JNU hostel fee hike

‘Why Us?’: Disabled Students at Jamia, JNU and AMU Struggle to Cope with Aftereffects of Brutality

People with disabilities who are protesting are willing to face the consequences. But no one expected police to behave the way they did.

When I came to know about the violence that took place on campuses from November 2019 to January 2020, I reached out to students with disabilities at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). I contacted them mostly after six weeks or so, after the initial media frenzy was over, as I wanted to understand how were they coping.

I am compelled to share this piece now because what I have noticed so far is that when an incident happens, there is a great deal of noise about it in the media, especially social media. Different versions of the same event are introduced, which dilutes the authenticity of the original incident. It has the potential of creating doubts in the minds of people.

So I chose to focus on first hand accounts of students with disabilities.

The very first student I spoke with was not someone with a disability. He found himself trapped between the police hurling stun grenades and the panicked students trying to find safety. In the process, he was caught and beaten up so savagely that they well could have left him with a disability, as is visible from his injuries.

“You want my statement, right?” Tazeem asks curtly.

The 20-year-old, studying for a Bachelor of Arts degree at Aligarh Muslim University, has not been able to use his hands since December 15, 2019, when police unleashed alleged brutal action on the students on campus.

Tazeem was a bystander to the attack till a stun grenade injured a friend of his just 100 metres away. Within a few moments, a tear gas grenade fell at his feet. He rushed inside the guest house near Gate Number 3 with a couple of his friends to protect himself from what he calls are “gundas who wear khaki”.

Also watch | Ground Report From AMU: Police Violence Eyewitnesses Speak Out

Knowing full well that police could break open the door, Tazeem and his friends ran and hid inside an adjoining bathroom.

“They broke down the door and the boys who had not joined me were badly beaten up. I could hear them scream. They started to break the toilet door but we pushed back as hard as we could.”

After a while, he could hear a voice, “There are some boys inside, let us wait, you guys go on, search the other rooms”. The students cried out for help. After breaking the bathroom door down, the police, says Tazeem, mercilessly beat him and his friends.

While recounting this story, Tazeem’s voice loses its curtness as he describes how five policemen beat him up continuously for 10 minutes. “They said, ‘Keep beating them, the cameras are switched off.’ They pulled me by my collar and put me in their jeep. They verbally abuses us all, asking us to go back to Pakistan. At that moment, I felt that I was being seen neither as a student, nor an Indian citizen,” says Tazeem.

“My condition has virtually left me without hands. I can’t eat, I can’t put on my clothes and I basically can’t do anything on my own. I feel completely disabled. All my chores are done for me by my friend, Paras. I don’t like this. I don’t want to live like this and I wish nobody has to. I was a photographer and now I can’t use my hands [to handle the camera],” he says.

Even though Tazeem is most likely to recover from his physical injuries, he says that he still wakes up at night in a cold sweat and with tears in his eyes. He says that that he can’t focus on anything. “Even when I talk about it, I start crying.”

This begs the question, what about those students who aren’t going to recover from their physical injuries?

Twenty-year-old Zuhaib Ahmed Khan, a student of Mass Media in Hindi at JMI says, “People who may have become disabled because of the horrific acts of police brutality need to get counselling and learn to accept this truth and train their mind. I have been blind from the beginning so I have no memories of the past but people who may have lost their vision now or have become disabled may feel that their life is over, which is not the case at all.”

Zuhaib elaborates, “I feel that they are trapped between two lives. Remembering the past and being fearful of the future. We need to provide them support so that they and their families can embrace disability and learn to live with it. Even be proud of it one day. I am ready to talk and counsel such peers who may be in need”.

There is one such student, Mohammad Minhajuddin. The story of the young man, studying for an LLM degree at Jamia, had been initially reported by the media. But after the initial frenzy died down, Minhajuddin went home to recover from the trauma of it all, say his fellow students.

Zuhaib is right and students, including Minhajuddin, who have been injured in the hands of police not only need counselling but an empathetic attitude from the administration and their peers.

Also read: Jamia Police Brutality: Alumni Association Files Complaint Against Delhi Police

Arsalan Tarique, a partially blind student pursuing an MBA in International Business from JMI, thought that he would be safe inside the old library even though he could hear protesters and police outside the campus. However, he was wrong.

“At around 5.30 pm on December 15, 2019, I heard some explosions. I was in the library. The police entered the campus around 6 pm and I didn’t want to go outside as I didn’t want to get hurt,” Arsalan says.

“Officers broke down the door of the library and they started to beat us all. They hit me on the forehead first, then on the head. I turned around to protect myself but they beat me on my back and shoulders. I was in a state of haze, when I turned around a policeman hit me on my eye. My glasses broke but they didn’t stop at that. I tried to run and I bumped into an officer. I told him that I am blind, I wasn’t protesting and I was here to stud,” he says.

The policeman replied, “I’m here to beat your blindness out of you.”

“They verbally abused me and continued to beat me with a rod. I somehow managed to get away,” he says.

Sheikh Mohammad Kaish, the convenor of JNU’s Visually Challenged Students’ Forum explains that the political scenario now has posed a threat to the strong disability unity that existed in the campus. “As a university, for the longest time, we had a left leaning ideology but in the recent years there has been a radical shift with the newer generations coming in with a right leaning ideology,” he says.

As a result, Kaish feels that the disability movement has started to scatter. “When we took a stand against CAA-NRC there were some that did not align with us and said they agreed with the government. This ideological difference is causing a disturbance not only in JNU but across the disability sector. The first thing that should come to our mind is our disability. When I went to school I went as a blind person and not as a Muslim,” he says.

A second year history MA student from JNU, Shashi Bhusan Pandey recants when he was thrashed by police for protesting against the university’s hostel fee hike on November 18, 2019. “Nobody was being spared. For them any protester is an anti-national. I was asked by a police officer as to why I had come to a protest if I was blind,” he says.

Police, he feels, are as culpable as media organisations who are keen to give the movement a communal angle.

While interviewing the students, listening to them and especially while transcribing their responses, I could sense their helplessness, anger and the sense of betrayal. What was most palpable was a feeling of seclusion. A common question posed by all of them was – ‘why did this happen to me?’

It was clear to me that most of the students who shared their experiences with me identified themselves as students with disabilities.

