‘JNU type’ isn’t an unfamiliar catchphrase, we hear it every time someone speaks of human rights.

Nearly a week after Umar Khalid was targeted in the heart of India’s capital, the police arrested the two men who boasted about attacking him on social media.

Umar Khalid’s transformation from a JNU student to a face being splashed across TV channels was quite the journey.

“My name is Umar Khalid, certainly, but I am not a terrorist.”

These were Khalid’s first words when he returned to his campus in 2016 after being untraceable for weeks. He was referring to the labels that Indian media had given him — Islamist, anti-national, traitor and even a Jaish-e-Mohammad sympathiser.

Two years later, Umar Khalid was attacked outside the Constitution Club in New Delhi. Before the attack, Khalid had written to the Delhi Police saying that there was a threat to his life and requested them for security, but to no avail.

Whether or not the police investigations will reveal the motivations of the two accused is not known. But the climate of hate that has been drummed up in the country is definitely responsible for the attempt on Khalid’s life.

The complicity of the police

In February 2016, Umar Khalid was charged with sedition, along with nine other students including then JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, for allegedly raising ‘anti-national’ slogans in an event called ‘A country without a post office’. Six days after the event, the Delhi Police Commissioner at the time, B.S. Bassi proclaimed that it was Kanhaiya Kumar who raised the slogans. He further stated that it was due to the “evidence” the Delhi police possessed that Kanhaiya had been arrested.

It’s been two years and six months since that incident, and there hasn’t even been a single chargesheet filed by the police regarding this case. What has, however, happened in these two and a half years is the propaganda-like attack, the relentless vilification and malicious caricaturisation of the students as the ‘tukde tukde gang’ without any evidence.

Home minister Rajnath Singh had even said in 2016 that “the incident at JNU has received support from Hafiz Saeed. This is a truth that the nation needs to understand.”

After receiving flak for the statement, he issued a clarification saying his assertion was based on inputs from “different agencies”—never quite divulging his “sources”. A tweet by an impostor Hafiz Saeed account was picked up by the Delhi police a day before the home minister’s statement, asserting the same connection between JNU students and the Pakistani terrorist. Later, the tweet was deleted, and the Singh absolved himself of all responsibility by saying, “Whatever the Delhi Police has to do, they are doing. I have nothing to say on that”.

These supposed oversights may have been taken back, but what cannot be reversed is the kind of indelible imprint they left in the minds and hearts of millions of Indians about the JNU students. They fuel hysteria and make it easy to hate. More importantly, they remind us who to hate, at all times.

Hate: Made in media

Forensic investigation ordered by the Delhi Police last year had found that two of the seven video clips cited as evidence of sloganeering were doctored. It took many dinner table arguments, and fact-checking of random Facebook statuses, but popular perception about Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar is yet to change even after the videos turned out to be fake.

The media hate campaign didn’t just end with those videos. Jingoistic commentary carried on across news hour debates where Khalid and others were made poster boys of anti-nationalism. The caricaturisation was extended to anyone who dared to speak in their favour.

“JNU type” isn’t an unfamiliar catchphrase, we hear it every time someone speaks of human rights. This vilification campaign has rendered people like Khalid unsafe in this country.