tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/india-higher-education-8963/articlesIndia higher education – The Conversation2020-01-13T10:38:48Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1294882020-01-13T10:38:48Z2020-01-13T10:38:48ZJNU violence: Indian university’s radical history has long scared country’s rulers<p>On a wintry Sunday evening in New Delhi, the gates of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) were forcibly closed and <a href="https://thewire.in/rights/jnu-violence-protests-abvp-students-teachers">a gang of masked intruders</a> ran riot, stormed student accommodation, beat up students and lecturers, smashed cars and threw rocks for hours on end. The campus security stood by and the police <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/police-waited-outside-for-permission-despite-having-written-request-to-enter-the-campus/story-XpqQFXpuvIYnscfHPFBffI.html">waited for written permission</a> from the university to enter the campus. </p>
<p>An investigation of the event on January 5 is ongoing. While condemning the violence, both the <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/jnu-violence-universitys-statement-on-masked-mob-attacking-students-teachers-on-campus-2159221">university authorities</a> and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) <a href="https://twitter.com/BJP4India/status/1213869234083643392?s=20">party</a> claimed that it was another instance of student unrest at a university long characterised as “anti-national” by the Hindu nationalist bigwigs ruling India. </p>
<p>JNU students have often been in the news, especially since the Hindu nationalist BJP, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, came to power in 2014. And as on many campuses across India, JNU students have recently been demonstrating against a new law – the Citizenship Amendment Act – that gives Indian citizenship to people of any persecuted minorities across South Asia <a href="https://thewire.in/rights/citizenship-amendment-act-india-protests">as long as they aren’t Muslim</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/indias-new-citizenship-act-legalizes-a-hindu-nation-129024">India's new citizenship act legalizes a Hindu nation</a>
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<p>But in early January, masked attackers specifically targeted JNU. What does this university and its community of students and teaching staff represent that the Hindu-nationalist government of India <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-indian-prime-minister-modi-attacking-student-protesters-129332">finds so threatening</a>? </p>
<h2>A radical vision</h2>
<p>Set up in 1969, JNU was conceived at a unique moment in global academic history – something I’ve written about with JNU historian Rajat Datta for a forthcoming book about the radical campuses of the 1960s, edited by <a href="https://research.sas.ac.uk/search/fellow/1195/dr-jill-pellew/">Jill Pellew and Miles Taylor</a>, which grew out of series of <a href="https://talkinghumanities.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2014/10/20/potw-ihr-2015-winter-conference-utopian-universities/">conferences on the issue.</a> </p>
<p>In the 1960s and 1970s, so-called utopian universities, which brought together staff and students in residential campuses, spawned new programmes of interdisciplinary teaching and research. Spreading from Sussex in the UK to Simon Fraser in Canada, and from Nanterre in Paris to Lusaka in Zambia, these new public universities were spaces which engaged with contemporary social problems. They were also experiments in communal living. </p>
<p>The Indian government mooted the idea of JNU, a new national university, upon the death of its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. The first vice chancellor, Gopalaswami Parthasarathy, set out JNU’s radical mission of pioneering interdisciplinary academic centres designed to <a href="https://scroll.in/article/884499/the-man-who-built-jnu-understood-what-a-university-stands-for-the-freedom-to-question-and-debate">solve problems intrinsic to Indian society</a>: poverty, development and social division.</p>
<p>Students were drawn into this mission from the start. In 1973, student and staff representatives agreed that university admission policy would be worked out by a joint student faculty committee and not simply presented to the students union as a fait accompli. </p>
<p>The students union demanded that admissions at the university must satisfy certain criteria. There must be an expansion of numbers over time, regional parity in the allocation of places, weight given to academic merit, and <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/the-constitution-and-reservation/article27781561.ece">positive discriminaton</a> for applicants from “scheduled castes” and “scheduled tribes” in “accordance with the law”. </p>
<p>An innovative points-based admission policy followed, with applicants rated according to their family’s income, caste, region and gender. The university authorities fought back in the decades that followed, denouncing the “unfairness” of positive discrimination. But JNU students constantly tried to improve the admission policy to ensure that more students from deprived backgrounds were given the chance to gain admission. </p>
<h2>Enter the BJP</h2>
<p>There were both gains and setbacks. In the 1980s, the initial admissions points system was rolled back, though it was reinstated with extra provision for women applicants in 1993. </p>