Most of them do not have any political leanings, they were at the site of violence for academic reasons. They had their views and some of them were protesting and expressing their dissent as students and as citizens of the country. Now, seeing that they have been targeted by authorities because they belong to a particular religion, they are hurt, offended and even confused.

Only one student I spoke to felt that had it been anyone else, the police would have used the same reckless force, and held fast to the notion that the violence was targeted at them not just because of their religion.

Based on my discussion with the students, it is their ‘student with disability’ identity which seems to be stronger than a religious or any other identity. The fact that it is being used against them, and to polarise them now on campuses is shameful.

Some students with disabilities were participating in protests and others are simply bystanders. Some were hunted, beaten up and received serious injuries. Police should not be entering campuses and beating up any student in the first place but the fact that they have no empathy at all even when a student says he or she has a disability and on the contrary, use the fact to mock and beat them up, is reprehensible.

Except the mandatory medical check up and visit by senior authority figures in some cases, none of the students I spoke to have received any support from their university administration. Some students have been severely affected by this violence. There is no support like counselling being offered to them. They are very much on their own.

People with disabilities who are protesting are willing to face the consequences (though no one expects police to behave the way they did with students, irrespective of their disability) but when they are not participating, and get caught in the middle, they find themselves more helpless than people without disabilities.

The question remains whether police considers them just as human as you or I.

Shameer Rishad is the convenor of Javed Abidi Foundation, set up in 2019 as a tribute to the late disability rights activist. JAF has been working on forming a cross-disability youth network on university campuses for the past six months or so. He can be reached at shameer.rishad@gmail.com.

Why the Fee Hike For JNU Students is Justified, and Why it Isn’t

A fee hike in institutions like JNU is long overdue. However, it should be accompanied, if not preceded, by several other changes in the ‘system’.

As is well known by now, some hostel fees and charges have been hiked for students at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

In response, there have been massive protests at JNU (and many other universities). The specifics of the fee hike are familiar. So, I will move on to the main theme. Is the fee hike justified?

It is true that very many students who come to JNU are from low income backgrounds; they find it difficult to pay high hostel fees or charges. I would like to make two observations.

First, a large subsidy can be for only those who are not well-off and not for everyone (let us not exaggerate the administrative difficulties involved here).

Second, JNU is a premier institution in India. Even if many of its students come from families with low economic background, it is very likely that after their education, the life time stream of income of the current students changes substantially. And they can by and large afford to pay in future even if they cannot afford to pay at present.

This immediately suggests that there can be a student loan to bridge the gap; this obviates the need for a large subsidy from the government of India (GOI).

JNUSU members Aishe Ghosh with other members. Ghosh was injured after an attack by rightwing groups on those who had been protesting against the fee hike. Photo: PTI

This is not to say that the amount spent by the GOI on education or on poor people should be reduced. It is just to say that the money can be used in a better way on education of others who may be getting left out completely. It may also be used to lift up ‘below poverty line’ (BPL) families.

The above idea of looking at not just the current economic (and social) background of students but also their future income is related to the well known distinction between current income and permanent income that is due to the Nobel laureate Milton Friedman (let us not get too affected by the fact that he belonged to the Chicago School of Economics).

The current income of students (and their families) of JNU can be low but not their permanent (future) income.

Also read: Despite 41 Days of Protest in JNU, No Sign of Relief

This is not to say that getting employment for JNU students is a cake-walk once they finish their education. But eventually very many do get placed well – not in the sense that they become rich but in the simple sense that they are in a position to repay a loan over a long period of time. The repayment need not be in the form of a fixed amount every month. Instead, it can be income based.

It is true that the US experience with student loans has not been very good. This may suggest that it can be even more difficult here in India. However, an important reason for the difficulties with student loans in the US is that the quality of education is not very good at the low-ranked (and possibly profit-making) educational institutions which may also be admitting somewhat weak students. This is not the situation at institutions like JNU.

Some studies have shown that student loans act as a burden on people in the sense that it affects their other decisions; for instance, they may get married later. Also, they may not be in a position to buy a house for very long, and so on. All this is indeed true.

However, this is still an incomplete story. The money saved on subsidies in premier institutions can be, as mentioned earlier, used instead on those who are in a much worse position that JNU students are in.

The Department of Biotechnology at JNU. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Should we then simply shift from a policy regime of low fee and high subsidy to a regime of high fee that may be financed by student loans? Now, this is where we need to be careful.

Access to student loans is not easy in India. This is particularly true for students in universities like JNU where management, engineering, medicine, and so on are not the focus areas. Moreover, the real interest rates on loans are high in India (it is only the nominal interest rates that have come down in India in recent years).

The real lending rates are high in India for two reasons.

First, there are inefficiencies and fraudulent and corrupt practices in banks; this is particularly true of public sector banks (PSBs).

Second, some private sector banks (and foreign banks) are excessively profitable in India. It is interesting that the two phenomena are related but that is a different issue. The point here is that we need a policy to change the banking situation in India.

What if the students do not get jobs or cannot sustain a good income for long? Then repayment of loans can become very difficult, if not impossible. Now protection under a meaningful and clear bankruptcy law for individual borrowers is somewhat missing (it is only the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code or IBC for businesses that is reasonably well laid out now).

In this context, student loans are not always a good idea. We need the counterpart of IBC for individual borrowers.

It is also the case that lenders are not very transparent and ethical at the time of giving student loans. There is need for an improvement here. It will help to have sound and independent financial advice and academic and career counselling for students who may need to take loans, if there is a big hike in fees.

Also read: The JNU Fee Hike Affects Students with Disabilities More Than We Realise

There is no denying that some JNU students may not get a decent livelihood even after many years of completing their education. This raises another question. Why should this happen at a premier institution? Is there scope for better admission process, a better set of courses, a more meaningful syllabus, a better method of examination, and so on? There is a need for refection here as a part of the broader change in policy.

There is also a need to systematically carry out an awareness campaign and convince students (and their parents) that a fee hike, as a part of an improved policy regime, is not against the general social interest. It also helps to bring about a fee hike in stages and in a gradual way (as was done in 2013 in the case of reduction of subsidy on diesel by a mere 50 paise per month for several months).

A sudden huge (percentage) change in fees is not a good idea.

