A Movement To Save A University And Public Education
Akshat Seth
The 24th of January 2020 was a bright sunny day, literally as well as metaphorically, for the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The Delhi High Court had vindicated the stand of the students of the university — that education is a right and not a privilege. “Government cannot get out of education. Government has to fund public education. The burden of paying the salaries of contractual workers is not on the students. Someone has to find the funds.” This observation by Justice Rajeev Shankhdhar was not just a vindication of the principle that education must be free at the point of use, but also of the long, arduous and often difficult struggle waged by the students of the university, under the leadership of the students union. It had involved sacrifices, not just collective but deeply personal — as students who were against the fee hike and the imposition of the new manual for governing hostels in JNU had to boycott examinations and even their registration for the winter semester. However, students did not flinch, because they knew their cause was right. The cowardly attack on the evening of 5th of January, the murderous and brutal assault by right-wing goons with full impunity from the police and the pliant JNU administration, which catapulted the university once again into the news, was testimony to the cowardice and the morally unjustifiable stand of the administration, which had to rely on an illegitimate exercise of force to quell the legitimate demands of the students.
It seems like yesterday, when on 28th October, the university conducted a sham meeting to pass some new rules governing hostel life in JNU. The university has had a tradition of evolving democratic bodies with students’ participation to implement any rules — a right hard won and maintained through students’ unity and vigilant students unions, as well as the other progressive political forces of the campus. One such committee was the Inter Hall Administration (IHA). The IHA used to have the participation of elected Hostel Presidents as well as JNU Students’ Union representatives. But since 2016, the administration, led by Vice Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar, has been engaged in finding ways to undermine and dismantle democratic rights in JNU. They found a useful way to invent excuses and not call the students union.
The meeting on 28th October had almost no student participation and lasted ten minutes. It rammed through a fee hike of unprecedented scale in hostel charges, including introducing service and utility charges which a student coming from the underprivileged hinterland of the country, admitted to JNU because of its affordable fee structure, could ill afford. They also scrapped reservations in allotting hostels to SC, ST PwD and OBC students. They imposed a draconian night curfew and increased the draconian powers of the wardens to charge fines for cooked up offences. A comprehensive strategy by the right wing, to teach students of JNU a lesson, for demanding democracy and equality in the campus and in the country. Since 2016, such assaults have been a routine for JNU students.
However, what they did not expect was the strength of the students’ movement. From 28th October up till the High Court verdict, through many dark allies, through many beatings, through endless circulars threatening to jeopardize the future of the students, we marched on. We marched on based on the strength of the students’ union, which the administration had surreptitiously and consistently tried to delegitimize. Indeed, there were many difficult choices, many twists and turns, and many movements when everything seemed to be glum. Yet the strength of the students was such that while the VC refused to recognize their union, the MHRD had to. Attempts since 2018 to delegitimize the students’ union were dealt with a severe blow when the ministry officials of the right-wing government, faced with consistent student mobilization on the streets, and growing support from other universities, had to sit down on a table with the elected students’ union.
It is difficult to encapsulate the movement of three months in words — when every day was a symbol of resistance and a beacon of hope, despite threats from the government and the administration to shut down the university. They wanted us to accept the fee hike in some form and accept that rules could be passed without the approval of students. Hence, towards the end of December, they tried to trap us by asking us to at least accept the increase in the room rent. Most of us know how corporate-owned right-wing media outlets described this movement as a ploy to keep the rent at ten rupees a month, when in reality the hike was far bigger than that. However, having known this administration, one was sure that if the increase is from ten to three hundred today, it wouldn’t take them long for it to go up to three thousand. Therefore, building an opposition to the idea itself was quite important and this helped the movement negotiate the pitfalls set by the administration and the government, with immense resources at their disposal.
It was the resoluteness of students, that they would not compromise, which made the administration and their lackeys who call themselves a student’s organization — the ABVP — more desperate and cowardly in their actions. The attack on the JNUSU President, the attempt to murder her almost, and the brutalities perpetrated on teachers and students alike showed that hatred and a murderous ideology were their only recourse when the right-wing lost all arguments. The JNUSU President was back the next day, with stitches on her head, addressing a press conference and talking about the unresolved issues of students — showing the character of the students’ movement in JNU, but also of the rest of the country from which we take inspiration.
This movement was also remarkable for bringing together solidarities from across institutions. Media reports indicated that the plan to hike fees in the M.Tech course in the IITs were dropped after seeing not just the JNU protest but the solidarity it generated. Students of IIT and AIIMS in particular, apart from other universities need to be mentioned — plagued by incessant profiteering and commercialization of their respective fields of education, they stood with us in empathy and together we created a discourse around saving public education.
The government for a long while has been planning to bring in the National Education Policy (NEP), which would cement the idea that funding for education needs to be done by universities themselves — egged on by government-backed profiteering institutions like HEFA and loan sharks backed by corporates. At the same time, there was an attempt to take control of the syllabus of universities to push through ideas of Hindutva. However, if these plans have been on a backburner, it has to be for the remarkable spirit of the students’ movements across the nation.
The movement in JNU did not fail to take account of the wider issues of Indian democracy linked to public education either. Students here ensured their participation in all the protests against the crackdown on Jamia and the abhorrently communal and sectarian law, the CAA. The future of this country depends on the generations of today and tomorrow mobilizing and fighting against the onslaught that seeks to sell our future and impose a vicious undemocratic order, and it is only through struggles like the movement we just witnessed, that we can win.
Akshat Seth is a research scholar of Media Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is also the Secretary of the SFI-JNU Unit.
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