Indian professor says “Kashmir is illegally occupied by India”

Now, a new video has surfaced showing a professor of the university saying Kashmir is not a part of India and that pro-azaadi slogans are justified.

“Everyone knows that India is illegally occupying Kashmir. Everybody accepts (it),” professor Nivedita Menon is seen telling a gathering of JNU students on February 22.

After an event at JNU’s campus last month, three students were arrested on charges of sedition for allegedly chanting anti-national slogans, some allegedly in favour of independence for Kashmir.

“The map of India in foreign publications like Time and Newsweek show a different map of Kashmir. These copies of the magazines always create a lot of controversy and are censored and destroyed. When the whole world is talking about India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir, then we should think the pro-azaadi slogans in the valley are justified,” the professor says in the video.

Menon teaches at the Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory at the School of International Studies in JNU. The video of her speech was uploaded on YouTube on February 27.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s student wing ABVP has condemned Menon’s statement. It wants a resolution be brought in JNUSU condemning such statements and demanded an apology from Menon. (We promise to vote in favour of it (the resolution),” the ABVP said in a statement.

Menon, however, said, “I don’t believe anything I said was anti-national.”