Reject Lyngdoh! Reject Central Univ. Act!
Uphold Campus Democracy! Uphold Academic Autonomy!
Onwards to 3 March
National March To Parliament
The Budget session of the Parliament has begun. The Modi govt has started the session by introducing its own version of ‘Land Grab Bill’ to rob the land and livelihood of the farmers, tribals and forest dwellers, fisher people, rural and urban poor-thus signalling in no uncertain terms in whose interest Modi is going to ‘Make’ India and whose life and livelihood he is determined to Unmake. For the students and youth, Modi slogan of ‘achchhe din’ has unfolded itself with calculated attacks on every avenue of public-funded quality education and stable dignified employment. The government refused to scrap the discriminatory CSAT in UPSC and brutalised the protestors, a 10% cap was introduced in the waiting list of the IBPS exam thus reducing employment options in the banking sector. The government tried to close down several ESIC-run, publicly funded hospitals, and this move was stalled only after the spirited protests of students and youth from across the country. In CSIR too, these government is reneging on its own promises, cutting jobs and leaving several qualified engineers in the lurch. In the private sector too, retrenchments are rampant – such as the recent spate of job-cuts in the IT industry. Recently came the 150% hike in NET-JRF exam fees.
Even as students and youth battle these assaults, the Modi government is planning to arm itself to quell to silence all dissent and resistance in educational institutions and central universities. A concerted effort is on to kill autonomy and academic independence, to institutionalise saffronisation of higher education, and curb all forms of campus democracy.
Curbing Campus Democracy through Lyngdoh:
Since 2006, the Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations (LCR) have been used to curb the organised student movement. It was introduced in the name of curbing ‘money and muscle power’ – but as students in Universities across the country know all too well, the LCR has failed miserably in this stated claim. The blatant use of money and muscle power in the DUSU elections in Delhi are the best proof in fact of this failure. What the LCR has done, however, is to restrict the democratic participation of students. Several undemocratic, anti-student clauses now govern the conduct the student union elections: such as age restrictions, preventing those with records of ‘criminal charges’ and even ‘disciplinary actions’ from participating, restrictions on the number of times candidates can contest and huge involvement of the university administrations in the conduct of elections. The LCR has been used to attack the JNUSU constitution, which put in place the most democratic model of student union elections in the country. Despite our representation and protests, the current MHRD refuses to even review the LCR after so many years of its implementation, though a clear provision exists in the LCR for a review. For the powers-that-be, the LCR was and remains a useful weapon to curb students’ protests and ensure pliant and pro-administration student unions. In this era, where governments try their level best to wash off their hands from their primary responsibility of providing education to all, the LCR is being used to weaken the efficacy of democratic students’ participation in decision-making. For instance, in the name of curbing ‘criminals’ from contesting, the LCR allows administrations to prevent student leaders who have led protests, and consequently borne the brunt of administrative and police crackdown, from contesting.
Curbinging Academic Autonomy and Freedom, Institutionalising Saffronisation: Alongside the dismantling of public-funded quality education and stable employment avenues and curbing of campus democracy, Modi Sarkar has now come up with the dangerous proposal of a ‘common’ Central Universities Act to force all Central Universities to follow a ‘common’ admission, a ‘common’ syllabus, ‘centralised’ faculty recruitment and ‘transferrable’ faculty. Needless to say, this will end the autonomy of central Universities like DU and JNU, erode their uniqueness, erode their respective areas of strength in teaching and research developed through plurality of ideas, syllabus and rich traditions of student-faculty interaction.
We all know that RSS-BJP brigade, wherever and whenever they get power, gets down to communalise syllabus, distort history, replace science and rationality with myths and superstition; in short, saffronise education using state machinery. Through the ‘common’ Central University Act, the saffron brigade wants achieve its long term ideological agenda of saffronisation of higher education. In the name of ‘common’ syllabus and course structure, this Act will enable the RSS ‘think-tanks’ of ‘Dinanath Batra variety’ to impose their whims on all Universities including JNU. By ‘centralising all recruitments’, the Central Government will have a free hand to dictate faculty appointments of its choice. And the provision to ‘faculty-transfer’ will act as a weapon to keep the upright faculty members who ‘do not fall in line’ under permanent threat! During the previous NDA regime, we saw how the content of school textbooks was systematically rewritten to suit the ideological predilections of the Sangh brigade. This time around, the Modi government is trying to institutionalise its agenda through this draconian route.
The need of the hour is to resist all these draconian assault on academics, democracy and autonomy.
The need of the hour is to re-assert campus democracy not just in JNU, but in campuses across the country. The need of the hour is to restore the JNUSU constitution, to reject the draconian Lyngdoh recommendations all over the country and to ensure democratic student union elections without the interference of University/college administrations. The need of the hour is to forge a robust student-faculty unity against the ‘common’ Central University Act. It is a battle to resist the Modi govt.’s design of unmaking democracy, academic autonomy, plural-rational education and dignified employment.
JNUSU has undertaken a concerted campaign on these issues. JNUSU and its teams have been visiting various campuses in the country holding meetings with students, appealed to other student unions and all progressive student organizations. As a part of this, JNUSU through an All-Organisation Meeting (on 16 February), decided to organise a National March to Parliament on 3 March (during the budget session) demanding restoration of the JNUSU constitution, scrapping of the Lyngdoh recommendations and ‘Common’ Central Universities Act, and roll-back of saffronisation and commercialisation of education.
