From JNU night meetings to Kunal Kamra podcast, how Anirban has kept the conversation going

Few things annoy Anirban Bhattacharya more than people asking him where he “disappeared” after 2016. He was in the eye of a storm that February, after an event he helped organise at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi became primetime television news and put several students in the dock for sedition.

Delhi police had arrested him, Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid in the case. Upon their release, the other two became well-known politicians and activists. But Bhattacharya receded from the limelight and returned to his research, completing his PhD in history five months later.

“2016 was an aberration,” he told Scroll. “It was an intrusion in our lives. After that, I needed to get back to my comfort zone.”

But comfort did not mean disengagement. Bhattacharya, now 39, remains invested in public life – characteristically, working behind the scenes.

A national storm erupted in February 2016 when the Modi government ordered a police crackdown against students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University for slogans raised at a campus event. Three students were arrested on charges of sedition, sparking a debate on nationalism and democratic freedoms.

Ten years later, we revisit the legacy of that moment by tracing the trajectories of four student-activists – the choices they made, the outcomes that followed, and what that reveals about...

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