JNU Students, Teachers Demand VC’s Resignation Over ‘Misgovernance’

NEW DELHI: Jawaharlal University Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar recently accused the JNU Students Union of  not submitting GST ( goods and services tax) bills. The JNUSU has denied the allegations, and has given the VC two days’ time to prove his accusations. Else, they have demanded that the VC should resign for “overtly lying and harassing” the  democratically elected union.

This is not the only issue creating a tumult in JNU. In recent times, tensions in the university has escalated with rise in conflicts between the VC and the JNUSU as also the JNU Teachers Association (JNUTA), which was enraged after the recent incident when Kavita Singh,the Dean of the School of Arts and Aesthetics,  won the Infosys prize, and received it on the evening of Saturday, January 5, but was denied leave to attend the event in Bengaluru. The Infosys Science Foundation organises the annual award that includes a gold medal, a citation and a prize purse worth $100,000 (or its equivalent in Indian rupees).

In her acceptance speech, Prof. Singh, who was honoured for her work on Mughal, Rajput and Deccan art in the Humanities category, touched upon the current issues and climate of instability within JNU. She said, “I have to thank JNU, an institution that until a few years back was a great place for researchers to continue their work unbridled and free. But things are bad now. How bad? When I checked my email this morning, I found that the leave that I had applied for receiving this award had been rejected by the Vice-Chancellor. My presence here is illegitimate,”

Compulsory attendance is another issue that has become a matter of conflict between the teachers and the administration. On Saturday,  the JNUTA released a report on a survey it had conducted on daily attendance marking practices in 75 universities across 21 countries, and found only one university in Kuala Lumpur following the practice.

JNUTA said it found the practice to be antithetical to the idea of a university fostering good teaching and research. Many argued that such a policy was only to establish a regime of surveillance in a university which is known for its academic excellence.

Several Members of Parliament (MPs) have also expressed concern at the ongoing turbulence in the university. In a bid to highlight “irregularities and misgovernance” by the JNU administration, five Rajya Sabha MPs on Friday came together and voiced concerns against the “attack on intellect”.

Demanding an inquiry against the JNU Vice-Chancellor, Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Manoj Jha said: “We demand immediate inquiry, pending which he [JNU V-C] should be removed. We will be writing to the Human Resource Development Minister as well. This is an act of solidarity to JNU and through JNU to higher education. You [JNU teachers and students] are not struggling for your personal benefit but for an ‘idea’ and we are with you.”

Senior journlaist Kumar Ketkar, who was one of the five Rajya Sabha MPs, pointed towards the larger conspiracy to destroy JNU a by attacking its research culture. He said: “Fascists and authoritarians hate research, scholarships and progressive thinking. They try to bury, control and destroy any institution that has an independent mind. The current government wants to destroy universities and JNU has been made the symbol.”