What is wrong with JNU?

The article is titled so because perhaps you too are wondering: What’s with the folks at JNU? Why are they always in the news? Are they really protesting to bunk classes? I don’t know how far I can do justice and speak on behalf of them, of us –the JNU community, but I will try.

Picture Credits: Pratik Raj

Here’s a little back story: I’ve been here for less than a year. I’m pursuing my Master’s in Spanish after having finished my graduation from EFLU Shillong. I was ecstatic when I came to know I got through here. Who wouldn’t I be? It is a premier university renowned for its world class faculty and academic excellence. I came here expecting the world but ironically, without knowing what exactly to expect. Here was a space where I was treated like the adult that I was growing up to be. Without any kind of high handed rules—without a hostel in-time (Gasp! EVEN in a girls’ hostel!); without any minimum attendance requirement and without any rules that impeded our freedom.

Here, at JNU, we women were treated equal to the guys. And although there will always be people who may remark that this is ‘too much freedom’, I can safely say that I have learnt the most here in JNU than I have ever before.

I rarely missed classes because most of our classes were refreshing and thought provoking. My evenings were spent with friends talking about everything that’s going on in our country and also in our lives, or attending plays and musical programs. This would be followed by dinner and midnight study sessions.

However, little did I know that the cog wheels had begun to turn; this free and liberal space of ours was under threat. The witch hunting and brandishing of our university as anti-national was not an isolated incident.

The 9th February debacle was followed by the disappearance of Najeeb Ahmed, a first year Biotechnology student who was badly thrashed by some ABVP supporters an evening before he disappeared. There were protests afterwards but they failed, we failed, because he was and still is missing. No one has a single clue where he is, as we speak.

This was soon to be followed by a massive seat cut in MPhil and PhD programmes. This time too our protests failed. We still haven’t got the seats back, which means that we (all the undergraduate and Master’s students) across centers and departments have limited options to turn to after finishing our degrees if we want to continue in academia.

The seat cut was followed by the dissolution of GSCASH, the sexual harassment redressal body of our campus which was one of its kinds because it included gender sensitization as well in its agenda. We failed once more. The absence of such a balanced and neutral body is what has caused sexual predators if I may call them (Prof Atul Johri and Prof Mahendra Lama) to enjoy a good deal of impunity and be able to continue to work freely with their victims and also continue living on campus.

In the midst of all this, the mandatory attendance rule has been implemented. We are demonstrating and protesting against it because not only is it high-handed and draconian, but also because it isn’t called for. Not to brag, but we are already the best university in the country. And also, if we look at the larger picture then it becomes apparent that it is a part of what now seems like a well orchestrated effort to dismantle the foundation of our university and to ensure that it will never be the way it was.

Picture Credits: Pratik Raj

What seems to be the “problem” with us JNU students is not that we have a problem with everything and that we’re always ready to pick a fight. It is that we are not afraid to think, to critique and to challenge everything we see around us and most of all, our own beliefs. This is the way we have been taught.

When we see regressive steps being taken by our administration and our VC (who simply refuses to ever talk to us, his own students) and by the State we cannot remain silent and look away. We took out a peaceful protest march to the Parliament on 23rd March against the seat cuts, fund cuts, scrapping of the deprivation points for women and candidates from backward districts, towards more inclusiveness in higher education and against its privatization and against our administration. Instead of being allowed to march peacefully till our destination, we were stopped midway and sprayed with water cannons and were lathi-charged. Some of us were thrashed badly, they tore the clothes of one of the girls amongst us and many of us were detained. And the Delhi Police filed an FIR against us for “rioting”.

Picture Credits: Pratik Raj

I’m writing everything that I see around me every day and I hope you do not find this piece politically charged. Because I have certainly not meant it that way and I’m telling you like it is. Do you now see what all this fuss is about? Do you see what is wrong and/or right here? Do you think we as students are wrong? Do you think everything that is happening is justified?

Do you see how this resistance is our only option?

Do take a moment and decide for yourself.