<p>But since the BJP came to power in 2014, the university has once again been at the centre of a number of controversies. In 2016, <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-freedoms-in-india-under-threat-as-student-leader-charged-with-sedition-54793">JNU students were vilified</a> as anti-national seditionists, their union president and others arrested on spurious grounds. </p>
<p>Since Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar was installed as the university’s vice-chancellor in 2016, students and staff claim they have been increasingly <a href="https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/the-case-against-jnu-vc-mamidala-jagadesh-kumar-gscash-appointments-sedition-fee-hike">pushed out of consultations</a> about the governance of the university. It was also decided that applicants for postgraduate courses were to be admitted to JNU only <a href="https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/jnu-admission-caste-discrimination">after a viva</a>, despite fears that this could hinder the success of applicants from deprived groups.</p>
<p>Other measures introduced under Kumar have defiantly challenged JNU’s radicalism and independence. In 2017, he reportedly <a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/army-tank-in-jnu-should-the-sword-be-mightier-than-the-pen/story-Aegre650bne13Ni4KmlM4I.html">called for an army tank</a> to be installed on the campus to “inspire nationalism”. A year later, university authorities <a href="https://feminisminindia.com/2018/03/05/disbanded-gscash-jnu-reconstitution/">dismantled</a> the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment, a body that had given a number of women the confidence to file sexual harassment cases that had been held up as an example to change university procedures across the country since its inception in the late 1990s.</p>
<p>Matters came to ahead again in October 2019 when the university authorities announced a set of changes to campus accommodation rules. They introduced a dress code, established curfews, and hiked up fees for hostel accommodation, potentially making it much harder for the 40% of the student population who come <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/11/india-jnu-protests-fee-hike-poor-students-fear-future-191120172445517.html">from low and middle-income families</a> to afford. This led <a href="https://thewire.in/politics/jnu-protest">students to strike</a>, boycott exams and the enrolment for the new semester. </p>
<h2>Students at the vanguard</h2>
<p>The January 5 violence was an attack on the unrelenting resolve of JNU students to fight for affirmative action, a fair admissions policy and social justice. It has been successive waves of JNU students who have kept alive the utopian ideals of the university’s founders. </p>
<p>In the face of conflicts over admissions policy, the constant threat of the privatisation of education in India, and the increasing <a href="https://indianculturalforum.in/2016/08/10/saffronising-and-corporatising-indian-education-critique-of-the-national-educational-policy-2016-draft/">“saffronisation”</a> of education in India to fall in line with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-modi-culture/">Hindu nationalist ideology</a>, JNU students have time and again <a href="https://www.epw.in/engage/article/diversity-democracy-dissent-study-student-politics-JNU">upheld their interpretation</a> of what it is to be a “national” university. If JNU retains any of its utopian nature, it is because of them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129488/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shalini Sharma does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A history of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and why its students are fighting to protect the radical roots of its founding ethos.Shalini Sharma, Lecturer in Colonial/Post Colonial History, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/884792017-12-05T03:56:33Z2017-12-05T03:56:33ZHow Australia can help reform higher education in India<p>The Indian higher education system faces stiff challenges. Australians may not imagine they’re well placed to help. But there are opportunities for exciting collaboration between Australia and India in reforming higher education. </p>
<p>In 2004 and 2005 I spent a year living in the north Indian city of Meerut, where I was working as a geographer and anthropologist. Every day I’d get up, walk past a crowded tea stall, and enter the local college to chat to students. </p>
<p>On one side of the college gate was a statue of Gandhi. He passed through the campus in the early 1920s, when the college attracted students from as far away as Nepal. </p>
<p>Near the statue a small group of students congregated to protest about corruption in the city. They called themselves the Chingari group – “chingari” means “spark” in Hindi.</p>
<p>On the left of the gate was a decrepit science block. A student had scrawled on the building in huge white letters “In need of an acadmic atmosphere” – with “academic” misspelled. Although a few students saw themselves as sparks and tried to effect change, the general feel of the college was depressing. The graffiti was like a projection of the mood of most students I met. One told me: </p>
