Jawaharlal Nehru University students issue has suddenly captured national attention after being charged with sedition. This has also brought the spotlight on the university’s student politics, once considered an ideal model for institutions but now being seen by many on the social media with acute suspicion. The legal implications of the police crackdown on the campus apart, JNU student politics over the decades has been unique in two ways: its freedom from money and muscle, and its propensity to see ideological debates and dissent as an integral part of politics. In how many universities today can children of working class people hope to contest and win an election without money being spent or goons being brought in to deter rivals and this shows the eagerness to win college elections. What a pity? Thus JNU politics is about ideas and debates and nothing else.
Nickhil Maniam
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