A fee hike for students in institutions like JNU should indeed happen; it is long overdue. However, it should not happen in isolation. It should be accompanied, if not preceded, by several other changes in the ‘system’.

If no change is made at all in policy, then gradually over time there is a risk of falling quality due to resource constraints in one way or another.

Gurbachan Singh is visiting faculty, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi centre.

‘Deteriorating Situation’ in JNU Prompts Science Profs to Seek Refuge in IIT

As some faculty members at JNU consider quitting because of issues with the VC, IIT Delhi’s director has written to department heads asking them to try and recruit “senior faculty with a distinguished track record”.

Bangalore: In a major vote of no-confidence in the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) vice chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar, a number of top faculty members in the sciences have sent feelers to the Indian Institute of Technology across the road in Delhi and other top institutions seeking a quick cross-over.

On December 19, IIT Delhi director V. Ramgopal Rao emailed his colleagues in different departments encouraging them to recruit the faculty members leaving JNU, especially if their work has been noteworthy.

His full email reads:

I am receiving many feelers from senior JNU faculty showing a willingness to move to IIT Delhi, considering the deterioting (sic) situation in JNU. I am told that some of them are also applying to other institutions given the impression that IIT Delhi doesn’t encourage lateral movement into higher positions. It will be a pity if we lose out on such good people because of any of these reasons/perception. I leave it to your judgement how you wish to deal with this. Institute will be very open to recruitment of senior faculty who have a distinguished track record.

Ironically, JNU VC Kumar is an ‘import’ from IIT Delhi.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) made IIT Delhi an ‘institute of eminence’ in 2018, paving the way for the institute to receive Rs 1,000 crore in additional funds over the next five years.

Rao’s email was sent two weeks before suspected members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) brutally assaulted students on the JNU campus but well after the first protests against the fee-hike and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 began.

Even today, nearly a week after the January 5 beatings, the situation on campus remains tense, partly due to the prevailing sense that ABVP activists and supporters couldn’t have perpetrated their attack without the backing of campus security and, by extension, the VC, as they were able to enter, leave and move around the campus despite being masked and armed but without being stopped by the security guards. Teachers have suspended classes en masse, and students, protesting the week-old violence as well as the hostel fee hike from earlier, have boycotted exams and refused to register for the next semester.

IIT faculty members wary

According to one person familiar with the matter, the response to Rao’s email from within IIT Delhi has been neither uniform nor enthusiastic. For example, some have expressed the fear that the out-of-JNU transfers could become a conduit for Jagadesh Kumar to send right-wing allies into IIT Delhi.

However, this is at odds with the impression in JNU that right-leaning faculty members are all happy with the VC’s governance and have no reason to want to leave the university, especially given the MHRD’s refusal to suspend Kumar despite mounting demands from various quarters.

Then again, per a different account (which The Wire has been able to verify), at least one faculty member is mulling leaving JNU primarily because of animosity towards Kumar.

Also read: How JNU VC Lost His Own Institution’s Trust

Even before promulgating the hostel fee-hike, Kumar had developed a controversial reputation on campus as an autocrat. Among other things, he hasn’t investigated key faculty members accused of academic plagiarism, arbitrarily kept students from submitting their PhD theses, imposed attendance rules less to improve productivity and more to get protestors indoors (so to speak), and tried to prevent a distinguished art historian from collecting a prestigious award by denying her leave.

In a referendum in August 2019, 93% of the members of the JNU Teachers’ Association said they had no confidence in Kumar’s leadership and 96% objected to his plan to borrow Rs 515 crore from the government to develop the schools of engineering and management.

While IIT Delhi has its share of student politics, it is not nearly as bristling as its counterpart in JNU. But unlike Kumar’s pliant attitude towards the BJP government, IIT Delhi’s Rao has been more independent, at least outwardly.

But IIT Delhi’s willingness – or the willingness of other institutes, for that matter – to recruit some faculty members may not suffice by itself to invite any disgruntled members of JNU’s schools of humanities, social sciences and economics away. These faculties are considered to be the best of their kind in India. Similarly, IIT Delhi’s faculties of engineering and physical sciences are stronger, on average, thus limiting the number of JNU people on the recruiters’ shortlist.

Considering both factors together, one senior academic who recently retired from JNU speculated that the number of faculty members that will eventually move out is likely to be low.

Also read: Scientists Who Signed Anti-CAA Letter Come Under Government Scanner

The bigger issue, everyone agrees, is Jagadesh Kumar’s policies, more broadly the extent to which he has been willing to let his political inclinations interfere with the way he runs the university. The consensus is that if JNU becomes hostile towards its own teachers, the future of the university is in trouble.

The IIT director did not acknowledge The Wire‘s request for comment; this article will be updated if and when he responds.

Students, Alumni of IIT Gandhinagar Express Solidarity With JNU Protest

The statement said it stands with JNU students for fighting the privatisation and contractualisation of higher education.

New Delhi: The students, faculty, staff and alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar have issued a statement in solidarity with the students and teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University.

In the statement, around 80 students and faculty of IIT Gandhinagar condemn the “repressive university administration” and express support for the students of JNU for fighting the privatisation and contractualisation of higher education. Calling the administration ‘authoritarian’, the statement says that the agitation by the students was being treated as a mere ‘law and order problem’.

The undersigned students and faculty members also pointed out that the authoritarian attitude of the administration had also manifested in the form of “brutal police violence against students who protested peacefully”.

The statement also referred to JNU as the benchmark for institutions of public higher education in India due to its values of inclusivity and critical thinking and further pointed out that the proposed fee hike was a direct attack on the institution’s inclusiveness and autonomy.

The statement cited the rise of the Sangh parivar and the ideology of neoliberalism that aimed to privatise and commodify education and exclude marginalised communities like Dalit-Bahujans, Muslims, and the lower classes. The signatories also asserted that an atmosphere that was diverse and inclusive was intrinsic to learning.

Also read: ‘Jasn-e-JNU’: What Lies Behind the Calls to Dismantle Public University Education?

The statement drew attention to resistances in universities across the country like the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Jadavpur University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Visva-Bharati University, University of Hyderabad and Delhi University and held that the current regime was opposed to a “spirit of inclusion and diversity”. Expressing solidarity with the struggles of students, teachers, staff and alumni at all universities, the signatories maintained that the “right to protest should be respected”.

