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A massive protest broke out today at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as hundreds of students blocked roads near the campus and raised slogans against the fee hike ordered by the administration. The protests took an ugly turn today after Vice Chancellor MamidalaJagadesh Kumar who had refused to meet them earlier to discuss the fee hike, appeared for the convocation.
In dramatic visuals, students were seen carrying banners, raising slogans like‘No Convocation without Affordable Education’and trying to cross police barricades as cops used baton charge and water cannons to stop them.
Many students were injured in the attack and some were detained in the matter.
Though the students were addressed by Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ who said their concerns would be met, they refused to leave the campus until they met the Vice Chancellor.
Baton charge and water cannons notwithstanding, they submitted their memorandum of demands to the HRD Minister who said he would convene a meeting with the administration to sort out the differences.
The students’ body had earlier called for a boycott of the convocation, demanding rollback of the hostel draft manual and fee hike proposed by the Inter-Hall Administration.The manual also includes several other measures, like the imposition of dress codes and curfew timings. The administration had earlier deployed the CRPF to handle matters in the campus.
A press release by the Central Executive Committee of the SFI strongly condemned the brutal attack on the protesting students of the JNU. It also called upon all its units to organise protest rallies and programs in solidarity with the protesting students of JNU and against the commercialisation of education in the country.
JNU has always been looked up to for quality and affordable education and has always been in the news for progressive campus politics. It is JNU’s affordable fee that lets the poorest of the poor avail the best education without worrying of a financial burden. The current administration, who are acting as a mere agents who carry the political agenda of NDA government, have unleashed different projects to overturn this structure. Introducing self-financing courses was one of the initial such steps. And now with making hostel a place where students of economically deprived sections cannot afford to be residence will further intensify the exclusionary model.
The far-right government in India led Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been spearheading a rapid neoliberal economic campaign in India, which threatens the idea of education for all, as high fees will make universities accessible only for the rich.
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