JNU uproar: Right to dissent or playing the propaganda

The ongoing activities at JNU campus have gathered eyeballs for all the wrong reasons. For the past 14 years, I have been associated with the university, both as a student and as a faculty member, and apart from the educational achievement what I imbibed from that surrounding is the democratic ethos and the right to dissent without any fear.

What went wrong?
Dissatisfaction from the administration or the system is acceptable and one can be vocal about that in a peaceful manner but being an anti-national and attacking the soul of the country is highly unacceptable. Traditionally, JNU has been a Left inclined university with ideas and propagandas floating over the cup of tea at Ganga Dhaba.

This is not the first time that the anti-national slogans (of mild intensity, of course) are in the air but this time it has gone too far.

Dissatisfaction with the government or any political party can be understood but dissatisfaction with the country cannot be taken for granted. On one side, you are availing all the facilities like subsidized Indian education among others provided to you and on other side you are abusing it should not be tolerated.

First of all this should not have happened in the campus and the administration should have taken care of that. This time all the sensitivity of the freedom of expression has been killed by the protesters. What still remained unanswered is whether they all were university students (especially few with the veils and face masks) or was there some crucial involvement of separatist groups from other states? Delhi Police has already started searching for the clue and raids are being done in few states. Hyderabad University, JNU and now Jadhavpur University, it seems like it’s a preplanned conspiracy of planting the propaganda of anti-nationalism among the students.

In any case, first and foremost objective of any university should be providing quality higher education and everything else is secondary. At JNU, classes are not being conducted with full potential and this is hampering the growth of those students whose future lies in the quality education and not in the association with any political ideology.

(Avinash Kumar is a guest lecturer, SLL &CS, Jawaharlal Nehru University)

(Image: Indiatimes)