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<p>The equipment here is like the equipment in your country fifty years ago. They should throw it down a well.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/india-soon-to-have-the-largest-tertiary-age-population-in-the-world-62223">India soon to have the largest tertiary-age population in the world</a>
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<p><a href="http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/Youth_in_India-2017.pdf">One in ten</a> people in the world is Indian youth under the age of 30. </p>
<p>Roughly <a href="http://www.orientblackswan.com/BookDescription?isbn=978-93-86296-99-3&t=e">94% of Indian students</a> study at state-run universities and colleges. These State run institutions face many challenges.</p>
<p>First, curricula are poor. India has a rich tradition of critical education. The British systematically eroded this system, and post-colonial governments have not been able to sufficiently revise colonial courses. By some estimates, <a href="http://www.orientblackswan.com/BookDescription?isbn=978-93-86296-99-3&t=e">only a tenth</a> of those graduating from private colleges in India have skills relevant to employment markets. </p>
<p>Second, there is a lack of research occurring in universities. This partly reflects Prime Minister Nehru’s decision in the 1950s to channel research funds into non-university research institutes. And this situation is getting worse. In 1990 India produced more scientific research papers per year than China. In 2011 India produced <a href="http://www.orientblackswan.com/BookDescription?isbn=978-93-86296-99-3&t=e">barely 30%</a> of China’s.</p>
<p>Other major problems include inadequate governance arrangements and mismanagement within universities, poor university links to industry, and lack of funding. Educated unemployment and underemployment is also a critical issue. Some students say they’re engaged only in “<a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=17650">timepass</a>”: everyday efforts to stave off boredom and manage a sense of dead time.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197692/original/file-20171205-22977-1p0bhkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197692/original/file-20171205-22977-1p0bhkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/197692/original/file-20171205-22977-1p0bhkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197692/original/file-20171205-22977-1p0bhkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197692/original/file-20171205-22977-1p0bhkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197692/original/file-20171205-22977-1p0bhkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197692/original/file-20171205-22977-1p0bhkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/197692/original/file-20171205-22977-1p0bhkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A statue of Mahatma Gandhi, a leader in the Indian independence movement against British rule.</span>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-the-right-time-for-australia-and-india-to-collaborate-on-higher-education-76011">Why it's the right time for Australia and India to collaborate on higher education</a>
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<h2>Why should Australia be involved?</h2>
<p>There’s a moral argument for Australian universities to engage with this situation, since they profit from Indian student enrolments.</p>
<p>There’s also a financial incentive. People in regional India are spending enormous amounts of money <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=11731">on poor quality education</a>. Australian providers could fill the gap in this market by offering better quality courses. </p>
<p>There’s also untapped talent among the mass of Indian students in state-run universities and colleges. Australian universities should be helping to identify and provide opportunities to these many great minds. </p>
<p>And there’s a mandate from many sections of the Indian government. Niti Aayog, India’s Policy Commission, has <a>called for international assistance</a> in reforming higher education.</p>
<h2>Challenges to collaboration</h2>
<p>Australia is poorly placed to respond to this challenge in some respects.</p>
<p>Despite the <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/02_2014/india.pdf">tripling</a> of the Indian <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/lookup/3412.0Media%20Release12015-16">population</a> in Australia since 2005, India knowledge in Australia is low. <a href="http://asaa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Maximising-Asia-knowledge.pdf">Six universities</a> in Australia taught an Indian language in 1996. Now <a href="https://www.ulpa.edu.au/languages/individual/hindi">only two do</a>.</p>
<p>Australian universities tend to concentrate only on engaging <a href="https://www.monash.edu/graduate-research/future-students/research-degrees/monash-iitb-joint-phd">with elite higher education institutions in India</a>, which puts the significant amount of students in regional Indian institutions at a disadvantage. </p>
<h2>Strategies for collaboration</h2>
<p>There are reasons for hope. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pm-modi-in-patna-20-universities-to-get-rs-10-000-crore-over-5-years-for-world-class-education-system/story-ITrXDsWL2jCo1kkQtwRgoN.html">reform higher education in India</a>. </p>
