Concerned over JNU row, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said government should not interfere much in the functioning of universities and that such educational institutions should be treated as autonomous. “My personal view is that we shouldn’t have too much government interference in universities. Even as minister, I felt our education system is over-regulated and under-governed,” Tharoor said.
Subsequently, JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on sedition charges, following complaints by BJP MP Maheish Girri and ABVP. Expressing his disappointment on incidents in Hyderabad and JNU, Tharoor said “this is not the India of the future that we are trying to build”. “We want an India where students grow up in an academic environment of hope, an academic environment where they have freedom to think and express themselves and to disagree,” he said.
“Disagreement is the essence of democracy, we should let them have that,” he added.