The full text of the statement has been reproduced below.

In Solidarity with JNU: Students, Faculty, Staff and Alumni of Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar

We, the undersigned students, faculty, staff and alumni of Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, stand in solidarity with the students and teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), who have been fighting the increasing privatization and contractualization of higher education. They have also been fighting a repressive university administration. The administration has refused to engage in any dialogue, has attempted to bypass norms while introducing new policies, treated the agitation of the students as a mere ‘law and order problem,’ and has lodged criminal cases against protesting students. This is clearly the case of an authoritarian administration refusing to listen to claims expressed by students through democratic dissent. This attitude has also manifested itself outside the university, where we saw brutal police violence against students who protested peacefully. Clearly, the JNU administration and the Central Government are in unison.

From its inception, JNU had set a benchmark for public higher education in India, through its inclusiveness, and its appreciation of critical thinking. The JNU community has fiercely guarded these qualities in the past, and is guarding them today. The proposed hike in fees is a direct attack on the idea of JNU. The inclusiveness of the JNU community–which has been achieved through innovative admission criteria, sensitivity to diversity, and reasonable autonomy–is under threat. The immediate consequence would be the exclusion of students from marginalized sections of society.

This issue should be placed in a larger context, where the idea of the public university in India has come under attack from two directions: the Sangh Parivar and Neoliberalism. The first aims to cleanse university spaces of any voices opposing the Modi-led regime. The second looks at education as mere commodity, to be privatized and ‘sold’ at high prices. It is obvious that the immediate victims of Hindutva and neoliberalism are students from marginalized communities: Dalit-Bahujans, Muslims, and the lower classes.

We believe that learning can be most rewarding if we learn amidst people coming from diverse backgrounds–including various caste, class, gender, and religious backgrounds. Many individuals and groups have strived to make our university spaces more diverse and inclusive. We hold that the current regime has accelerated processes that go against this spirit of inclusion and diversity. Apart from JNU, resistance against these processes has shown itself in universities throughout the country, including Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Jadavpur University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Visva-Bharati University, University of Hyderabad and Delhi University. We stand by the struggles of the various communities of students, teachers, staff and alumni of these as well as other universities in India. Their right to protest should be respected, and their demands should be heeded.

SIGNED:

Ajin K Thomas, Alumnus, Class of 2019
Rohit Revi, Alumnus, Class of 2017
Prateek Pawankumar Khobragade, Alumnus, Class of 2017
Dalia N, Alumna, Class of 2019
Bhargav Oza, Alumnus, Class of 2016
Asaf Ali Lona, Alumnus, Class of 2016
Ingole Prashant, Student
Zaphya Gena, Student, Class of 2020
Vysakh R, Student, Class of 2024
Amritha Mather, Student,
Noyonika Das, Student, Class of 2020
Anushka, Student, Class of 2020
Sanika Gupta, Alumna, Class of 2019
Rachelle C, Student, Class of 2020
Ihsan K, Student, Class of 2020
Gurpreet Kaur, Student
Nanditha J S, Student
Pankaj, Alumnus, Class of 2019
Kamyaban Hazarika, Alumnus, Class of 2019
Anant Mista, Student, Class of 2021
Arka Chattopadhyay, Faculty member
Shobhit Kakaria, Alumnus, Class of 2018
Debasmita Ghosh, Student
Ambika Aiyadurai, Faculty member
Suhair KK, Alumnus, Class of 2019
Mohd Javaid, Student, Class of 2021
Devdutta Chakraborty, Student, Class of 2020
Saravanan Velusamy, Alumnus, Class of 2016
Tushar Meshram, Alumnus, Class of 2016
Ravi Setty, Alumnus, Class of 2018
Omi Kumari, Alumna, Class of 2019
Ashish Joseph, Alumnus, Class of 2019
Fasna K, Student, Class of 2021
Dyotana Banerjee, Student, Class of 2019
Sushanth, Staff member
Prerna Khobragade, Student, Class of 2020
Mujeebu Rahman K C, Alumnus, Class of 2017
Vinaya E H, Alumna, Class of 2018
Megha Sanyal, Alumna, Class of 2018
Jahnu Bharadwaj, Student, Class of 2020
Arun Krishna, Alumnus, Class of 2016
Samruddhi Damle, Student, Class of 2020
Prashanth, Student, Class of 2020
Haby Koshy Mathew, Student
Arundhathy Beena, Alumna, Class of 2018
Medha Deshpande, Alumna, Class of 2019
Amit Tiwari, Alumnus, Class of 2017
Abhijith TK, Alumnus, Class of 2018
Camellia Biswas, Student, Class of 2023
Rishabh Bhattacharya, Alumnus, Class of 2019
B.Vishnu Sai, Student, Class of 2021
Prerna Subramanian, Alumna, Class of 2018
Kashif Jamal, Student, Class of 2020
Moin Quresshi, Student, Class of 2021
Suyash Pasi, Alumnus, Class of 2019
Tanvi Jain, Alumna, Class of 2019
Aastha Soni, Alumna, Class of 2018
Sairam Manjula, Student, Class of 2018
Luke Nihal Dasari, Alumnus, Class of 2019
Noopur Joshi, Alumna, Class of 2016
Vaibhav Joshi, Alumnus, Class of 2017
Aatman Vora, Alumnus, Class of 2017
Mayank, Alumnus, Class of 2017
Sai Kiran Bojja, Alumnus, Class of 2019
Ankit Bhange, Alumnus, Class of 2017
Bhavesh Sonwani, Alumnus, Class of 2018
Dharmendra Kumar, Alumnus, Class of 2017
Ayushi Rai, Student
Akansha Yashasvi, Student, Class of 2020
Rujuta Naik, Student, Class of 2020
Simily Sabu, Alumna, Class of 2015
Prashant, Student, Class of 2024
Oishi Roy, Staff member
Debtroy Das, Student, Class of 2020
S.S.Isaiamudhu, Alumna, Class of 2019
Kanishk Kalra, Student, Class of 2021
Aakrati Gupta, Alumna, Class of 2016
Gnana Selvam, Student, Class of 2020
Shailendra Kumar, Alumnus, Class of 2017

JNU: The Emotional Cost of Protesting

It was terrifying to realise that if you do not run, you will be beaten up and detained.