<p>Within India, philanthropists have established some excellent <a href="https://www.ashoka.edu.in/">private universities</a> in recent years that could generate educational and economic growth in the regions they’re located. Australian universities have recruited faculty with Indian expertise, and are <a href="http://www.deakin.edu.au/international-students/your-country-and-deakin/india">already engaging</a> in some exciting experiments in this space.</p>
<p><strong>How efforts could be extended:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><p>Australian universities could link with top universities in India to create regional educational ecosystems. Many of the best new private universities in India are already engaged with their regions. <a href="https://www.ashoka.edu.in/">Ashoka University</a>, for example, runs workshops for college principals and outreach programs in schools. Australia could learn from and supplement such initiatives, using the best private and public universities as hubs.</p></li>
<li><p>Australian universities could sponsor basic research. We know almost nothing about Indian higher education in regional and rural India. Even within India there’s very little understanding of higher education in those areas.</p></li>
<li><p>Australian universities could develop access scholarships for talented Indian students who are not part of the elite. This might entail trusting Australian faculty with India expertise to make qualitative assessments of students outside the normal metrics.</p></li>
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<p>For these approaches to work, we need to use Australian universities’ experience in thinking about access and diversity onshore, and apply it in India. </p>
<p>Some of my friends in Meerut have responded to educated unemployment by getting involved in counterfeit private education. They are reproducing the system that produced them as unemployed youth. But others are energetically improving their local school and college systems. These “sparks” could be partners in reform.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Jeffrey receives funding from The Australian Research Council, and is director of the Australia India Institute which receives funding from The Commonwealth Government of Australia, Victorian Government, University of Melbourne and other private sources.</span></em></p>The Indian higher education system faces challenges like underfunding, lack of research work and poor curricula.Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute; Professor of Development Geography, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/760112017-04-10T05:24:18Z2017-04-10T05:24:18ZWhy it’s the right time for Australia and India to collaborate on higher education<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/164620/original/image-20170410-29403-118vwbs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Malcolm Turnbull arrives in India to discuss higher education, among other things. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2060, India will be the most populous country, and likely have the largest economy, in the world. Roughly 20 million young people turn 18 every year, and according to some estimates, India’s middle class now numbers 300 million. </p>
<p>We have about 40 years in Australia to become a key partner of this future global centre. And there is no better starting point than higher education.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Education Minister Simon Birmingham are currently visiting India, in part to promote higher education collaboration. Minister Birmingham has <a href="https://twitter.com/Birmo/status/850987387664519169">stated</a> that his key objectives will include developing opportunities for Australian providers to deliver quality higher education in India, and emphasising Australia as an international education destination. </p>
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<p>As higher education providers from competitor countries such as the UK are deepening their involvement in the Indian education sector, now is a crucial time for Australia to act.</p>
<h2>University system in India</h2>
<p>India contains a complex higher education landscape, with 760 universities and around 38,000 colleges. </p>
<p>Central government universities absorb just 3% of students and are relatively good quality. A wide range of state universities affiliate private and state colleges, which also award degrees. There is also a class of “deemed university” which was introduced fairly recently to cover private institutions established usually by business entrepreneurs.</p>
<h2>…and the challenges it faces</h2>
<p>As former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh <a href="http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/higher-education-in-india-has-hit-a-low-prime-minsiter-manmohan-singh/1/249035.html">stated</a> - and as a <a href="http://cprindia.org/news/6053">new book</a> shows in clear terms – the Indian higher education system faces major challenges. </p>
<p>This partly reflects a decision by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to channel research funds to independent non-teaching institutes, which has left central and state universities relatively starved of funds. </p>
<p>Indian universities – even elite institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology – do not feature in the top 100 universities in global rankings.</p>
<p>The upshot for the ordinary Indian student is that he or she is unlikely to be taught by a research active faculty member, unlikely to be able to acquire a good education with up-to-date curricula, and unlikely to have access to excellent facilities either in terms of teaching or extra-curricular activities. </p>
