Update: On March 4, the Delhi High Court stayed the suspension of several students from Jamia Millia Islamia, who had been penalised for allegedly participating in campus protests without official permission, LiveLaw reported. The bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma has now directed for the formation of a committee under the university vice chancellor’s supervision to ease tensions on campus. This committee will include both university officials and student representatives.
Observing that all the students were young, the court remarked that university spaces naturally encourage students to express their views within legal boundaries. It further emphasised that participation in peaceful protests helps instil fundamental principles of civil society. According to The Hindu, more students are expected to approach the court in the coming days to seek individual revocations of their suspensions.
Today, Tuesday, March 4, the Delhi High Court will hear a plea by one of the 17 students of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) against her suspension. Students have been protesting consistently ‘repressive acts by the administration. Jamia students were suspended earlier this month with allegations of “protesting without prior permission” and “defacing public property” made against them. Students had been staging demonstrations against the university’s order banning protests and meetings without permission and the suspension of four PhD scholars for holding a demonstration on December 15, 2024, the fifth anniversary of clashes between the anti-CAA protesters and police on the JMI campus.
In the plea filed on March 1, Umehabbeeba Quadri, a second-semester BA (Hons.) student of Persian studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Languages, has asked JMI to provide videos to substantiate the claims of vandalism and defacement. She has clearly stated, “The atmosphere on the campus has become regressive, and denial of the freedom of speech has become routine. All attempts to obtain permission for holding meetings where speakers are invited to make presentations regarding human rights issues and other relevant issues are being denied.”
After, Umehabbeeba, even more students are expected to move the court over the coming days individually seeking the revocation of their suspensions. One more suspended student, Niranjan, who identified themselves as the ‘Jamia Seventeen’ in their protests against suspensions, said, “Activities such as demonstrations or cultural discussions are not allowed on the campus.”
He added that JMI students used to commemorate the clash between the police and the students each year. “However, this is the first time that show-cause notices were issued by the university administration for observing December 15 as the ‘Resistance Day’.” Mr. Niranjan also spoke about the lack of a representative student body at the university.
The JMI held the last student elections in 2005. The next year, it has banned the poll, saying that the students’ union was “exercising power in areas where it had no jurisdiction”. In 2011, a student went to court against the university’s decision. The matter is still sub-judice.
Talking to Frontline, a master’s student at Jamia Milia Islamia, Callistine said, “This is an experiment to clamp down on the voice of reason, the voice of anti-fascism, the voice of democracy. If they could completely erase Jamia’s history of dissent, they would. But that’s not easy. So they’re doing everything else; they’re taking over the institution.”
This university, established in 1920 as part of the non-cooperation movement led by Gandhi, Jamia Millia Islamia has a long legacy of student activism. Integral to its formation was its struggle against British-controlled education. Its commitment to social justice and resistance has continued through the decades, from the anti-Emergency protests of the 1970s to the “Pinjra Tod [Break the Cage]” movement in 2015, where female students challenged restrictive hostel curfews and policies. In recent years, Jamia was also at the forefront of the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2019. The brutal police crackdown on students on December 15, 2019—in which students were assaulted inside their campus and library—is not just part of the systemic repression by the Modi regime against a prestigious educational institution but is observed each year as “Remembrance Day.” Students gather in groups to express solidarity through speeches and poetry—until now. Last December, for the first time, the administration denied students permission to hold the event, shutting down the campus under the pretext of maintenance work. When students proceeded with the protest the following day, four of them received show-cause notices.
In response, the students submitted a 16-page reply to the administration on December 20, which was deemed “unsatisfactory”. A disciplinary committee was then formed on February 3 to take action against Saurabh, a PhD scholar of the Hindi department. On February 9, another PhD student, Jyoti, along with two other students, received notices informing them that a disciplinary committee had been formed against them. “We called for a sit-in protest demanding that no disciplinary committee should be there, as we had done nothing wrong,” said Sajahan, a first-year master’s student of sociology and one of the 17 students suspended.