Young students wearing anti-pollution masks while being chased by the police on the streets of Delhi in an attempt to secure affordable higher education for themselves and future generations of students.

This is what dystopia looks like. These are times straight out of an Orwellian nightmare, and it looks like they are here to stay – whether we want to admit it or not.

As if living in dilapidated hostels infested with bedbugs is not enough, we, the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University, never get to meet our Vice-Chancellor to air our grievances much like past batches did before with their respective, more approachable Vice-Chancellors.

Our schools have been under lockdown for almost a month in protest against the new hostel manual draft issued and discussed using undemocratic methods. We have been sitting outside our schools in batches, some of us braving Delhi winter nights, vigilantly guarding our right to affordable education.

This is time we would have otherwise invested in more “productive” endeavours. Our assignments have been gathering dust on our tables because we have been refraining from submissions. A strong sense of uncertainty lingers across the university, lined with Silk floss trees, as we wake up every morning not knowing which way our day will go.

A Silk floss tree on campus. Photo: Meghna Roy

Our beloved professor often points out that as young scholars in 2019, we have many more subjects to research than her generation of sociologists did some 40 years ago. These are distressing times when everything seems to be falling apart – governments, ecological balance, the education system, the integrity of the media; you name it.

To the observant eye, there is chaos everywhere.

Living far from my home in Kolkata, I try to call my parents every day. For the past few weeks, on the good days, I’ve spoken to them about the mental exhaustion and frustration the ongoing struggle has brought with it.

On bad days, I never end up calling.

Running from the police is something most of us had never encountered until we were out on the streets fighting for the principle of public education.

It was terrifying to realise that if you do not run, you will be beaten up and detained. Watching our peers getting caught by the police and being brutally beaten as our seniors urged us to keep running is indelible in our collective memory of this struggle.

Also read: The JNU Protests Stand For More Than Just Outrage Over the Fee Hike

We had been peacefully protesting through music and art, asking for the administration to initiate a dialogue. This is when the street lights were switched off and we were pushed, groped and baton-charged by the police.

Our relentless bold slogans were soon replaced by helpless whimpers and pleas.

This is when we learn to appreciate our freedom – not only is it hard-earned, but also extremely precious. We are so accustomed to capitalism and the neoliberal norm of private education that the very idea of a university whose fees are affordable to all sounds shocking to many – as can be seen on social media.

As it stands today, the student community faces many more challenges that just the physical hurdle of not being allowed to walk freely in a demonstration.

Besides constantly explaining the need for a public university like JNU to friends and family, we have to keep arguing derogatory remarks on social media, and combat fake news about us and the institution on a daily basis. This movement has laid bare the depravity of our ‘civil society’, which clearly has so much animosity for the poor that it constantly feel the need to malign a set of students who are determined to ensure equality and diversity – at least on campus.

The JNU I joined last year was not its best version it has been in all its years of existence. It was far from perfect.

However, it was certainly more diverse than all the other campuses I have so far spent time in. It sounds almost idyllic how the dream of erasing social inequalities has been realised in this institution for decades, so much so that upward social mobility has actually materialised here time and again.

A year ago, I used to crib about the deplorable hostel conditions, often discussing with my peers how the administration could charge us more to improve the situation. I was naive.

Today, I orient all my energy to mobilise the citizens of Delhi to support us in a forthcoming march to parliament.

Despite all that I have lost in terms of my mental health during this movement, I have gained emotional insight into social stratification – a subject well beyond the confines of coursework.

For this, I will forever be grateful to JNU.

Meghna Roy is a student at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Featured image credit: Meghna Roy

‘Question of Our Children’s Future’: Over 3,000 March in Solidarity With JNU Students

Students, political workers, alumni and teachers from a wide cross-section of institutions, organisations and walks of life, walked for a complete rollback of the fees hike.

New Delhi: More than 3,000 people joined a citizen’s march from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar, in solidarity with JNU students who are protesting against the hostel fees hike, on Saturday morning.

Men and women from students’ organisations, trade unions, JNU alumni, the JNU Teachers’ Association and rights bodies like the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) marched along with JNU students carrying placards and raising slogans against the Modi government and its education policies. They also criticised the high handedness of the Delhi police in dealing with student protestors.

JNU students have been protesting for four weeks against a significant hike in the hostel fee and other new charges that the students claim would create barriers for students from deprived backgrounds.

The citizen’s march in solidarity with JNU students saw teachers’ organisations as well, in New Delhi on November 23. Photo: Akhil Kumar

Many students were reportedly injured in a recent march to the HRD ministry after police allegedly resorted to lathicharge. FIRs have also been lodged against many students.

Also read: Social Justice in the Times of JNU Protests

The reasons for people from many different walks of life joining the march ranged from a concern for their own children’s education to the necessity to safeguard what many consider a model of inclusive education that JNU represents. “The BJP government is acting against the interests of not just JNU students but all students, youth, farmers and workers. We can respond effectively only when all of us come together. This is not just about the students; fee hikes will eventually impact parents and other members of the society,” Girija Pathak from the All India People’s Forum (AIPF) told The Wire.

Students from various organisations walked in solidarity with JNU students, in New Delhi on November 23. Photo: Akhil Kumar

Central trade unions like All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) were also present at the march, in a show of student-worker solidarity. JNU students have also been known to actively work with trade unions and join them in their struggles for workers’ rights.

“Our own children also go to schools and colleges. This government’s new education policy will limit access to education to the hands of the privileged few,” Anurag Saxena, Delhi state general secretary of CITU, told The Wire. Many participants in the march expressed concern about the adverse effect of the fee hikes on access to education for marginalised communities, especially women.

“No matter which caste or region they come from, women would be discouraged from pursing education if it is expensive. People from the Dalit and OBC communities would also suffer,” Saxena added.

Many current students narrated their own experiences and spoke about how a nominal fee helped them get quality education, which, in turn, has opened many professional doors for them.

The citizen’s march from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar in solidarity with JNU students, in New Delhi on November 23. Photo: Akhil Kumar

“For my Bachelor’s degree, I made it to many universities but getting through JNU was an achievement. Quality education and fees were the biggest deciding factor and I couldn’t have afforded to study at any other place. I have completed my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from JNU, and am currently in the second year of my PhD. I have come this far only because of accessible education, and would have had to look for a job after getting my undergraduate degree otherwise, “Pankaj Kumar, a research scholar in the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies of JNU, told The Wire.