<p>Such deficits particularly affect the poor, women, rural areas, and north India.</p>
<h2>So how does Australia fit into the picture?</h2>
<p>The prospects for Australia to engage successfully with Indian higher education institutions are therefore not very high. </p>
<p>Certainly, the focus to date has been on working with the top institutions. But this means the mass of state-level universities and colleges do not typically receive the benefits of foreign collaboration. </p>
<p>Added to the problems are a relatively low knowledge base in Australia on Indian higher education and legal restrictions on foreign universities opening up campuses in India. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Education_Providers_Bill,_2013">Foreign Providers Bill</a>, which would change the law in this regard, has been stalled. But India’s current government is keen to reform higher education. </p>
<h2>Push for collaboration</h2>
<p>Prime Minister Narendra Modi has indicated his desire to develop foreign collaborations. </p>
<p>The flow of Indian staff and students to Australia, and the beginnings of revitalisation of Indian studies in Australia, bodes well in terms of the development of partnerships and joint working. </p>
<p>There are success stories, too, such as joint PhD programmes at Monash University and the University of Melbourne, as well as comprehensive ties with Indian higher education developed at Deakin University – among a fairly wide range of examples.</p>
<p>Still, there is no sense in fudging. Such examples are – to use an Indian phrase – like the cumin seed in the camel’s mouth. </p>
<h2>Five ways to do this</h2>
<p>Australia, with a strong higher education sector and a particular strength in terms of the development of world-class full-spectrum universities, could expand collaborative efforts in several ways. These include:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Agree on the mutual recognition of qualifications in India and Australia. There are currently issues with the recognition of Indian students’ prior learning when they come to study in Australia. India also does not recognise some Australian qualifications, such as accelerated masters’ degrees. </p></li>
<li><p>Lobby the Indian government to allow Australian universities to <a href="https://theconversation.com/report-urges-india-to-allow-overseas-universities-to-open-up-campuses-61435">open campuses</a> in India where there is a compelling rationale for doing so. Apart from the direct benefits this would bring in terms of making foreign education available more cheaply to Indian students, it would allow the Indian government to benchmark their institutions against Australian counterparts.</p></li>
<li><p>Develop a wide range of staff and student champions of the Australia-India relationship, building on programmes already running and activity already being generated among staff. </p></li>
<li><p>Develop a comprehensive scholarship scheme for non-elite Indian students to facilitate the flow of talented students to Australia. This could be funded using a small percentage of the money universities receive from international students. It would help to build understanding of India in Australia, and also increase the diversity of Australian universities. A key advantage of this scheme is that it would allow Australian universities to develop reach into “ordinary India”.</p></li>
<li><p>Develop a set of specialist collaborative research institutes in India around key challenges facing India and Australia, for example around water, infrastructure, poverty, security, health, and governance. These could serve as a basis for full spectrum campuses in the future.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Given the inventiveness of other countries in devising ways of collaborating with India, there will be real costs if Australia does not engage with these ideas in terms of opportunities for research collaboration and offering valuable learning experiences to Indian students. </p>
<p>The UK, in particular, has made great strides in this space, such as the Research Councils UK partnership with India, even as its visa restrictions hobble efforts to develop student mobility between India and the UK. </p>
<p>India and Australia have complementary strengths in higher education. A strategic approach could yield major benefits for both countries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Jeffrey has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. He is affiliated with the Australia India Institute.</span></em></p>India will soon have the largest economy in the world. A way for Australia to benefit is to collaborative with universities.Craig Jeffrey, Director and CEO of the Australia India Institute; Professor of Development Geography, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/547932016-02-17T12:50:15Z2016-02-17T12:50:15ZUniversity freedoms in India under threat as student leader charged with sedition<p>On the night of February 12, Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the students union of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, one of India’s foremost universities, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-35576855">was arrested</a> on charges of sedition. In the words of <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Afzal-Guru-row-Nation-will-not-tolerate-insult-to-mother-India-Smriti-Irani-says/articleshow/50959237.cms">cabinet minister Smriti Irani</a>, he had insulted the divine “Mother India”. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/15/jawaharlal-nehru-university-kanhaiya-kumar-student-arrest-india">Protests and sit-ins</a> by angry students and staff have been organised on the campus and in the city. On February 14, thousands of students, alumni and members of the public formed a human chain on campus in a demonstration of solidarity with Kumar. </p>
