JNU: The State of the University
Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been under a concerted attack from February 2016. This first took the form of a vicious public campaign slandering the image of the institution, its faculty and its students, and the charging of some students with sedition. The then newly appointed Vice Chancellor facilitated all of this, instead of discharging his responsibility to defend the institution that he headed and its autonomy. This was followed by a systematic process of undermining the institution from ‘within’, making cynical use of the office of the same Vice Chancellor. In the course of this assault that continued relentlessly for six years, the terms ‘governance’ and ‘leadership’ were turned on their heads to acquire rather ominous meanings. Displaying utter contempt for institutional norms and statutory provisions that made for democratic selfgovernance and orderly functioning, a centralised, arbitrary and dictatorial mode of (mis)governance was put in place, which tolerated no questioning of decisions. This process also mutually interacted with several diktats from above in the form of Government or UGC Regulations and Guidelines which subsequently evolved into the process of implementation of NEP 2020.