He also said that many students like him, who are meritorious and waiting for an opportunity like this, would be deprived of the education he could receive if the fee was hiked. “I have joined this march so that students like me also get access to quality education without having to take out huge loans,” Kumar added.

Alumni at the citizen’s march from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar, in New Delhi on November 23. Photo: Akhil Kumar

Former students carried a banner that read “JNU alumni stand with JNU”. Pointing to CAG data which revealed that Rs 94,036 crore collected since FY ’07 as secondary and higher secondary education cess has been retained in the Consolidated Fund of India, contrary to procedure, they said the problem wasn’t lack of funds but a larger, sinister plan to alter the inclusive model of education in JNU.

“The current administration is not open to dialogue; I have never seen this before in JNU. The VC just sends memos and orders, and is not available to talk. When we were there, we constantly had a dialogue with the administration. Sometimes they didn’t accept our demands but it was an open conversation based on mutual respect,” Abhilasha Kumari, who studied Sociology at JNU from 1974 to 1976, told The Wire.

A CPI(ML) member at the JNU solidarity march in New Delhi on November 23. Photo: Akhil Kumar

Kumari, and many other alumni, alleged that the government’s agenda was just to punish and repress JNU because of its open and democratic culture. “The VC has money to erect statues in the campus but not for our children? Data shows that a massive amount of money meant for education remains unutilised,” Kumari added.

Ritambara Shastri, another alumnus who studied at the School of International Studies of the university from 1976 to 1981 claimed that the VC was “clearly anti-student”. She said that the current JNU VC was not interested in preserving the university and just wanted to crush its spirit.

“An open dialogue and conceding to the genuine demands of the students is the only way forward, there can be no resolution until the fee hike is reversed in entirety. How can you have an inclusive university when you make it inaccessible for deprived and marginalised students?” Shastri asked.

The march also saw participation from some political parties.

“JNU has been repeatedly attacked ever since the Modi government came to power. It’s a war like situation against JNU. This is clearly an attempt to move towards overall privatisation of education in the country. JNU has always resisted against all regressive moves of the government and that’s why there is an attempt to create a negative image of the university. They want to tame the students through brute force. We are here to tell these students that they are not alone,” Rajendra Pratholi, Central Committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation, told The Wire.

The JNU Protests Stand For More Than Just Outrage Over the Fee Hike

The commodification of education means walking away from the idea that education serves a human goal, and not just the vested interests of a few.

On November 18, hundreds of students from Jawaharlal Nehru University marched towards parliament to oppose the draft hostel manual approved by the university’s administration. The manual was approved without the popular consensus of the students and has been slammed as a draconian measure to make education ‘exclusive’ and ‘discriminatory’.

The proposed hike in JNU has spurred protests for the last three weeks. Those opposing the manual argue that a hike would make quality education at JNU unaffordable for more than 40% of the students who are currently pursuing higher education at the university.

Despite the Ministry of Human Resource Development’s partial rollback of fee hike that accommodates students who come from BPL families, students have been demanding a complete roll back of fee hike to quash the administration’s attempt to transform education at the central university into a commodity.

They have been vehemently stating that education is a right, not a privilege.

Social media had a stream of differing opinions on whether fee hike is justified or not. More so, prominent news anchors decided to carry out a personal vendetta against the university by not only belittling the fee hike, but by also accusing the campus for ‘exaggerating’ the issue when it has already been ‘addressed by the government’.

However, it is upsetting how the mainstream narrative has been dominated by opinions that called these students ‘freeloaders’ and their degrees useless. A highly regressive homophobic term ‘lesbian dance theory’ was also floated to supposedly describe how useless social sciences degrees are.

Also read: ‘Emergency in JNU’: Section 144 Imposed, Students Lathi-Charged, Detained

So, in a bid to shift from what the dominant narrative is currently focused upon, let’s try to see the agitation on November 18 not as a protest by a bunch of ‘frustrated-for-nothing’ students, but within the larger context.

First, the massive protest on Monday should not be looked at with surprise. The glaring absence of JNU’s Vice-Chancellor from the campus, lack of communication between the students’ union and the administration, repeated attempts to clamp down on protesting students – all these factors have pushed students to the point of launching such a large-scale protest.

Second, many people seem to view these protests as agitations by an angry, confused lot of students, who are allegedly “pawns of political parties”.

It is problematic that people see students as an apolitical category. It is not surprising that many are of the view that students in JNU only protest and thus are wasting taxpayers’ money.

Why can’t students be political? This question comes up whenever student protests are criticised by those who think that students should study and not agitate. They forget that our country has had a glorious history of student protests – like the one led by Jayprakash Narayan during the 1970s.

However, due to the subsequent de-politicisation of students, the relationship between politics and students is often frowned upon. India has a rich young demographic and it stands to win at every level if students become the watchdogs of democracy; their actions will shape the discourse of India as a democratic and welfarist state.

Also read: JNU Protests: State, Students and the State of Students

Third, students have spoken strongly about how education is a right, not a privilege. This opens the debate up to trying to break down whether education is a commodity or a public good.

On one hand, those who support the revised fee hike argue that those who can pay should pay – implying that subsidised education should be need-based. On the other hand is the argument against the commodification of education.

A debate such as this widens further when the question of the role of the state comes into the picture – should the state provide subsidised education or not?

It is disheartening to see ‘taxpayers’ concerns’ being used as a barb as it seems to be forgotten that education is a public good that serves societal interests. Anchors like Arnab Goswami also questioned the protest on the ground that there were several students who were seen wearing branded clothes. What they are missing is that the protests are not only against the idea of exclusive education but also oppose the view that education itself is a private interest meant to serve individual needs. It is against the notion that education is a privilege for those who can afford it.

By all means, it is an agitation for why a public good should be a right of all, and not a few. Looking at it as a matter of a divide between rich and poor is to deviate from the real cause. Public education is for all because the dividends from it serve all.

The developments in JNU over the past few weeks seems to have set a precedent for the government’s New Education Policy that will replace the existing University Grants Commission with a Higher Funding Authority (HEFA), which will lend loans to higher educational institutions.