<p>The crisis is an orchestrated attempt by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to cultivate resentment and suspicion of the university as harbouring and encouraging “anti-national” forces. A social media campaign – <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ShutJNU">#shutJNU</a> – has proliferated. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is charged with being an enemy of the nation and of <a href="http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/yes-jnu-students-live-tax-payer-money-so-what-don%E2%80%99t-you-39071">the taxpayer</a>. </p>
<p>“Anti-JNU” protesters who assembled outside of the university gates and who attacked academics, students and journalists at Kumar’s court hearing, were organised by associations affiliated with the BJP: <a href="http://scroll.in/article/803644/propaganda-war-sangh-parivar-takes-to-the-streets-to-paint-jnu-as-a-den-of-traitors">the Sangh Parivar</a>, a family of religious and political organisations committed to a robustly, and exclusively, Hindu version of India – “Hindutva”.</p>
<p>The case against Kumar is slight. His arrest followed his <a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160216/jsp/frontpage/story_69576.jsp#.VsRD8_HzNWe">attendance on of a meeting</a> on the JNU campus held the day before to condemn the execution in 2013 of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist accused of involvement in an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001.
Kumar remains incarcerated and <a href="http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/jnu-student-kanhaiya-kumar-dragged-kicked-by-lawyers-at-delhi-court-1278385?pfrom=home-lateststories">has been remanded</a> in judicial custody until March 2. </p>
<p>Critics of the government <a href="http://thewire.in/2016/02/14/sedition-and-the-status-of-subversive-speech-in-india-21547/">have pointedly questioned</a> the credentials of a democracy that employs legislation inherited from the colonial era to lock up a student leader for attending a meeting at which “anti-Indian” slogans may have been shouted. </p>
<h2>JNU labelled a ‘hub of treason’</h2>
<p>Beyond the fragile charges levelled against Kumar, a more diffuse accusation that JNU as an institution is “anti-Indian” has been <a href="http://kafila.org/2016/02/16/on-framing-jnu-for-an-imaginary-crime-aditya-sarkar/">set out by politicians and anonymous activists</a>. On February 16, the online library catalogue of the university <a href="http://scroll.in/latest/803693/jnu-library-website-hacked-to-show-anti-afzal-guru-messages">was hacked</a> to display the slogan: “Dear Traitors in JNU …”</p>
<p>The accusation that JNU is, in the words of MP Maheish Girrias, a “hub of treason” is rather dampened by the number of civil servants in India, not to mention <a href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160216/jsp/nation/story_69589.jsp#.VsKkg8dYmRs">members of the current BJP government</a>, who are JNU alumni. </p>
<p>Optimists maintain that the BJP has bitten off considerably more than it can chew in attacking an institution like JNU – an institution that employs many of India’s foremost researchers and intellectuals and that has alumni and research affiliations across the world. </p>
<p>Yet, the ongoing maelstrom of violence in Delhi highlights that JNU’s prestige as a public institution cannot protect it from the antagonism of the current government <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/why-our-universities-are-in-ferment/article8237580.ece">towards universities</a>. </p>
<h2>History of student protest</h2>
<p>The current disturbances remind many of the dark days of <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520231221">the “Emergency”</a>, when prime minister Indira Gandhi suspended democratic government for two years between 1975 and 1977 and unleashed widespread repression and violence. </p>
<p>Universities across the country were centres of organised resistance and large numbers of students were arrested and incarcerated. The Jana Sangh, the political party from which the BJP emerged in 1980, was one of the many political organisations that resisted the authoritarian strictures of this period and indeed subsequently benefited from the political allegiances formed while opposing it.</p>
<p>By invoking the protection of “Mother India” in its suppression of free speech at Indian universities, the BJP government has chosen a very large target to hide behind.</p>
<p>During the freedom struggle in India, <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-goddess-and-the-nation">the figure of Mother India</a> embodied the nation and in turn women (of the right kind) were invited to embody a national ideal. Few political parties have not mobilised her; however, her blend of Hindu divinity, nation and chaste morality has made her a particular favourite of Hindu right-wing politicians who revel in reacting to perceived slights to her honour. </p>
