. His oratory has won him many admirers, but his politics continues to draw polarising reactions.
Scroll interviewed the young politician as part of a special series marking 10 years of the JNU sedition row. He responded to questions about the criticisms that have loomed over his choices after 2016 with candour.
Asked why he has embraced a political role that does not quite utilise his gift of the gab, he said: “Nothing changes by talking. Things will change through our actions.”
Edited excerpts from the conversation:
You were not present at the JNU event that turned controversial on February 9, 2016. In fact, your old friends told me that you spoke passionately against azaadi on a visit to Kashmir back in 2012. What was that about?
I was one of many student-cum-activists from JNU and Delhi University who went for that trip. I had said there that when you fling stones in protest, they hit the children of the country’s poor farmers and workers while those making policies are doing so in the comfort of five-star hotels.
Those who have guns in their hands are also children of the poor and so are those flinging stones at them. The issue that unites them both is unemployment. My position on this has been clear for a long time.
Problems are the same everywhere. Even in Kashmir, I saw people struggling a lot because of unemployment. Tourism also keeps getting disrupted. Their anger is justified. But us-versus-them politics does not unite people. It only provokes them.
So how did you end up getting embroiled in the 2016 sedition case?
At first, I also found this strange because I belong to a freedom fighter’s family. There are only soldiers, teachers and nurses in my whole clan.
I was always opposed to secessionist politics. There will always be differences in our experiences. But we are, after all, human beings. That is what appeals to me. So I found it quite strange that I was being called a secessionist, a member of the “tukde-tukde” gang and a traitor.
Later, it all became very obvious. It began as an onslaught on universities. First, an attempt was made to change the directors of the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Film and Television Institute of India.
Then, in 2015, we started the protest against the University Grants Commission, during which the Rohith Vemula incident took place. If you remember, terms like anti-national were first coined then. The ruling dispensation had started pushing this narrative from then itself.
I can say this with confidence now that the government and the deep state created this design. It was meant to capture the university and criminalise dissent. If you oppose their idea of India, you are a traitor.
One of your teachers told me that during the 20 days that you spent in prison, you prepared every line of the speech you delivered after coming out. He even boasted that if Hindutva supporters knew you from before, they would have deferred their plans to attack JNU by a year or two.
They succeeded in their task later. They corrected the mistakes they made in 2015 and 2016. Today, they have successfully divided society and university. But back then, in both the Rohith Vemula case and the JNU sedition case, they had to accept defeat.
You can still check Rohith Vemula’s Facebook page. He shared my speech [from the 2015 JNU students’ union elections] saying a new leader has been born. When politics comes into your life organically through experience, your response is not a manufactured one. It, too, is organic. And any organic response cannot be disconnected from society easily.
I would keep asking people in JNU to avoid using jargon. When we talk, we should try to make someone sitting in Port Blair a stakeholder in what we are saying. The question of language is linked to the question of experience. Those who came from experience responded to the government’s attacks in a way that was not disconnected from society.
After 2016, a very big section from JNU left Delhi altogether and settled in different parts of the country. Dozens of student-activists who would have otherwise got jobs in Delhi University or JNU easily before had to leave the city.
In that famous speech that you delivered after coming out, you spoke about bringing Ambedkarites and leftists together to defeat Hindutva. Do you still believe in that?
Yes. I am still trying to do that. All constitutional forces have to come together for the emancipation of the toiling masses. Gandhi, Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh, Birsa Munda, Kabir, Guru Nanak are all part of one tradition.
In political science, it is called Shramanic thought and defined in opposition to the Brahmanic tradition. Shramanic thought is rooted in rationality and scientific temper. All proponents of that tradition have to come together.
Leftist here does not necessarily mean someone from the Communist Party. AB Bardhan [Communist Party leader] once said that all forces standing in opposition to power are leftists. He identified three strong leftist traditions in India: communist, socialist and Ambedkarite.
I, too, believe in uniting these forces. That is why I came into the Congress party. Rahul Gandhi is trying to do exactly this. I thought instead of living in small nests of our own, we should all come under one roof.
My fight has not changed. How can it? Since 2014, the situation has only gotten worse. The right-wing assault on the country is moving ahead with greater force today. The number of people speaking up against it has slowly reduced.
But opposition among the people has become stronger. The masses are turning against the government without influencers. They are getting influenced by the policies of those currently in power. I find this interesting.
Would you say that this is a new development?
Yes. After 2019, my use of social media has been very minimal. Earlier, I was very aggressive there. I have also cut down on delivering speeches at rallies. Instead, I started roaming among the people more often.
