JNU, Continues To Be The Battlefield

Forget class, it’s the coalescing of politics around identity in our campuses that is perhaps dictating the Sangh parivar’s response to student movements.

- Ajit Kumar Jha

If one has to succeed in life, if one has to keep pace with the changing times, then the first condition is not to let the student within wilt, never let the student within die.” These were the wise words of advice that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to offer at the centenary year convocation of the Banaras Hindu University on February 22.

One wishes the prime minister had offered these words of wisdom to the protesting students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University. It would have won their hearts and the whole crisis could have been averted. “Had the PM done so and seen the popular agitation as a sign of youthful exuberance,” says Professor Praveen Jha, chairman of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP) at JNU, “this would not have gone on for so long.”

Instead, the entire incident was mishandled from the very beginning, culminating in the arrest of student leader Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of sedition. The video, which initially formed the basis of the charge, has since been revealed to be morphed. Two other students—Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya—surrendered before the police on February 23. Three others—Ashutosh Kumar, Anant Prakash Narayan and Rama Naga—continue to face sedition charges.

Many in the JNU faculty feel there could be two possible reasons that could explain the mismanagement of the situation. One could be plain ineptitude on the part of administrative staff and the police. The other is that the emerging political polarisation, the hardening of stand by the government, is part of a larger gameplan of the Sangh parivar to exert control over educational institutes.