Roshni Sengupta
O
n 5 January 2020 – fresh into a new year – armed and masked men entered the otherwise heavily guarded Jawaharlal Nehru University campus and ran amok for close to three hours, smashing hostel and mess property, beating up ‘left union’ students – while also singling out Muslims and Kashmiris as special targets – and attacking the transit house apartments where young professors live. The enduring image of this vicious attack was that of a profusely bleeding Aishe Ghosh, the JNU Student’s Union president, leading the charge against a discriminatory and exclusionary fee hike that had brought the left-leaning JNUSU into direct confrontation with the JNU administration headed by a Vice Chancellor widely considered as a stooge of the ruling party. Another abiding impression of this dastardly attack was that of Prof. Sucharita Sen, one of India’s leading geographers, writhing in pain, her head wrapped in bandages after being assaulted with bricks and lathis. These images along with that of Yogendra Yadav – JNU alumnus – being manhandled at the North Gate by BJP supporters while the police looked on will remain etched in public memory for a long time. The RSS-affiliated ABVP was soon identified as the perpetrators of the attack based on the slogans being shouted, the language being used to target minority and Dalit students, Whatsapp group chats that went viral and subsequently an India Today sting operation that had one of the planners admitting to choreographing the entire scenario that left about 34 students battered and bloody and requiring medical attention. The Delhi Police – despite incriminating evidence against the ABVP activists – has failed to make a single arrest, standing by as a mute spectator, just as they did when the attack was taking place inside JNU.
As an alumna and someone who lives an entire continent away, I was hit hard not just by the events as they unfolded but by the vitriol and bile that was being unleashed on JNU and its student and teaching community on social media platforms. While I was busy texting and calling friends who live on campus and could have been in harm’s way, hashtags pouring venom on the ‘deshdrohi’ JNU were trending online. Later when Bollywood star Deepika Padukone stood in solidarity with a diminutive Aishe Ghosh and her comrades, social media exploded again, this time calling for boycott of Deepika’s films, as her personal life was publicly slandered and splashed across Twitter handles and Facebook pages. With large sections of the population up in arms against the CAA and the impending NRC – which discriminate against Muslims and could render major numbers as disenfranchised citizens of India – the events in JNU were seen as part of the existing continuum.
It is however imperative to consider the chronology of events as they unfolded on 5 January and after within a larger and vital argument. The JNU student body has been challenging the JNU administration on two particular issues – the fee hike which might make continuing higher education impossible for about 40% of the students enrolled in JNU and a sexist and misogynist hostel manual that directs women students to wear ‘respectable’ attire, cover themselves up and imposes night curfews. The issue of the fee hike further points towards the larger game plan of autonomizing the institution which would result in more arbitrary powers passing into the hands of the VC. The autonomy question is a result of the broader idea of dismantling the public education system in India. One of the biggest fallouts of this would be the deliberate and unequivocal exclusion of marginalized and poorer sections of the population who presently aspire to quality higher education only because of the existence of institutions like JNU that provide them access to world-class education through high quality faculty and an environment that nurtures ideas and freedom. The ‘dismantling’ will render this access impossible thereby marginalizing these groups further.
The government’s emphasis on skill-based and technical education – essentially those forms of education that are ‘marketable’–is important to consider in this regard. Apart from historical parallels that one might be able to draw with Nazi Germany and Hitler’s insistence on skill training and technical education, the ‘marketization’ of education will lead to two devastating outgrowths. One, the creation of a large, skill-trained workforce without enough employment opportunities on offer; two, the slow but inevitable death of social science and humanities education resulting in a generation devoid of any appreciation for the arts, literature, history and social and political engagement.
Needless to say, a generation of Indians with no exposure to critical thinking will also pose less of a challenge to the state apparatus and government policy making – no critical voices, no dissent! The fundamental principle of democracy thus having been thwarted and disabused, the voices of the people being silenced, the government could then go about its business unchallenged.
This entirely plausible scenario also bears within itself a caste and a class dimension. There is unanimous agreement on the fact that Dalit and Adivasi groups will be the hardest hit by any structural changes brought about in the public education system in India as it will restrict access to higher education. These groups have historically and despite claims of a creamy layer been placed at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid. The scenario has not changed much – despite significant efforts towards social engineering, legislation-based upliftment and a robust and continuing movement for Dalit rights – providing grounds for a new generation of Dalit leaders like Jignesh Mewani and Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan to develop into icons of the movement of the marginalized. Therefore, it is inevitable that students coming from BPL families and those facing historical marginalization will be automatically left out of the public education system.
As mentioned earlier about 40% of the student body in JNU comprises students from Dalit, Adivasi and economically weaker sections. A number of my batchmates came from minority and marginalized groups and could not have been able to afford education, board and lodging in the heart of Delhi if not for the inclusive and accommodative environs of JNU. This arguably remains the case with several other publicly funded institutions of higher education such as Jamia Milia Islamia, Aligarh Muslim University, Banaras Hindu University and so on.
The systematic effort to change the nature and structure of public universities such as JNU – apart from making financial assaults on student’s ability to afford good education – also entails the destruction of a vibrant student culture, an ethos of criticality and the ability to dissent and question authority and state. The first step towards that end was taken when a pliant and subservient VC was installed as the head of the institution flanked by a team of administrators that owed greater allegiance to the government at the centre than the students of JNU. As a result, a host of ‘measures’ was undertaken to instill what has been variously termed as ‘nationalist fervour’ and ‘deshbhakti’ in the wayward student body.
This came about quite expressly after the February 2016 instance when the role of the ABVP was never investigated and the public ire was directed towards Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya – all of whom happened to belong to the left union. That directions were coming down directly from the central government – some even claimed from Nagpur as the current VC is seen to be close to the Sangh – was in plain sight.
I would like to take a step back here and recount a few instances from the early 2000s when I was a student at JNU. There was talk of the right-wing ABVP becoming strong in the School of Languages and subsequently winning elections in the school, followed by the pure science faculties. Several of my compatriots were members of the ABVP, contested elections and won councilor seats. The overarching ideological inclination however still remained towards the left. We would often quarrel and debate – over steaming cups of tea and samosa – remaining confined to the realm of ideas. Some instances of left-wing women activists – my compatriots and friends – having been assaulted physically by ABVP members were reported but by and large the student body remained robust, vocal, critical but not physically violent.
Sadly, the deterioration came faster than any of us had fathomed culminating in the events of February 2016 and then 5 January 2020. The culture of conversation – vaad-vivaad – on which the campus thrived had been systematically decimated creating a vacuum for such kind of targeted and communal violence to take the place of civilized discourse. The takeover of the administration has aided and abetted the death of campus culture of meaningful conversation and epistemological debates and has – quite ironically – fed the development of a system of ethnic and communal marginalization and violence.
An impetus to the ongoing annihilation of the campus culture was provided – in no small measure – by the targeted placement of former ABVP activists and pro-Sangh individuals in key faculty positions. The fact that some of these carefully placed ‘professors’ were instrumental in events that unfolded on 5 January bears this out. The VC has been flouting all possible rules to install Parivar members in key Schools and handing down out-of-turn promotions.
A number of such cases have been reported by the media leading to – supposedly – inquiries being initiated against the individuals in question. Controversial appointments have been questioned before as well – the left being accused of dominating the teaching body in the university for decades – but one glance at the CVs of those being brought to the dock currently and the charge of political patronage lies exposed beyond doubt. From faculty appointments to populating key committees, a drastic shift in the manner in which policy making occurred in JNU is noticed. For instance, the report that branded women students – particularly those affiliated to the left union – as ‘prostitutes’, quoted images of women drinking alcohol to tarnish their character and stated nonchalantly that the university had become a ‘hub of sex trade’ was headed by a known left baiter and Parivar affiliated member of the faculty. This utterly spurious information was then used by several news channels – of the godi media variety – to splash misinformation about JNU to such a degree that some friends reported being asked by rickshaw wallahs if what they were hearing was true and if JNU women were indeed prostitutes.
The demonization of JNU – both within campus and outside – has led to the creation of a blood thirsty mob which remains on cue for a call by the Sangh and its affiliates to spew venom against the institution. BJP leaders routinely use terms like ‘JNU ka virus’ to caricature the contributions of a university that has produced a Nobel Laureate, two cabinet ministers in the Modi government, hundreds of long-serving members of the bureaucracy and security forces, award winning writers and journalists, well-known academics and public intellectuals and a plethora of socially conscious film actors, screenplay writers, poets and lyric writers.
“You look the JNU type” is something I am told over and over again, in an attempt to belittle an opinion I might hold, a statement I might make or a point I might look to place on the table. The process of demonization extends from the public to the personal and vice versa with those having first-hand experience of the institution turning against it under a constant and uncompromising barrage of accusations, however phony and bogus.
That the blood of an institution par excellence is on the hands of the incumbent VC and his administration, its puppet master – the present government, strategically appointed Sangh loyalists and a rapidly radicalizing student body, is beyond doubt. The events of 5 January 2020 only testify to how deep the rot is and the speed at which the dismantling of the ethos of a great institution is being pushed ahead. Brutal physical violence has come to haunt our university campuses – be it under the garb of quelling anti-CAA protests or ‘teaching a lesson to left union activists’ – university campuses no longer can guarantee security of being,life and limb and freedom of choice, creative expression and thought.
It’s important to understand the current JNU impasse within the framework of the sinister design of taking away education from the marginalized, promoting ‘marketable’ education, and ceding the space for public education to private players with enormous fee demands. New education reforms have already meant shrinking of funds to school education and as a natural corollary to higher education institutions as well. The larger attempt is to mould the student into a ‘buyer’ of quality education not a recipient of knowledge.
One of the fallouts is likely to be the burgeoning of the system of student loans which could end up creating major problems considering the dismal employment situation in India – an anomaly that requires high economic growth rates over sustained periods of time to be corrected. The fact that a large percentage of the Indian intelligentsia and indeed the populace in general – fed on lies and propaganda beamed into living rooms night after night – remain oblivious to the dangers of letting public education die out, focusing simplistically on the here and now of an uncompromising anti-JNU sentiment, should be a matter of urgent concern.
To end with some anecdotal evidence from Europe, during a conversation with my young students in Poland where I teach I was apprised at the system of public education in the country – preferred by students and guardians alike. In fact, they wouldn’t have it any other way. All forms of public education, they informed me, are provided free of charge in the country, not just higher education which essentially means students do not pay anything to acquire quality public education. Further, everyone in the country is required to acquire education until the age of 18 by law which effectively means every parent is bound by law to put their children through basic education which is provided free of cost by the state. Higher education through the public education system is provided free in countries like Poland, Czech Republic, Germany etc. Needless to say the funds are made available through budgetary allocation which taps into the revenue generated through taxes paid by citizens.
Violence is being inflicted not just on the body of students but on the minds of Indians – systematically and in a rather sinister fashion. This needs to be called out and challenged in the realm of discourse. Unfortunately, the space for it seems to have shrunk in unimaginable ways.
Beacon Notes JNU still counts among the top ten institutions of higher learning in India according to an HRD ministry report. In fact its ranking improved with student unrests since 2016! “The JNU story protesers and mobs won’t tell you.” https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/the-jnu-story-that-protests-mobs-wont-tell-you/articleshow/73197582.cms.Roshni Sengupta teaches politics, media and language at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. She writes on Indian politics and media and is currently working on an anthology of short stories. Roshni's first book Reading the Muslim on Celluloid: Bollywood, Representation and Politics (Primus Pvt. Ltd.) is all set to hit the markets, while she is compiling two volumes on literature and media in the sub-continent after Partition (Routledge).
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