In a world where politicians deal with
consumerism and corruption with the same sense of banality, what is happening
in JNU must come as a puzzle to them. The supreme court has stated that
chanting slogans is not seditious and it’s
enquiry committees have discovered that partisan channels have doctored
videos. The general assumption for right wing incendiary campaigns including
shouting at Faculty Members and banging on their doors at dead of night is to be subsumed under the
category of “Students can be indisciplined, and shout all sorts of things." So where do we go from here? "Ghar Ghar Ghus Ke Mareinge" , their favourite slogan frightened some students and teachers inordinately. Maybe, we thought they really meant it.
The Vice Chancellor has alienated his
working groups, and whether these be students or teachers, he cannot do anything to solve the problem.
The teachers no longer see dialogue as possible, since the error lies in
Administration, not in the stars of a dozen students. A committee that takes a
decision without meeting the students is illegitimate in its jurisdiction, if it is unable
to call the defendants together, or the support of the University community. To go against the wise council of the Supreme
Court is itself slander to democratic institutions. The Vice Chancellor was
sent in by the President, now the President must take a decision on how he sees
the fate of what was once India’s premier institution, with the highest NAAC accreditation in the country last year.
The
JNUTA President, in the middle of the struggle for justice, came out with a new
book from Routledge. So, just as classes continued, and evaluation process is
now in place, the institutional work of the JNU remained stable. It takes a lot
of effort to work in situations where the crisis of academia is part of a state
pogrom against intellectuals. The BJP RSS functionaries in the JNU were placed
when the right wing was in power the last time round. As two of the Rectors
were RSS affiliated, their appointments
of clerical and administrative staff were also politically biased. In
the 80s and 90s, the Law Faculty in Delhi University was crammed with right
wing students, and we see now that the
Bar Council has a right wing partisanship. The silence of people was the
expected location of the legitimation of rule and plunder, but Rohit Vamula’s
suicide put a stop to that. Young people saw the annihilation of the
universities as the extinction of their own hopes for a normative future, and
have moved substantially to protect their ideals. "Occupy UGC" and now the
present JNU struggle is part of that larger movement, with students on indefinite fast, and teachers in solidarity on relay hunger strikes.
JNUTA has to believe that institutional
mechanisms can be retrieved, and with the citizenry now moving into JNU since 4th May 2016, for
providing the support that the students and teachers need, with hunger strikes
and relay groups, the momentum is now in place. Vice Chancellor has a
reputation for silence, for treating JNU as if it was IIT with its extreme suicide rates, and lack of empathy, and now, is seen as a dummy set up
by the RSS to destroy the university. What is the RSS dream? If the Gujerati
experience is to be relayed, it has meant hierarchy, ritual, power, death
without reason. When forty percent of the country voted Mr Modi into power,
they must have thought that genocidal impulses would rid the country of the
extras, minorities, left, secular, what have you, women, dalits, handicapped,
the hungry. Now is the time for the remaining sixty percent to respond, through
writing, demonstrations, fasts, hartals, strikes, whatever it takes before the
age set that now demonises the law courts as RSS lawyers become judges
themselves.
Indiscipline on campus has it’s routine
punishments, if the committees are not known to be partisan. By choosing a
majority of the members for their right wing or Youth for Equality
representatives, the JNU Administration has alienated itself from the students and
teachers. The ABVP has been known to create its own ruckus whenever given a
chance. The fact that two crowds met in the night, and there was a conflagration has to be
handled by the University. That the VC only hears the ABVP side of the
disruption is really unethical, and its members who went to the Paschimabad flats to terroise teachers, cannot be identified according to Adminsitration. Who will call VC to book for this absenteeism
from his role as mediator and catalyst for regular functioning? We can only
punish students for indiscipline, how can we punish them for their political
views? The RSS does not maintain the demeanour of free citizens nor does it
provide an atmosphere of equality, conviviality and freedom. It frightens
people, it is contemptuous to women, dalits and minorities. Why would we want
to be ruled by them?
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