The ‘Save Constitution, Save Citizenship’ protest rally, opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act, gained attention when Kanhaiya Kumar, one of the speakers, urged the crowd to sing the national anthem. However, in an ironic turn of events, Kumar himself forgot the anthem, and the video of this moment quickly went viral on social media. The rally featured prominent figures such as Tushar Gandhi, Medha Patkar, Aishi Ghosh, Alka Lamba, Kannan Gopinathan, Fatima Nafees (Najeeb’s mother), and Radhika Vemula (Rohit Vemula’s mother) expressing their support for the cause.
Former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president and Communist Party of India leader Kanhaiya Kumar forgot the national anthem while reading it at a rally in Patna. The ‘Save Constitution, Save Citizenship’ rally was organized at the historic Gandhi Maidan in Patna in protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Kanhaiya Kumar called the people attending the rally to sing the national anthem and started singing himself. After the national anthem was almost completed, Kanhaiya Kumar sang the wrong words in the end. He finally sang “Jana Gana Mana Adhinayak” instead of “Jana Gana Mangal Dayak”.
An old video of Kanhaiya Kumar was found on social media in which he is seen raising Azadi slogans and perfectly without any mistake. And this video in which he forgets the national anthem midway. Both these videos were summarized by India’s leftists on social media.
After watching the viral videos, people shared different types of reactions. One user writes, ‘This is the education he learned from the university. This shows his spirit towards the country.’
Another user writes, ‘Thirty fellows they can’t even sing anthem how could we call as desh bhakt.’
Kanhaiya Kumar is a former leader of ‘All India Students Council (AISF) and Communist Party of India and is currently a leader of the Indian National Congress. He was elected to the post of President of JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University) Students’ Union in 2015. Kanhaiya Kumar was accused of anti-national tendencies due to which there was a lot of controversy. On February 9, 2016, while welcoming Kanhaiya Kumar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, there were allegations of slogans like ‘Bharat tere tukde honge’ and ‘Afzal we are ashamed, your murderer is alive’ were raised. The video shown by the media was cropped and distributed. Due to which the police released him from court due to a lack of proper evidence. A case of treason was filed against Kanhaiya.