The commodification of education means walking away from the idea that education serves a human goal, and not just the vested interests of a few. That’s why the privatisation of education must be resisted at every level.

Shubhra Aswal is a 20-year old political science grad who constantly questions politics, culture, life, and can be found having an existential crisis quite often.

Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty

JNU Hostel Fee Hike: HRD Panel Meets Students, to Submit Recommendations in a Week

The three-member panel was constituted on Monday to recommend ways to restore normal functioning of the university.

New Delhi: The three-member panel appointed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development to recommend ways to restore normal functioning in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) where students are agitating against a fee hike, concluded its meetings on Friday and will submit its recommendations next week.

The three-member committee, including former UGC chairman V.S. Chauhan, AICTE chairman Anil Sahasrabudhe and UGC secretary Rajnish Jain visited JNU campus on Friday to meet the students union representatives.

“We spoke to the students union representatives and took their suggestions into account. The meeting went on for two hours where we dwelled upon the reasons behind the discord between the varsity administration and students,” a committee member told PTI on the condition of anonymity.

“This was the final meeting and we have listened to all perspectives. We will now submit our recommendations within a week’s time,” he added.

Also read: ‘Jasn-e-JNU’: What Lies Behind the Calls to Dismantle Public University Education?

Chauhan told reporters after the meeting, “The discussion has been positive but the final call will be taken by the JNU administration. We will submit the recommendations soon”,

The three-member panel was constituted on Monday to recommend ways to restore normal functioning of the Jawaharlal Nehru University and mediate between the administration and students who have been protesting for nearly four weeks over the hostel fee hike.

The Friday meeting was the second round of discussions that the panel members had with the student representatives. The first meeting was held with JNU Students Union (JNUSU) office-bearers, student counsellors and hostel presidents on Wednesday at HRD Ministry.

The committee had also met Deans of all schools and representatives of JNU Teachers Association (JNUTA).

The agitation over hiked hostel fee escalated on November 11 when JNU students clashed with police.

A week later, students staged a march from the university campus to HRD Ministry but were stopped at multiple locations and finally outside the Safdarjung tomb.

The protesters alleged that the police had lathicharged and manhandled them, including a blind student, which led to a fresh protest by a group of visually challenged students.

Police File FIRs Against JNU Students; Union Wants No Action Against Protestors

The JNUSU said that the strike would not be called off until their demands are met.

New Delhi: The Delhi Police lodged two FIRs on Tuesday in connection with the protest by Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students over a hostel fee hike, even as the students’ union demanded that no administrative or legal action be taken against the protestors.

The issue also resonated in the Lok Sabha with opposition members describing the alleged police action on the students’ “suppression of voice” and demanding total rollback of hostel fee hike.

Jawaharlal Nehru Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Aishe Ghosh said that they had a meeting with joint secretary of the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry G.C. Hosur on Monday and requested him to ensure that no administrative action is initiated against the students.

“Students have been getting notices through e-mail for these protests. But these protests are for a just cause and no student will pay even a single-rupee fine,” she told reporters. She claimed that even though the university administration was “not working”, every student has got 10-11 notices stating that they will be fined.

“We will put forth the demand before the high-power committee constituted by the HRD ministry that no police or administrative action be taken against students,” the JNUSU president said.

Also read: JNU’s Four Subversions: A Primer For the Anxious Right-Wing Citizen

The HRD ministry has called the members of the JNU students’ union for a meeting at 10:30 am on Wednesday with the high-power committee constituted by the ministry to look into the issues concerning the university. Also, another meeting of the hostel presidents with the panel has been scheduled in the latter half of the Wednesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Delhi Police registered two FIRs in connection with the protest by JNU students over a hostel fee hike, a senior police official said.

On the other hand, the university approached the Delhi high court seeking contempt action against its students and the Delhi Police for allegedly violating a court order against holding a protest within 100 metres of the varsity’s administrative block.

The JNU claimed that the students had grossly violated the August 9, 2017, high court order by holding a protest within 100 metres of the administrative block and affecting its day-to-day working. It said the police also violated the court order by refusing and failing to take action to maintain law and order in the university.

In the Lok Sabha, Saugata Roy of the Trinamool Congress raised the issue during the Zero Hour and said the hike should be rolled back as poor students will find it difficult to pay the amount.

T.N. Prathapan of the Congress said the students are protesting for their rights.

“The government is undemocratically suppressing their voice against fee hike. The government is ruining higher education institutions,” he said.

The JNU students’ union also alleged that the registrar of the university refused to meet the members of the HRD Ministry-appointed panel for mediating between the agitating students and the administration and recommending ways to restore the normal functioning of the university.

JNU students clash with police during a protest march towards Parliament in New Delhi, November 11, 2019. Photo: PTI/Ravi Choudhary

The JNUSU, which has been leading the agitation against a hostel fee hike for three weeks, said the strike would not be called off until their demands are met.

“We got to know that the registrar refused to meet the HRD Ministry-appointed panel to mediate between us and the university. See their high-handedness. When they can refuse to entertain government representatives, how can they be expected to talk to us,” Aishe Ghosh said. There was no immediate response from the registrar or the university administration on the JNUSU allegation.

“The strike will continue till our demands are met and the fee hike is completely rolled back,” Ghosh asserted.

Terming Monday a “historic day” which witnessed protest by students against the fee hike, she said the “police lathi-charge” was “most brutal action” against any protest in the recent past.

“Since Monday morning, police and the ministry were trying to deter us from protesting. The HRD ministry even formed a three-member committee to look into the matter but we were not sent any official notification,” Ghosh said.

She alleged that upon reaching Ber Sarai during the march, police “manhandled and groped” women protestors while detaining them.

Ghosh claimed that even when she was released in the evening, the jeep that escorted them from Delhi Cantonment to Safdarjung Tomb, where their fellow students were sitting in protest, took almost two hours.

“We were made to roam for almost two hours around Bina Market, and were given the excuse that roads are blocked due to traffic but no such thing was there. When I reached near Safdarjung Tomb, the police said, ‘You are late. How can we take your delegation to the ministry’, ” she alleged.

Alleging that police did everything to ensure that they were not able to meet ministry officials, the JNUSU president claimed even after their delegation was formed, police separated them.