<h2>Shifting the debate</h2>
<p>The JNU crisis has a more immediate context. A month before Kumar’s arrest, on January 16, Rohith Vemula, a dalit (low-caste) student, <a href="https://theconversation.com/suicide-of-dalit-student-sparks-rage-over-caste-discrimination-in-indian-universities-53653">committed suicide</a> after being suspended from Hyderabad University. Vemula’s death provoked weeks of public discussion and protest about the continuation of caste oppression in India.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Protests followed the suicide of dalit student Rohith Vemula.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Kumar’s arrest and the organisation of “anti-JNU” demonstrations in Delhi are counter-reactions by the BJP and by Hindu organisations whose politics rest upon the assertion, and violent protection, of a conservative social morality. The aggressive identification of an enemy within the nation, and specifically within universities, has displaced the demands for social change provoked by Vemula’s death.</p>
<p>Students have long been active participants, and leaders, of activism in India, championing the causes of social justice and equality. For decades, and long before the current government came to power, university students have been at the forefront of movements against gender violence, caste oppression, the displacement and impoverishment of rural communities. </p>
<p>From the point of view of any government, JNU is a font of thought and debate and, potentially, an irritant. Long may it continue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54793/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deborah Sutton received a PhD from the Centre of Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.</span></em></p>Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi has been rocked by protests both opposing and supporting the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar.Deborah Sutton, Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/241742014-03-14T06:14:38Z2014-03-14T06:14:38ZExpelling Kashmiri students for supporting Pakistan at cricket won’t help them feel Indian<p>The seven million people living in the Kashmir Valley have a distinctive regional identity. Now the Valley’s continuing estrangement from the rest of India has sparked a peculiar <a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/06/india-pakistan-cricket-kashmir-idINDEEA250DN20140306">incident on the campus</a> of a privately run university in Meerut in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh province. </p>
<p>The Valley is the most populous of three distinct regions that together make up Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), one of the 29 states of India. J&K has about three-quarters of the population of a larger territory which has been disputed between India and Pakistan since 1947. The rest of this territory’s population live across the “Line of Control”, in two regions in Pakistan known there as “Azad (Free) Kashmir” and the “Northern Areas”.</p>
<p>On 2 March, students on the campus of the Swami Vivekanand Bharti University in Meerut were watching the live television broadcast of a one-day cricket match between the national teams of India and Pakistan being played in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, as part of an international tournament known as the Asia Cup. The entire subcontinent is, of course, passionate about cricket. </p>
<p>The students were a mix of locals and non-locals, the latter including scores of students from the Kashmir Valley enrolled at the university. Meerut is a city of about one million people located just 50 miles north-east of Delhi, India’s national capital.</p>
<p>Pakistan <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/cricket/series-tournament/asia-cup-2014/top-stories/Asia-Cup-Sensational-Afridi-clinches-thriller-for-Pakistan-India-lose-by-a-wicket/articleshow/31265950.cms">narrowly won the match</a>, and then things took an ugly turn. Arguments and scuffles broke out between some Kashmiri students and other students, who accused the students from the Valley of cheering for Pakistan during the match and celebrating its victory (and India’s defeat). A few Kashmiri students reportedly shouted “Pakistan Zindabad” (Long Live Pakistan) after the game ended.</p>
<h2>Charges of sedition</h2>
<p>As with all brawls, there are different accounts of what exactly transpired, and who was responsible for the escalation. Some of the Kashmiri students have said they were in fact cheering both teams during the game. It has been reported that the hostel rooms of some Kashmiri students were vandalised during the fracas. </p>
<p>The police were called, and initially some Kashmiri students were charged with sedition, as well as other offences. The <a href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/679604/kashmiri-students-charged-with-sedition-for-supporting-pakistan-cricket/">sedition charge was dropped</a> within days. The chief minister of J&K state, Omar Abdullah, a scion of the Valley’s most prominent political family, <a href="https://twitter.com/abdullah_omar/status/441480315056312320">tweeted that the charge was unacceptably harsh</a>. </p>
