New Delhi: The presence of several outdoor broadcast vans of television news channels and a posse of Delhi Police personnel just outside the North Gate of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) bear uneasy forebodings of the likely goings-on inside the 1,300-acre campus — home to one of India’s premier educational institutions, the cradle of many a fine mind, alma mater to many a luminary who went on to do India proud in diverse fields of academics, research, politics, administrative services.
Barely a few metres past the North Gate, the vehicle carrying this Gulf News representative is stopped by security guards. IDs and Press credentials are presented — but they are not enough. Finally, a phone call from one of the professors of JNU helps secure an all-clear from the men in blue.
Nineteen years back, when this correspondent had left the campus after having completed his Masters in English, frisking was unthinkable. Visitors were always welcome and so were freedom of thought and expression — the gospel that forms the bedrock on which stands the edifice of what has always been considered as one of the prime contributors’ to the nation’s intellectual capital.
So, has JNU changed? Particularly in view of the latest crackdown by the lawkeepers, following alleged anti-national sloganeering on campus by a section of the students, landing JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar in jail, while two other students, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, having courted arrest, following charges of sedition.
Is JNU a threat to India’s nationalistic ethos?
The vehicle speeds towards the administrative block, where an open-air “public class” is being held and the topic for the day is ‘What is Nationalism’. The steps and courtyard next to the ‘Ad Block’ are chock-a-bloc with students, teachers, alumni, sympathisers such as G. Arunima, a JNU professor from the Centre for Women’s Studies. There are about a thousand people who have gathered in that amphitheatre-like space, with several others milling around in impromptu huddles — chats in hushed tones, over puffs of smoke or steaming cups of tea or coffee, adding to the serious brew a heady mix of off-the-cuff hardtalk.
But hang on. Where is that sense of looming danger and a threat perception that the frisking near the North Gate had suggested barely minutes back? No denying that there is a palpable sense of excitement and anticipation. But the mood is by-and-large sombre and the overriding sentiment is not what clenched fists and hardened jawbones would imply, but that of disgust, laced with a discrete shot of sarcasm. Reassured that there is no imminent threat to life and property from gung-ho, ‘firebrand’ JNUites, Gulf News settles down to soak up the atmosphere with the last embers of the setting sun livening up the mild chill of a late-February afternoon on campus.
A few hundred metres away from the ‘Ad Block’ nerve-centre, the anguish in his tone is all too obvious as Dr Saugata Bhaduri, a former student of the university and a professor at JNU’s Centre for Linguistics and English, opens up: “If you roam around the campus and speak to people, you will yourself realise that there are only a handful, and even that number is dwindling, who could still be taking orders from their political bosses — the current establishment that is. But the vast majority of students, teachers and employees of the university are very much united in this fight.”
Meanwhile, as dusk descends, the crowd grows and gets even more appreciative of and responsive to the speakers at the “public class”. With the JNUSU president behind bars, Shehla Rasheed, the vice-president, is busy fielding requests from the media. Even as the flashbulbs keep going off, Rasheed moves from one phone call to another, juggling brief staccato of interviews in between … “What we are seeing right now is a consolidation of the Left voice and that of the common students because of the extreme Right-wing attack on JNU. There are many students who do not even go out to vote in the union elections, but even they have come out to protest the Right-wing attack. There are even members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad [students’ wing of the BJP] who have resigned from their posts in view of the current controversy,” Rasheed explains.
Even as Rasheed shares her thoughts, she points towards Rajesh Kumar, a student from Gujarat Central University, who has come to show solidarity towards JNU students. “If you look around, you will find many people like Rajesh, who have come here to support us,” she adds.
Professor Soumitra Chowdhury, who teaches in the School of Arts and Aesthetics in JNU, terms the entire controversy as “naturally unifying”. “I have always known JNU as the expression of a unified, collective will to fight injustice. There is nothing ‘moderate Left’ or ‘ultra Left’ about that fight.”
Expanding on Professor Chowdhury’s views, Albeena Shakil, former president of JNUSU, says: “Entire JNU has been branded as anti-national. And it’s a government with a full majority that has done that. This is what worries us all. If there’s any apprehension of wrongdoing by any student, you call the students’ body, you speak to the teachers, you speak to the university’s officials … you involve everyone in a dialogue. But instead, you let the police in. That is atrocious.”
A sudden roar of claps and laughter emanates from the “public class”. A stand-up comedy is in progress. “From having Gajendra Chauhan as the chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India to Dalit student Rohith Vemula’s suicide to the arrest of Kanhaiya … there is a pattern: Stifle the voices of protest, stamp out every shade of opinion that goes against the establishment. This cannot be tolerated,” says Ajay Patnaik, the JNU Teachers’ Association president.
Those at the “public class”, meanwhile, suddenly break into a parody with the stand-up comedian. After hours of serious sociopolitical discourse, everyone seems just that wee bit eager to unwind.
So, in all the debates and discussions, protests and demonstrations, one wonders whether academics have taken a back seat?
“Not at all,” says Professor Chowdhury. “What you are seeing here is the greater academics — one that counts. And the little pedagogy of classroom teaching hardly matters when compared to this.”
Time to rush back to the North Gate. The Delhi-Kolkata Indigo flight takes off in 85 minutes! The Toyota Etios is stopped yet again for one last set of quizzing eyes. On my left, JNU’s iconic Ganga Dhaba is just warming up for its first brew of evening tea and piping-hot samosas, as the crowd starts building up near the service counter.
Time to breathe a sigh of relief … JNU hasn’t changed.