The campaign against Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) by the Sangh Parivar is part of their efforts to create a consensus in society that funding on education is a waste, claims Umar Khalid, former student leader from the university.
At a session on student unrest, he said that the initial attempt was to create a TV spectacle, to vilify the university and portray students and teachers as a threat to national integrity. There were arguments on TV channels that “we were studying on the taxpayers’ money” and “we should be grateful to the government and should not speak out against it”. The JNU had been the Sangh Parivar’s target for long. In November 2015, Organiser, the RSS mouthpiece, had a cover page, saying how it was a den of anti-nationals.
“The JNU had always resisted the cultural agenda of the Sangh Parivar. Also, when education is being privatised, a university where the annual fee is just around ₹300 or ₹400, and you could also do a PhD there, is something that does not fit with the vision of our rulers,” he said.
“The second phase of attack began in July 2016, when they started internal sabotage. The deprivation points for students from backward areas and the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment were scrapped,” he said.
Mr. Khalid said there was now an attempt to convert JNU into an enclave of the rich.
Reservation policies had not been followed for three years. There was a cultural project to set up a hierarchical structure which could take certain policy decisions against representation of the disempowered, the oppressed castes, and women. If some people managed to reach there from ghettoised existence, such as Najeeb from Badayun who disappeared from the campus, a message was sent across to them that they were not welcome. But the students and teachers were fighting against it, he added.