Meanwhile, the JNU Teachers’ Association took out a march against “police brutality” in the JNU campus while the RSS-affiliated ABVP withdrew its support to the students’ union protest over fee hike.

JNU Students: You Are Our Only Hope

At a time when lies are official doctrines, vice is virtue, authoritarianism is democracy and absurd monologue is the art of decision making, I would urge the students to remain determined, yet profoundly peaceful.

I am writing this article with intense pain and anxiety. Yes, Jawaharlal Nehru University is in turmoil once again. With an utterly insensitive/non-dialogic administration, and the anguish of the student community, the university, it seems, is losing what a learning environment requires: empathy, communication and dialogue.

As a teacher, I feel that we ought to share with the larger society what the crisis is all about, particularly at a time when the propaganda machinery is active in castigating the university and its student community.

A noisy television channel and the presence of the ‘invisible’

To begin with, let me state that for ages I have not seen our Vice Chancellor. Somehow, it surprises me because I have seen some of our other Vice Chancellors walking and smiling, talking to students and teachers, visiting the shopping complex and buying potatoes and onions, and behaving like any other professor.

Our students too are eagerly waiting to meet him, and have a conversation with him regarding many issues – particularly, the entire conflict centred on the new hostel manual. But then, it is difficult to see him, even though there is a ‘castle’ where, I believe, he comes, and instructs his deputies to bombard us with all sorts of circulars and showcause notices .

However, the other day, a student informed me that our Vice Chancellor could be found – if I switch on a television channel known for its noisy anchor primarily concerned with the fate of the ‘republic’. Even though I am not very fond of hyper-real television shows, I managed to see him on the channel.

I asked myself: what would have happened had, if instead of spending his immensely ‘valuable’ time with this ‘nationalist’ anchor, he would have shared some moments with the students of the university. But then, his priorities, I tell myself, are different.

Also read: Social Justice in the Times of JNU Protests

Well, the television channel sees the entire struggle as a negative act of ‘vandalism’. I am not surprised. In the age of potential authoritarianism implicit in the discourse of market-driven cultural nationalism, the Establishment wants to convey the message through these channels that JNU is highly pampered; its students are anarchists, and its teachers – a bunch of ‘leftists’ – encourage them to disturb the Vice Chancellor who is really trying to ‘discipline’ the university, restore ‘order’, rectify the ‘misdeeds’ of its ‘anti-national’ students, and bring it closer to the ‘mainstream’.

It is sad to see the Vice Chancellor on a channel of this kind. But then, I feel that the language of the noisy anchor is not fundamentally different from the JNU administration he leads. Yes, it has no hesitation in ridiculing any act of protest or dissent as a ‘disruptive’ behaviour initiated by a’ tiny’ section of students and teachers. While teachers are issued chargesheets, the presence of the police outside the JNU gate aims at giving the impression that the students’ movement is nothing but an act of lumpenism and vandalism.

Who would educate these television anchors? Who would tell them that at JNU we live amid the bundles of lies manufactured by the administration? For instance, neither the VC nor the rectors appeared at the Convention Centre to conduct the recent EC meeting of the university. And without any prior notification, the venue of the meeting was altered – the elected members of the teaching community kept waiting at the Convention Centre, and only at the last moment they were informed of the new venue of the meeting.

Not surprisingly, they could not attend the meeting. It was like eliminating the possibility of any alternative voice.

Also read: Hostel Fee Hike ‘Rollback’ an Eyewash, Say JNU Students

Yet, the administration can be so shameless, it issued yet another notification: EC members were prevented from entering the Convention Centre, and hence the EC meeting was held somewhere else. Who is fooling whom? But then, this is the new normal – lies are official doctrines, vice is virtue, authoritarianism is democracy and absurd monologue is the art of decision making.

It is in this sense that the Vice Chancellor has really succeeded in bringing the university closer to the mainstream. Possibly, he has learned some important lessons from the Big Boss.

Studentship and the art of non-violence

I am worried about our students. I understand the reasons for their anguish. A stubborn/non-dialogic administration is primarily responsible for the present crisis. I also know that the cosmetic change in the hostel manual is not going to satisfy them. The protest in some form or other, it seems, is likely to continue.

Even though some aberrations (say, the confinement of the associate dean of students) take place when the temper is quite high, it is difficult for me to believe that our students would not understand its danger. Possibly, JNU continues to exist as one of the rare places where students are fairly civilised, argumentative, intellectually vibrant and ideologically enriched. And I refuse to believe that if they raise a critical voice –say, a voice against majoritarian religious nationalism or the new education policy, they are doing anything ‘anti-national’. To be young is to be alert, reflexive and thoughtful.

Credit: Reuters

Hence, I have often felt proud of our students. When a student of mine chose to boycott the recently held convocation ceremony, I felt proud. In her act I saw her merger with the present students fighting for a right cause. When I see my young MA students reflecting on the entire crisis with a fair degree of honesty and spirit of self-criticism, I see hope.

Moreover, in the present agitation I see a deeper philosophy. No, it is not merely about reducing the hostel expenses; it is also about the necessity of a good public university – the ideal of affordable/good quality education. It is important, particularly because in the age of neoliberal market-driven ethos, the state seeks to retreat from the domain of education. At a time when all sorts of fancy private universities are engaged in an act of commodification of higher education, JNU students are reminding the state that the democratisation of our society would remain incomplete unless good and meaningful education becomes accessible to all through state-funded public institutions.

Also read: JNU: The Story of the Fall of a Great University

This is to fight the continual reproduction of social inequality – the politics of knowledge that characterises the growth of over-priced private universities. I understand that those television anchors who all the time scream for the ‘nation’ are not mature or educated enough to understand it.

But what about the administration? It fails to realise that running a university is not an act of ‘electrical engineering’; it demands a vision – a pedagogic imagination, or a politico-ethical sensibility.

However, I would urge the students to remain determined, yet profoundly peaceful. Because any act of violence – even symbolic/psychic violence – would go against the spirit of studentship. I understand that when all the channels of communication break down a situation might emerge for the eruption of a negative reactive behaviour. My worry is that I have begun to notice its traces. It has to be avoided at any cost. Let the saner voices prevail.

After all, our hope lies in our students – not in the administrators devoid of the poetry of inner conscience.

Avijit Pathak is Professor of Sociology at JNU.