The yatras I took part in were very crucial in this process. I have made five yatras in the last six years. By going among the people, I understood the limitations of social media outrage. Everything there is to say has already been said.
Are you saying there is nothing new left to say and that political work needs to be done on the ground now?
Yes. That is what I am trying to do instead of speaking at rallies or posting on Twitter.
There is no way to delete anything that you say on social media. Your digital footprint will always be there. So instead of saying something quickly, we should try to say the right thing.
You can say what you have to say 10 days later, too. It’s possible that after those 10 days, you will not consider it important to say that thing.
The other thing I understood is that I have said whatever I have to say. Nothing changes by talking. Things will change through our actions. So it is a political decision to use social media less. One downside of that is I am constantly accused of not speaking about this or that [laughs].
But many people who have observed you for a while believe that your talents as an orator could have been put to better use if you were out there more often. What do you make of this criticism?
I am constantly receiving this criticism from people who are very close to me. To be honest, I have not come to a concrete conclusion about this yet.
Long ago, even before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, I tried recording videos with NewsClick. I realised then that I am not an orator without the masses. My style is conversational. But when you record something, you are talking to a screen. I am not made for that.
If I keep talking in public all the time, I will not be saying the right things. You have to understand what my primary work is. I am not a cartoonist, a blogger, a YouTuber or someone who makes reels. I am primarily a political worker. My work is organising people.
The Congress party has put you in charge of the National Students’ Union of India, its student wing. How do you see your work?
I am getting to learn a lot because I meet early-career Congress workers. I get to know what their insecurities are, what their fears are, what they want to achieve, what motivates them and how they navigate politics.
I also get to learn from their vocabulary. NSUI leaders are “leaders”. It shows in their language. For example, we used to call ourselves and others around us “students” even though we were leaders. NSUI leaders refer to other students as “children”.
Those of us who come from activist backgrounds struggle to call ourselves “leaders” even after we become leaders. We prefer euphemisms like activist and social worker [laughs]. But NSUI is full of “leaders”. So I am understanding this difference in political culture.
In a way, this makes NSUI leaders more genuine. They lack sophistication. Everything is raw and blunt here. I have seen hypocrisy very closely during my days in activism. People fighting fascism would get upset over the order in which they were invited to speak at a public event.
It took me some time to sink into the NSUI role fully. I did not want to carry the tag of a student leader all my life. Eventually, I understood that there is a difference. Here I am not a player, but a coach. Through different means like training, I am trying to promote those from activist backgrounds and induct new ideas in the NSUI.
Your party has made you a senior observer for the upcoming Assembly elections in Kerala, where the contest is primarily between the Congress and the Left. Does that make you uncomfortable, given your past?
Once you have decoded the nature of power, you don’t find it difficult to understand this dichotomy. If it is indeed a leftist government, how did Adani get a port [Vizhinjam] there? Somebody was telling me that whenever they go to Kerala and spot pictures of Pinarayi Vijayan everywhere, they see Modi in a mundu.
Do you agree with that description?
You can go see it yourself. If I give myself the name Insaan Singh and start beating every insaan [human being in Hindi] I find out there, will you fixate on my name or will you see what I am doing? I have no confusion about this.
I understand the difference between a government led by a Left party and a leftist government. I also know very well that I will always be attacked by both sides because of my politics. I just have to recognise who the Savarkar and Jinnah of today are.
The BJP uses the nation, army and religion to abuse me. They [the Left] will use ideology to call me a sellout, an opportunist and mock me for travelling in an expensive car. Their morality begins there. Their hypocrisy is well-known to me.
I feel no urgent pressure to prove that I am right. I will be proven right 50 years later.
I will go there [Kerala] and oppose the state government’s policies. I will not oppose Marx, Lenin or leftist ideology. It is a government led by a Left party, yet it is working against left principles. So I will speak against it.
Have your views on the politics of hate changed since you left the Communist Party of India?
Hegemony needs hate like a crop needs water and fertiliser. There can be no otherisation without hate. A permanent enemy is always needed. Muslims have become that enemy in this country. They are being made to answer for events that take place outside India, too.
You have to understand what identity politics does in this situation. That is why I said I have identified both Savarkar and Jinnah of today. Some Muslims link themselves to a global identity. So when something happens in a different part of the world, it is used as a basis to spread against them here. This is by design.
The whole country burns in the fire of hatred while forests are cut down, mines are looted, ports and airports are sold off, farmer suicides increase. All these questions disappear. To take attention away from them, hatred is necessary.