<p>Some 67 students from the Valley were taken under police escort to the city’s train and bus stations, from where they travelled back to the Valley. The university authorities have said this was necessary to avert the risk of further incidents, and <a href="http://www.risingkashmir.com/parents-demand-safety-of-children-studying-outside-jk/">some of the students’ parents</a> have agreed that this was the wisest course of action to ensure their wards’ safety.</p>
<h2>Angry reaction in the Valley</h2>
<p>The events in Meerut have <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2014/0307/Protests-in-Kashmir-after-67-students-suspended-for-cheering-the-wrong-team">triggered protest meetings</a> and demonstrations in the Valley. There the evicted students, who are in their late teens or early twenties, are seen as victims, not culprits. Meanwhile in Islamabad, a <a href="http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-140129-Hearts-and-educational-institutions-open-for-Kashmiri-students:-FO-">spokeswoman of Pakistan’s foreign ministry announced that</a> “our hearts and our academic institutions are open [to the affected students]”.</p>
<p>Hafiz Saeed, the founder and spiritual leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba (“Army of the Pious”), an infamous Pakistani terrorist organisation, went further. He has <a href="http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=29739">offered scholarships</a> on behalf of his movement to all 67 students to study anywhere in the world.</p>
<h2>Youth sense of injustice</h2>
<p>In reality, the vast majority of the Valley’s population rejects both Indian and Pakistani national identities. They subscribe to a Kashmiri identity, rooted in the Valley’s history, culture, and politics.</p>
<p>The Valley is overwhelmingly Muslim. A very large proportion of these people, possibly even the vast majority, feel estranged from India. This feeling of estrangement triggered a large-scale insurgency in the Valley from 1990. The insurgency raged for nearly a decade and a half, gradually abating only after 2003. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43855/original/4q8y79cn-1394716795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43855/original/4q8y79cn-1394716795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43855/original/4q8y79cn-1394716795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43855/original/4q8y79cn-1394716795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43855/original/4q8y79cn-1394716795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43855/original/4q8y79cn-1394716795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43855/original/4q8y79cn-1394716795.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Young stone throwers attacked police in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Farooq Khan/EPA</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Nonetheless, simmering unrest has persisted and occasionally erupted. In 2010, the Valley was convulsed by a <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/understanding-kashmirs-stone-pelters/article550058.ece">“stone pelters” uprising</a>. For nearly four months, from mid-June to end-September, tens of thousands of stone-pelters, mostly teenage boys and young men in their twenties and thirties, engaged in daily pitched and running battles across the Valley with the local police and personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), paramilitary police under the authority of the government in New Delhi. About 120 protesters were shot dead in the confrontations, and about 1,500 others were seriously injured. Several hundred police and CRPF personnel were also injured.</p>
<p>The Valley’s people feel that they have been, and continue to be, oppressed under Indian authority. They believe that democratic freedoms and civil liberties have been largely denied to them for six decades, and that they are a people under a form of occupation.</p>
<p>This acute, widespread sentiment of oppression and grievance has been transmitted from generation to generation in the Valley since the 1950s. In the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s, a radicalised generation of young men resorted to armed struggle to confront Indian authority. That struggle eventually petered out during the last decade, after exacting a terrible cost in trauma and suffering from its participants and the Valley’s society. </p>
<p>While the guns have largely fallen silent, the anger has remained and is now expressed by a new generation whose weapon of choice is the stone rather than the Kalashnikov. The many thousands of young Kashmiri men and women of the post-insurgency generation who study in institutions of higher education and vocational training across India could be a bridge across the chasm that separates the Valley from mainstream India. Perhaps they are, in ways that don’t draw media attention. </p>
<p>But as long as mass resentment festers unaddressed in the Valley, incidents such as that in Meerut will occur. A different, better chapter in the relationship between the Kashmir Valley and the Indian Union requires a change of both mindset and policy in New Delhi. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24174/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sumantra Bose does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The seven million people living in the Kashmir Valley have a distinctive regional identity. Now the Valley’s continuing estrangement from the rest of India has sparked a peculiar incident on the campus…Sumantra Bose, Professor of International and Comparative Politics, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.