“Just before the sit-in, on February 9, Jyoti received a notice. So, the sit-in became even more necessary.” The protest began on February 10 in front of Jamia’s central canteen, demanding that the disciplinary action against students targeted for organising the Remembrance Day event be revoked.
Jamia is not an isolated case
Be it the Benaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi or the Delhi University or the iconic Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the state has upped its ante on the level of repression. “Until now, the students of JNU and DU were being illegally detained during protests. Now, the system is coming after us. The action against us is a direct attack on the voices of dissent. The government wants to finish democratic spaces on campuses,” said Uthara, a suspended JMI student to the media.
In other universities elections have been wilfully delayed by chancellors whose ideological affiliation is with the regime.
Background
Last year, in August 2022, a university-wide memorandum was issued, noting that some students with “political agendas” were holding “protests, dharnas and boycott campaigns on the campus for their malafide and political interests” disturbing the “peaceful academic environment” of the university. Thereafter, more than two years later, in November 2024, a second memorandum was released, allegedly in response to student protests against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which banned protests and slogans on campus without the administration’s permission. It noted that students had also protested against “other law enforcement agencies of the country on the issues which are not related to the academia as well as to the University.”
This memorandum dated November 26, 2024, read, “no protests, dharnas, raising slogans against any constitutional dignitaries shall be allowed in any part of the university campus, otherwise disciplinary action against such erring students shall be initiated.” Another notice released by the Property Department of the university on December 20, 2024, prohibited writing slogans or posting posters on campus without permission, introducing a fine of Rs.20,000 and legal action on anyone doing so. The notice also mentioned that “the University is increasing vigilance across the campus with additional monitoring by security personnel and CCTV cameras.”
The memoranda were clearly in preparation for the annual December 15 commemoration. As tensions sharpened, police patrol was increased, strict identification checks have been put in place, and altercations have left students navigating an atmosphere of uncertainty. For many, memories of the forceful entry of and brutal crackdown by Delhi police on the campus following a confrontation with student protestors in December 2019, resurfaced.
Legally curbing expressions of protest
The sit-in by students however continued. Then, a notice dated February 11 accused students of disrupting academics and forcing the closure of the canteen. “But it was the administration that shut the canteen and nearby washrooms, not us,” Callistine pointed out. “It was a strategic move to make other students turn against the protest.” Upping the pressure a la regime, on February 12, the second day of the protest, students’ families began receiving calls from the police. “My father got calls from the Jamia Nagar police station,” said Sajahan. “They told him that if I didn’t leave campus, my degree would be cancelled, an FIR would be filed against me, and I’d be in serious trouble.” Similar calls were made to the parents of other students, warning them to pull their children out of the protest.
“My father was really scared. He told me that you are Muslim in a place where both governments are now BJP. I kept telling them that ‘Jamia is safe, it is the only place where I feel the most safe’. But then this happened,” said Sajahan to the Frontline.
Later that night, at 12:12 am on February 13, Sajahan and some 10 other protesters received suspension letters from the office of the chief proctor while they were at the indefinite sit-in outside the university’s central canteen. The letter stated, “You are suspended with immediate effect due to your acts of vandalism, unauthorised and unlawful protest(s), and defamation of the university.” It also cited provisions of the newly enacted Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), those related to mischief causing damage to property, unlawful assembly, and defamation. In the letters no duration wa suspension has been spelt out, leaving students uncertain about their future.
Direct police action began from the early hours of February 13 when security guards, with the Delhi police officers surrounded the protest site cornered the protesting students when they were asleep and handed them over to the police through a side gate. All this force of 2-300 police officers, clearly a terror tactic was used to detain, then suspend 10 students!
Related:
Crackdown on Student Dissent: Jamia Millia Islamia’s heavy-handed response to peaceful protests
Celebrating Jamia’s Legacy amidst the silence around our missing voices – Meeran
Jamia student leader, Masud Ahmed, gets bail in ED case, to remain in jail in Hathras UAPA case