No room for sedition in a democratic country: Admiral Ramdas

The slapping of sedition charges on JNU students for holding an event is "ridiculous" and there is no room for any such law in a democratic country, former Navy chief Admiral (retd) Lakshminarayan Ramdas said here today. Ramdas who was addressing the JNU students during a lecture titled "De-militarisation of nationalism", said, "they are all doctored videos. Even if anti-national slogans were raised did anybody verify who shouted them. Booking random students for sedition is ridiculous. There is no room for any such law in a democratic country". Ramdas who visited the campus to express solidarity with the three arrested students -- Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, said, "no nation can be strong just by posing its military might, nation is built of its people". "The security agencies and government should first see if the case is worth filing sedition. The idea of nationalism is not restricted only to the military and its men, in fact it is a much broader term. "Nationalism is a 17th century thing which started in Europe and we are still applying it in the 21st century. Moreover, it is an idea that should be boundary less, not restricted to only a few people," he added. Three days ago, some ex-servicemen including retired colonel G D Bakshi had come to the university to meet the administration including the Vice Chancellor and Registrar and had suggested that an army tank be put up on the campus to instill nationalism in students. To this, the Registrar had responded saying that the administration is mulling over the idea of having a martyr wall and displaying such "nationalism symbols" on campus