Jawaharlal Nehru University: A Rebublic Of Ideas

As a centre of learning and diversity, JNU perhaps has no equal among India’s universities. But its culture of political activism has put it in the eye of a storm.

- Kunal Pradhan

It’s a little after midnight. Ganga Dhaba, which woke up at 4 pm from the excesses of the previous night, has just found a second wind. It usually does at this time.

Steaming aloo paranthas and sloppily tossed chow mein are being trotted out to groups of various permutations of students, teachers and ‘outsiders’. There is a discussion on films on one set of stone blocks that serve as stools; a heated debate on the Subaltern vs the Colonial on two others; and articulate examinations of what students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar has done right, and what he could have done better over the last week, in most other parts of this cornucopia of food,drink, mud, stone and opinions. Ganga Dhaba is the perfect entry point to better understanding Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a Republic of Ideas that is home to a diverse, astute, exuberant, fashion-challenged and politically charged academic community.

In the eye of a storm stirred up by the fierce nationalism debate raging across the country over charges of sedition slapped on six students from the campus, JNU is perhaps being talked about more than it has been at any point in its 47-year history. Its Freedom Square, where Kanhaiya had delivered a stirring midnight speech on March 3 after being released on bail, is already the new Jantar Mantar. There are allegations that the university is a den of anti-national elements, who use the taxpayers’ money to plot against the State. And there are counter-claims that it is simply fulfilling the functions that any such public institution must— of debate, discussion and dissent.