A big crowd had gathered outside the auditorium on 11 November 2019 where the HRD minister, as well as the Vice President of India, was addressing a seminar, to protest against the MASSIVE fee hike in the esteemed Jawaharlal Nehru University.
I have always wondered why JNU – an institute of such high repute that has been entrusted (maybe against its wishes) with the task of producing the topmost intellectuals of our country (Abhijit Banerjee, the 2019 Nobel Prize winner for Economics is a JNU alum) – is reminiscent of the 20th-century pre-independence era.
Just like how the Indian National Congress was always protesting against the atrocities committed by the British in the pre-independence era, JNU students are also perennially in protest mode. Does this mean that teachers at JNU are committing atrocities on their students like the British? According to my well-placed sources, that campus has indeed been turned into a laboratory by its professors where innocent students from poor backgrounds are subjected to unbearable atrocities.
Reader discretion is advised as the details mentioned below are gory and disturbing.
The atrocities faced by the students inside the campus include studying about some vague phenomena from a remote village in Latin America or Africa. Nobody can withstand the cruelty of being compelled to study such obscure topics, that nobody really gives two hoots about, for half a decade. If that wasn’t enough, the humiliation of being mercilessly paraded around as the only expert in the world on that subject, that students from poor backgrounds have to undergo, is unimaginable.
Paul Coelho was correct; it is indeed very lonely at the top.
This could well be the reason why they are always out protesting. These students from poor backgrounds just want to break free of the intellectual jail that they are kept in at extremely low prices. It has made them delirious as they believe India is still a colony and the British administration is oppressing them. Poor fellows don’t even know that all they have to do is to simply walk out of the campus to end their misery.
Just like the pre-independence era, all the political groups on the campus have presented a united front against the administration, which has implemented a 3000% hike in hostel fees and a 200% hike in refundable mess charges without consulting them.
3000% and 200% – that is really an atrocity and an attempt to throttle their ‘freedom to protest’. I can’t help but wonder what the absolute amount is!
These students are right, expecting the students from poor backgrounds to pay an amount after an extremely fair fee hike is barbarianism. When nobody in India pays their electricity bills – the entire UP government has unpaid power dues of 13,000 crores, which forced the Chief Minister of the state to intervene and issue an order to compel them to pay or face the music – then isn’t it unfair to expect students from poor backgrounds to pay subsidized rent for their hostel, which is very reasonable even after a massive fee hike. The first Prime Minister of India did not lend his name to this fine university for this day when the administration has resorted to harassing the students with fair and just demands.
It is a dark and unfortunate day in India’s history and I am glad that Jawaharlal Nehru is not alive today to witness this. Had he been alive then he would have conferred himself with the Bharat Ratna AGAIN, as he did in 1955 and his daughter in 1971.
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First published on Medium.
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