Villainised, vilified and rusticated: the high price of dissent on JNU campus

JNU student leaders face severe repercussions for activism, risking their academic futures amid allegations and online abuse.

For five Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leaders, the past month has turned campus activism into a battle for academic survival as suspensions, arrests, and disciplinary inquiries threaten to derail their PhDs and future careers.

“I keep wondering why I am in this situation. But then I realise that the other people who fought for us to be here built these spaces. I owe it to them to keep fighting,” said Aditi Mishra, JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) president, who, instead of working on campus issues, is now spending her time questioning the “curbs on student dissent”.

She never imagined that in one month, she would be rusticated for two semesters, declared “out of bounds”, asked to vacate her hostel, arrested, released, and then see a black-and-white mugshot of her face plastered across the main gate of the university. But here she is, along with four others, facing lingering uncertainty over their PhDs, their plans to become assistant professors, and their hopes of bringing policy changes within the university.

The four current union office-bearers – Ms. Aditi, vice-president K. Gopika Babu, general secretary Sunil, and joint secretary Danish Ali – and former JNUSU president Nitish Kumar were rusticated last month. Four of them were among the 14 arrested after a protest against Vice-Chancellor (V-C) Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit’s alleged “casteist comments” in a podcast interview, in which she referred to Dalits in India and Black people in America while saying that one cannot progress “using the victim card”.

Ms. Gopika, Mr. Sunil, and Ms. Danish said on Friday their education have suffered. Ms. Gopika, originally from Thrissur in Kerala and a PhD scholar with a Junior Research Fellowship, said, “I was supposed to give my PhD synopsis presentation. Today, the list of presenters came out, and my name was not there. Currently, my PhD is provisional.”

Jnusu president Aditi Mishra, along with Jnusu vice-president K. Gopika Babu and general secretary Sunil Yadav at a press conference at Press Club of India in New Delhi. | Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO