The Curious Case of Jawaharlal Nehru University

The Curious Case of Jawaharlal Nehru University

Indian education sector from a long time has been a hotbed of political and revolutionary ideas. This becomes more prominent when these Revolutionary ideas at certain level directly starts to impact the set political tones in the society. It is true that some institutions over the years have became more notorious in taking a stand which is different from the one prevailing in the society. Jawaharlal Nehru University for one has been always being prominent in this league.

JNU in recent times is being associated by a big chunk of society as a institution which is still lining in the good old red Marxist era, for others it represent a epitome of pluralistic society where each member with his/ her intellectual development has the right to imbibe and propagate the realties in which he believes. The truth  like in all cases lies in between.

Jawaharlal Nehru University, established in 1969 is a public university located in New Delhi. The university is famous for its humanities courses and also for the pluralistic environment in campus over the years. The university takes pride in her wide array of alumni who are stations in various intellectual capacity in wide array of institution. Nevertheless, over the years - the university has gathered its fair share of criticism. Since its inception, the university campus has been a hot bed of politics. Various intellectuals have described the campus as “left of centre” in softer tones and “unruly bastion of Marxist revolution” in more general terms. The student union of JNU has always been very proactive in its operational activities. Its outreach has over the years taken a stringent political overtones with many describing it as “last standing fort of socialism” in India. In their part,  the students of JNU have always denied the charge with the fierce conviction that JNU is a “issue based and intellectual” political society.

In the last two decades, JNU has became more controversial with many actually giving a call to shut down the campus. Some critical events in near history are:

1. April 2000, two army officer were beaten up by the agitated students 
2. In 2010, a “JNU Forum against War on People” was organised to oppose Operation Green Hunt launched by the Government
3. In 2015, the JNU Student’s Union and the All India Students Association objected to efforts to create instruction on Indian culture
4. 2015 - a symbolic rainbow walk was organised to protest against verdict of the Supreme Court nullifying the Delhi High Court Order regarding section 377 of the IPC.
5. On 9th February, a cultural evening was organised by 10 students, against the execution of Afzal Guru and separatist leader Maqbool Bhat.

For students, JNU has always signifies and exemplifies the freedom of thought, freedom to profess and freedom to choose. For other JNU signifies the collective wisdom of all the mess which is wrong for the country.

The Struggle for Nothing

Few days back, in a TV debate - one of the anchor smugly remarked - “It is very difficult to understand the reason for protect from the people who are always protecting.” The discussion was piloted on the agitations against the recent fees hike at JNU. Let’s look at the present fees structure of JNU:

Particulars                                                                                             Existing Charges                       Revised charges

Mess Bill                                                                                                As per actual.                            As per actual

Establishment Charges                                                                         Rs 1,100 per semester                Rs 1,100 per semester

Crockery, Utensils                                                                                 Rs 250 per year                           Rs 250 per year

Newspaper                                                                                            Rs 50 per year                             Rs 50 per year

Room rent - single seater                                                                      Rs 20 per month                         Rs 600 per month

Room rent - double seater                                                                    Rs 10 per month                         Rs 300 per month

Utility charges Nil                                                                                  As per actual

Service Charges                                                                                    Nil                                                 Rs 1,700 per month (estimate)

mess security (refundable)                                                                    Rs 5,500                                         Rs 12,000

Over this revised charges, the whole campus has been boiling over the last three months. Also, to understand that all JNU students receives the scholarship ranging till 35000 Rs per month.

Now in this prospective, lets look at the question that should the fees of the university should be decreased. By all means Yes. Yes, the education is a basic right so fees should be as low as possible or better should not be imposed at all. But there has to be one condition. The fees should be reduced for all students, for all universities, anywhere and everywhere in the country. At a time, when a average technical education costs somewhere in lakhs for a student, it is an irony that students in a particular university is protecting for the increase in ‘000. Indirectly the students, seems to be supporting “all students are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Ironically this is against the basic principles of socialism for which these students stand for.

The second interesting argument which is brought forward is that “poor” students which as per some aggregate constitute 40% of total force in JNU will not be able to cope up with the revised fees. Ok, so JNU administrations has given a rollback of 50% for the students in BPL family. Leave this aside, there should be special provision for the poor all across the country, in all educational institutions, at all level. But why should a class be carved out. The concept of “my poor is better than your poor” is not serving anyone’s cause. Also, the images captured in the cameras where students with IPhone in one hand protesting against the rise in fees structure (after 19 long years) is not serving anyone’s cause.

India as a country is going through a transformational phase. Old tested ideas are getting challenged at the alter of new found love for nationalism (which was always there but partially dormant.) In this scenario, the typical mindset of “protesting for the sake of protest” is challenged openly in various forums. The so called nostalgic intellectuals can continue to live in their make believe world of 60’s and 70’s but real India is quickly getting more aggressive in demanding the real equality among itself. In this regard, Jawaharlal University is fast losing the perception battle.