On a cold night of 5 January at around 10 pm, 30–35 students affiliated with the Left student organisations gathered with their duflis (handheld frame drums) at the gate of Sabarmati Hostel in Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). They chanted ‘Modi-Shah ki qabr khudegi JNU ki dharti par’ among many other demeaning slogans during the gathering. This event, since then, has sparked a conversation among university students and observers on the nature, limits of dissent, and whether this is one of the many other attempts of the Left to somehow stay relevant, when their parental organisations stand almost negligible in terms of political power across the nation.
The date of sloganeering is not random. Six years back, on 5 January 2020, a violent attack by 50 masked men took place at the JNU. As an act of remembrance, a gathering by the Left student organisations is organised every year as ‘they allege’ the attack was conducted by the members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP)—student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The ABVP says it was an attack on the ABVP karyakartas and the students of the JNU by the ‘leftist’ and ‘commie goons’.
The 5 January 2026 gathering is not an isolated event.
Two months back, in November 2025, at the India Gate, a protest was organised to demand clean air. The protest became controversial when some students affiliated with the Left student organisations—Students Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); All India Students Federation (AISA), the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) (Liberation); Bhagat Singh Chhatra Ekta Manch (BSCEM), an outfit which identifies as a students’ rights group; The Himkhand, an organisation that describes its aim as ‘Eat the corporates, save the planet’—chanted slogans and walked carrying posters in support of the recently killed Maoist leader, Madhvi Hidma. As captured in the video, the slogans raised included ‘Comrade Hidma amar rahe’, ‘Kitne Hidma maroge, har ghar se Hidma nikalega’, and ‘Hidma lal salaam’, along with the posters that had ‘RED SALUTE TO COMRADE.HIDMA’ slogan written over them, among others. All this led to the arrest of 23 students and activists. 22 out of these are out on bail now. This includes those who were seen as leading the mobilisation, namely Ravjot Kaur, a BSCEM activist, and Kranti alias Priyanshu, a Himkhand activist.
In March 2025, students from ultra-left organisations at Jadavpur University attacked Bratya Basu, West Bengal’s Education Minister. Basu had gone to the university for a meeting with the Trinamool Congress-aligned West Bengal College & University Professors’ Association (WBCUPA). While Basu was delivering his speech at the Open Air Theatre (OAT), the students entered the venue and caused destruction. During this, JU professors and members of WBCUPA were also injured. Basu was stopped from leaving the university by the students. They damaged his car. In addition, a university employee’s office was set on fire by them. The students wanted Basu to declare the student union election dates on the spot. However, Basu’s view was that he could not declare the dates then and there without consulting the seniors in the administration.
Three years back, in 2023, over 200 students from AISA, SFI, Disha Chhatra Sangathan (DCS), an organisation that identifies itself as independent, revolutionary and based on the ideals of the great freedom fighter Bhagat Singh, and Democratic Front of India (DSF), an independent, leftwing students’ organisation, were briefly detained. The detention happened while they were marching towards the Israeli embassy in Delhi, protesting in support of Palestine. Per the Delhi police, no permission was taken for the protest.
In another infamous incident in February 2016, as per the First Information Report (FIR) lodged in the matter, people under the leadership of Umar Khalid, a Muslim activist and a former student of the JNU, chanted anti-national slogans. These slogans included ‘Afzal ki hatya, nahi saheinge.. nahi saheinge’, ‘Kitne Maqbool maroge.. har ghar se maqbool nikleinge’, ‘Kashmir ke naujawan sangharsh karo, hum tumhare saath hain’, among others. This protest led to the arrest of Khalid, Kanhaiya Kumar, and Anirban Bhattacharya in a sedition case. All three were awarded a regular bail in August 2016.
‘There appears to be a desperation among the Left to somehow stay in the media and remain politically relevant. Hence, it tries everything: from raising anti-national slogans to committing violence. However, now, because of social media, people can’t be fooled, and institutions can’t be manipulated. Therefore, they are failing and will continue to fail,’ said observers.
The invitation for the 5 January 2026 protest, accessed by The Dossier, had the images of the 2020 Delhi riots ‘larger conspiracy case’ accused Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, but didn’t have their names explicitly mentioned in it. The invitation mentioned that it was a gathering in support of the ‘activists’ and ‘leaders’ who give voice to people, but are denied bail (in the context of Khalid and Imam).
‘The invitation’s poster openly displayed the images of Khalid and Imam, leaving no room for ambiguity. It was an event organised for glorifying them’, Rajeshwar Kant Dubey, 2025 General Secretary Candidate for JNUSU from ABVP, told The Dossier.
As previously reported by The Dossier, on 5 January, the Supreme Court (SC) denied bail to Khalid and Imam, observing that the evidences against them appeared to be ‘prima facie true’.
While organisers defended the slogans as ideological, critics accused the Left of using the protest to manufacture a misleading narrative.
‘All of the slogans raised in the protest were ideological and do not attack anyone personally. They were not directed towards anyone’, Aditi Mishra, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) and a student activist from AISA, told Press Trust of India (PTI).
Dubey said, ‘This was neither spontaneous nor dissent. It was a planned and deliberate exercise. Individuals like Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam were being consciously repackaged as ‘activists’ and ‘leaders’ who fight for people and projected as symbols of resistance. In doing so, the Left concealed key facts and manufactured a narrative that misleads ordinary students who do not investigate beyond slogans.’
All four current office bearers of the JNUSU, who belong to the Left Unity Alliance, were present during the gathering, reported The Indian Express.
‘The slogans raised reflect the Left’s violent mindset and disbelief in democracy,’ said students.
‘The ideological roots of the Left lie in violent doctrines. Stalin’s revolution was built on bloodshed. Mao famously said that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. When such thinkers are idolised by a lot, having a violent mindset becomes inevitable for them’, Manish Chaudhary, a PhD student in Geography from the School of Social Sciences, told The Dossier.
‘Wherever Leftists have ruled—West Bengal, Kerala—political killings have happened. Violence is a part of their character,’ Vaibhav Meena, former Joint Secretary of the JNUSU from ABVP’, told The Dossier. ‘They don’t want solutions through dialogue; they want violence. That’s why they talk about digging graves. They don’t believe in the Constitution, law, or judiciary, yet claim to be pro-democracy’, added Meena.
On this matter, some leftists have said, where is it written that slogans can’t be raised against the Prime Minister and Home Minister?
‘Obviously, it is not written anywhere, but there is always a way to register dissent. This slogan wasn’t morally correct in any sense, Shivam Patidar’, a first-year PhD student at the Centre for Russia and Central Asia Studies, told The Dossier.
S Shiva is an independent journalist based in Delhi.