It was in December 2019 that Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh became the epicentre of anti-CAA protests. Shaheen Bagh protests that lasted for three months were marked by Hinduphobic and anti-India propaganda. Many years have passed and now Shaheen Bagh encatchments are showing up not in India, but also in the US with pro-Palestine protests students in varsities across the country amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.
In response to the protest encampment, the US administration is taking firm action and making arrests of unruly protestors. The same US government takes delight in preaching the Indian government on human rights when it takes action against riot mongers in the garb of student activists like Umar Khalid and downplays criminal activities.
Universities have become a safe haven for workers, liberals and Islamists in the US. Several universities in the US are witnessing large scale anti-Semitic protests in support of Palestine and have set up tent encampments inside the varsity campus. These Palestine sympathisers are demanding the US government to stop doing business with Israel and put pressure on the country to stop strikes in Gaza.
The demand stems from Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which has been campaigning against Israeli policy against Palestinians for decades. Following the Israeli retaliation to Hamas brutal attack in October 2023 this anti-Israel movement has gained traction. As the Columbia University sought the New York Police Department intervention in removing pro-Palestinian protestors from campus, is sparked a series of violent protests around the New York City and nationwide.
Following the arrest of 108 Columbia University protestors, including Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Islamist and Hamas sympathisers Rep. Ilhan Omar and institutions including New York University, Yale University, University of Illinois, and the University of California, Berkely and the University of Southern California, organised protests and extended solidarity.
The protests first erupted on April 17, 2024, when Columbia University President Nemat Shafik faced questioning concerning on campus anti-Semitism during a hearing before the Republican led House Committee on Education and Workforce. The subsequent police action to demolish encampment escalated tensions triggering the pro-Palestinian students leading to protest.
Interestingly, many Indian-origin woke students have also been actively partaking in these anti-Israel protests.
Arguments like suppression of freedom of expression, right to protest, dissent etc common in the typical Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) protests in India are being put forth by the demonstrators in the US. In fact, the usual Azadi and dafli (tambourine) method of protest has metastasised to the United States as ‘Azadi’ slogans which used to be raised in JNU for Kashmir were this time raised in the US for Palestine.
As seen in the protest video that recently went viral online, a woman protestor was raising slogans in Hindi support of a free Palestine as her fellow protestors chant Azadi in Chorus. Arey hum kya chahte hai, Azadi, Palestine ki Azadi, arrey cheen ke lenge, Azadi hai haq hamara, Azadi.” (What do we want, freedom, Palestine’s freedom, we will snatch this freedom which is our right). The woman said to be of Indian origin also raised slogans like “Biden sun le Azadi, Netanyahu, sun le Azadi, Modi, sun le Azadi”
On Wednesday, the police started arresting the anti-Israel protestors from the University of South California. Meanwhile, dozens of protestors were taken into custody violently from Texas University. Police were seen in riot gear, holding batons, and surrounded a group of protestors before arresting them one by one.
Over 40 to 48 protestors were arrested on Monday at an encampment at Yale University, while 133 protestors were taken into custody at New York University this week. On Tuesday, around 9 pro-Palestine protestors were arrested from the University of Minnesota. Following this Rep. Ilhan Omar arrived at the varsity to support the protestors.
In a video message shared to his X profile, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu condemned “an antisemitic surge” in the United States, citing anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian protests.
“What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s. It’s unconscionable. It has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally. But that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful,” PM Netanyahu said.
“Now, fortunately, state, local, federal officials, many of them have responded differently but there has to be more. More has to be done. It has to be done not only because they attack Israel, that’s bad enough, not only because they want to kill Jews wherever they are, that’s bad enough, it’s also when you listen to them, it’s also because they say not only, ‘Death to Israel. Death to the Jews,’ but ‘death to America,” the Israeli prime minister added.
On one hand, the US administration is making mass arrests to end the anti-semitic protests in its universities on the other it shields similar elements and even terrorists in India’s case when the Indian government takes stringent action against them.
The US State Department on 22nd April released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices including India. The report was rife with whitewashing of the likes of Umar Khalid who do the very same thing in India.
While backing Umar Khalid, the blue-eyed boy of left-liberals in India, the US State Department has qualms about overlooking the facts and insinuating that somehow deliberate delays are being caused in the bail of Umar Khalid, who was booked in the larger conspiracy leading to the anti-Hindu Delhi Riots of 2020.
Interestingly, while in its own country, the US administration arrests journalists covering pro-Palestine protests, it backs the likes of Siddique Kappan and emphasises their Muslim identity. Kappan was arrested by the UP Police on October 5, 2020, when he was proceeding to ‘cover’ the Hathras case where a 19-year-old Dalit woman had died.
He alongside three others were booked under UAPA and sedition charges. The US State Department failed to mention that Siddique Kappan whom it called ‘Kerala-based journalist’ was an office bearer of the now-banned Islamist organization Popular Front of India (PFI).
The blatant double standards of the US government are alarming. It expects the Indian government to go soft on anti-India student ‘activists’, and ‘journalists’ and also wants to defend the ‘human rights’ of dreaded criminals like Atiq Ahmed, while it crushes student protests in its own universities in the strictest possible manner.
US’s Janusian approach when it comes to dealing with anti-national elements and protests raises questions over its seriousness regarding human rights issues. Why would it want the Indian government to let the anti-India ‘activists’ dance on its head in the name of human rights, freedom of expression and whatnot while it crushes similar elements in its own country to restore ‘law and order’.
In March this year, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), raised ‘alarm’ over the Citizenship Amendment Act notified in India. The USCIRF commissioner David Curry even lamented the arrest of ‘student activists’ and ‘human rights activists’ like Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam and Meeran Haider saying that they were arbitrarily detained during 2019 anti-CAA protests for “peacefully protesting”.
This came despite the fact that Imam was booked under UAPA for his provocative speeches at Jamia Millia Islamia University and Aligarh Muslim University during anti-CAA protests in 2019. He is alleged to be one of the masterminds of the February 2020 anti-Hindu riots in North-East Delhi, which killed 53 people and injured over 700 during anti-CAA protests.
The United States whitewashes and downplays the anti-social and anti-national behaviours of adherents and propagators of the same ideology in India while detaining, arresting, and violently suppressing the same people in its own country. In a blatant display of its hypocrisy, the US prioritises law and order when faced with widespread protests, while in the case of countries like India, it preaches human rights, freedom of expression and what not.
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