Tum Kitne Afzal Maroge, Ghar Ghar Se Afzal Niklega!

It is hard to trace the origin of sloganeering or probably beyond my capability to do so but if we consider the broad meaning then sloganeering is an act to unite like-minded people, incite them and instill within them a sense of oneness, predominately for some cause.

If I am not very wrong, if so I can stand corrected, sloganeering was made famous during the early days of uprising by rebels against the tyrannical rulers. In India, during the struggle for freedom, slogans were made to get people together and rise up against the British Raj. "Inkalaab Zindabaad" was one among many that was probably the most used and by far the most useful slogans used during those days. The two words simply mean "Long live Revolution" but the greater meaning had a great impact in the minds of millions who dreamt of waking up in a free country. Inkalaab Zindabaad was so famous that even in today's generation we use it almost anytime we wish to show our dissent towards something.

So why is sloganeering such a wonderful way to gather the like-minded? Does it at all get us together? If yes, how?

I am no analyst or a student of science, rather psychology, that I will trace the psychology towards the success of sloganeering. However, in my own ways, I will try to find a connection between sloganeering and the present situation of the entire JNU-Afzal Guru row.

This is about a time when I joined college in the year 2011. Studying in a college of Kolkata, being around politically motivated people is very common. I was once asked by a few of my seniors to join a march led by sympathisers of a particular political ideology. I was never interested in joining politics and thus used to keep myself away from such stuff. However, keeping in mind that I will have to stay in the college for the next three years, I joined the march and acted to be a serious participant of the same. Slogans were being raised and I just moved my lips to show that I was actively taking part in it. However, after sometime I was astonished to find myself shouting in unison at the top of my voice "Inkalaab Zindabaad". I checked myself and reminded myself that I am not doing this willingly but something within me urged me to join those hundred voices and a sense of oneness crept within me. I kept aside my real feelings for the time being and actively started participating in it.

Later, while contemplating upon my change, I realised that I did not even know why at all was I in the march. I did not know the agenda of the march and I had no reason to unite my steps with those of the hundreds of students who had taken part in the march. But what about the part of sloganeering? How did I shout out my lungs in the march? Or rather WHY?

Now at a more mature age I find the answers to my questions. Thanks to the whole JNU issue.

It is not always do we realise, especially in our tender ages, that why at all are we doing something. We tend to follow the bandwagon. By saying this I am not trying to say that my friends in JNU did not, like me, know the cause behind raising slogans. I am simply trying to draw a possibility, which might be wrong.

As I earlier said, sloganeering instills within an individual the sense of oneness. While in a protest march an individual often takes part because his friend/s has active roles behind organising the event. It might be because one partially shares the cause or probably simply because his lady love is taking part in the protest march. Not always do we take part in some protest because we fully understand/echo the entire reason for the protest. But something magical happens when we hear slogans being raised.

It is nearly impossible to keep yourself mum when hundred voices are in unison to the slogans being raised. Even if one does succeed in keeping his/her mouth shut, somewhere the heartbeat takes up the pace of the slogans and the sound gets reverberated in the heart and somewhere he/she is lulled by the very words of a slogan. Probably it is because of the repetitive nature of sloganeering that we temporarily lose the sense of deep comprehension and just go along with the flow.

So, now the question arises-- Did all the students present there at the Sabarmati Hostel on February 9 raise slogans because they wanted to praise the Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru? Or was it the magic of sloganeering that swayed them to a temporary illusion that Afzal Guru is but a hero?

I will be honest, I personally like the tempo of the slogan "Tum kitne Afzal maroge, ghar ghar se Afzal niklega". However, the true meaning behind the slogan boils my blood and I wish to kill the person who is behind the coinage of such a stupid slogan that praises a terrorist. And again I would admit, had I been there, I could not have probably been able to stop myself at least from stomping my feet on the ground to the very beat of the slogan.

Thus, I feel sloganeering in such cases, for a moment, stops our brain from functioning and we end up doing something far from our principal and find ourselves in a soup and before we even realise how deep the soup is, we land up behind the bars.

This very reason could have led many such JNU students to fall into doing something which their deepest conscience too knows is wrong but due to the power of sloganeering, got carried away by the magic of the power of a slogan.