Do you think BJP is winning only because of Hindu-Muslim? Anybody who thinks so is absolutely stupid. The BJP uses Muslims where they are present in big numbers. Where there are fewer Muslims, it demonises a dominant caste group like the Jats in Haryana. It pushes caste through WhatsApp far more than it pushes Hindu-Muslim on television.
Fear and hatred are the two planks of its politics. Hindu-Muslim is mostly part of its national syllabus, but at the state-level it uses other identities. It sows division in society and diverts our attention to continue staying in power.
One peculiar thing about your interviews with the Godi media is that they keep asking you about your relationship with Umar Khalid.
It is a good thing. At least that way, the country gets a reminder that somebody has been in jail for over five years.
You often respond by listing the names of other political prisoners.
I do that because they are trying something else. I have already told you about the Savarkar-Jinnah binary. They want to create an Umar-versus-Kanhaiya debate. And many social media accounts with Muslim names amplify this. They try to pit Umar and me against each other.
They say that Umar got caught up in this mess because he has an Urdu name. But so many people with Hindi names are also in jail. Those who think like this don’t understand fascism. Yes, fascism wanted Jews dead. But it also wanted non-Jews defending the Jews dead. If you forget that, you are underestimating the threat of fascism.
But is the Godi media interested in understanding fascism? They keep asking you if you betrayed Umar.
I think about this often [laughs]. I will consider this important if Umar comes out of prison and says that I betrayed him.
I’m fine with the Godi media asking me this question because I cannot give up the mainstream space. They keep trying to divert attention to other issues and I keep trying to use that space for putting forward my thoughts on the issues I care about.
This question comes up from both sides, though. Today’s Savarkar and Jinnah are both in on this scheme. You have to understand how the BJP uses Muslims like fodder for its politics. It is very natural for Muslims to feel hurt. But when somebody is hurt, they can be used emotionally in political conspiracies.
I don’t have any saviour complex. I no longer feel like I need to do something for someone else. All I have is my sense of duty. Life has put me in this situation. I just have to be authentic.
I don’t want to go out of my way to show that I am pro-this or pro-that. But I have to keep doing what I think is right.
I cannot take some positions because if I don’t, somebody will get upset. If I start doing that to fight one form of communalism, I will end up compromising with another kind of communalism. I am not going to do that.
If I have betrayed Umar, the onus is on him to say so, and not those who are speaking on his behalf. Why should I say something? Let the eyewitnesses of the incident that happened on February 9, 2016 speak up.
One of those people told me that you went up to them and said, “Just leave. I’ll manage the rest.”
I was clear that I was the president of all 8,000 students irrespective of whether they voted for me or not. The attack was on our university so I had to stay there and face it.
But this person told me that you did what you did as a friend, and not just as the president.
My personal is also political. I am the way I am. There is no pretence. That is why when a narrative or an attack against me is manufactured, it does not affect me for very long.
So why did you not attend the press conference in September 2020 after Umar was arrested?
I was in the Communist Party of India then. D Raja [general secretary of CPI] himself was representing our party there. You have to follow party protocol sometimes. I have to do that in the Congress, too.
I am told that you are still in touch with Umar’s close friends.
I am saying that one community is being demonised and it is under attack. I come from the majority community and majoritarian politics is happening all around us. The onus on me is to speak up when something wrong is happening with the community that is under attack. This is my public responsibility. My personal relationships are not related to that.
Even Gandhi supported the Khilafat movement. I have found clarity on this. I will follow Gandhi. Those with Urdu names have to decide who will be today’s Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
I am with those who are ready to be Azad. I am even willing to accept their leadership and walk behind them. But they have to take this position.
The Muslims who stayed behind in India are those who listened to Azad and rejected what Jinnah was saying. So if somebody is doing Jinnah’s politics, I am not bothered by them. This is part of the BJP’s design. The media does it for eyeballs.
My friendship with Umar was forged in struggle even though we always differed ideologically. Whenever he comes out of prison, we will work against the BJP together.
As far as the question of going to jail is concerned, that is a communitarian question. Minorities are being demonised in this country. Umar is not alone. Sharjeel Imam is also in jail. He wrote articles against me and campaigned for my opponent in Begusarai. So should I say it is right to keep him behind bars? Never.
Umar has been in jail for five years. What can one even say? What can be worse than taking away five crucial years from somebody’s life? So when accusations are levelled against me about this, I just listen quietly. It will not look nice if I respond.
