JNU VC Jagadesh Kumar in the eye of a storm following wanton violence in campus

JNU has changed after Jan 5, it is unrecognisable now. Confess alumni, faculty, students all blame the VC, who has spent more time, money to beef up security in the campus, for the distortions

JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh, who needed 16 stitches on her head after she was attacked on January 5 (Left); JNU Vice Chancellor, Professor M. Jagadesh Kumar, who has come under severe criticism for his handling of various issues in the campus (Right)
JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh, who needed 16 stitches on her head after she was attacked on January 5 (Left); JNU Vice Chancellor, Professor M. Jagadesh Kumar, who has come under severe criticism for his handling of various issues in the campus (Right)
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Tathagata Bhattacharya

All fingers point to the complicity of the JNU admin led by the VC with the masked goons who violated JNU’s body and soul on January 5.

A few months back, the JNU administration changed the security company that is responsible for providing security to the residents of JNU campus. Some faculty members claimed that the VC had even encroached upon funds like library allotment to revamp security.

Assistant Professor at Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory, School of International Studies at JNU, Mohinder Singh says, “The security people harass students at the drop of a hat but when they were needed, they were nowhere to be found. The VC must resign, he must go. There are no two ways about it.”

Professor Ayesha Kidwai at Centre for Linguistics, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, quotes a JNUTA (JNU Teachers Association) statement that puts the VC on the dock: “Just two days after the chilling targeted violence by masked assailants, JNU Vice Chancellor, Professor M. Jagadesh Kumar, at a press conference characterised the violence on 5 January 2020 as “unfortunate”.

JNU VC Jagadesh Kumar in the eye of a storm following wanton violence in campus

He has been reported to have said that ‘Our campus is known for debates and discussions to resolve any issues. Violence is not a solution. We will find every opportunity to make sure that normalcy returns to the University.’

Stating that the registration process for the winter semester has been restarted, he said, ‘Let us make a new beginning and put the past behind.’ Indeed, for him bureaucratic normalcy has been restored for the administration with a circular about registration/internet the only communique the JNU VC had for its faculty.

The JNU VC had not a single syllable to waste on the faculty who were seriously injured by the masked assailants who threw stones at them or beat them with rods or destroyed their cars. Nor did he seem perturbed by the fact that the assailants chased families of residents and forcibly entered their homes, and criminally intimidated and terrorized their families.

Far from looking anguished, the video aura of the Vice-Chancellor and the Rector is disturbingly happy. The JNU VC is not anguished by what kind of harassment women students faced by the assailants. Nor disturbed by the plight of visually challenged students. There was no medical, psychiatric, legal or academic assistance offered to students. No assurance that the broken doors and windows of hostel rooms will be repaired. No measures about their well-being is articulated. More importantly, there is no acknowledgment that the highly expensive security services company hired by this Vice-Chancellor, Cyclops, comprehensively failed or even facilitated the assailants and their heinous violence.”

JNU VC Jagadesh Kumar in the eye of a storm following wanton violence in campus

“If the VC has an iota of ethics and sense of responsibility, he would resign,” echoed Professor Rajat Datta of the Centre for Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences. Dharmesh Kumar, a student, says, “The VC is so shameless that he did not come to meet even one of the injured students or teachers.”

Suchismita Panda, a student, was in another hostel when the security guards fled as some hoodlums came in. “But the students were able to push them out as they were not many in numbers,” she says.

Singh adds, “It’s funny that the JNU administration lodged an FIR with the police at 8.45 PM against JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh and 19 other students for manhandling security personnel and vandalising a server room on January 4 at 1 PM, more than 24 hours earlier. Why did not the police call the cops then?”

The JNUTA released a strong statement asking for the VC’s ouster on January 8 when this report was filed. It shows that the trust deficit between the VC and the JNU community can not be bridged.


It read: “The VC’s comments and silences only reinforces the JNUTA’s view that the mob violence of 5th January could not have been possible without the active connivance of the JNU Administration led by a VC whose shamelessness knows no bounds, and deliberate inaction by the Delhi Police. As such, no impartial inquiry of the incidents and bringing to book of all the culprits is possible if these are conducted by the Administration and the Police, as their respective roles themselves have to be under scrutiny.

Indeed, no fair enquiry would be possible as long as Professor M. Jagadesh Kumar continues as Vice Chancellor as he must be held personally responsible for the orgy of violence that took place – which was his continuous efforts to terrorize the University community into submission descending to a new low.

Therefore, in addition to the long list of his misdeeds, this becomes an additional reason why the Vice Chancellor must be dismissed from his position immediately. There is also a distinct possibility that an Administration interested in shielding the culprits will deliberately eliminate important evidence like CCTV footage and other records of entry and exit into the campus. The JNUTA has therefore already written to the Registrar to demand that all these records be preserved. He would be personally responsible should anything go missing.”

Every faculty member and student one talks to is still in disbelief. But they are all voicing one demand, that the incident be investigated and the guilty brought to book. And they do not trust a probe either by the JNU administration nor one by Delhi Police. ‘An impartial judicial enquiry’ is what everyone is talking about. And, of course, they all want the VC to resign and leave.


Something so unprecedented and horrific has happened that it is taking time for the JNU community to come to terms with it. The main gate called the North Gate is sealed. People are using the West Gate and guests of teachers, students and non-teaching staff are subjected to rigorous interrogation before they are let in. Traffic inside the campus is minimal. The organised attack by armed right-wing goons has forced JNU to revisit history when Nazi Brown Shirts were beating people up on the streets of 1930’s Germany.

What happened on January 5 has wounded the body and soul of JNU. When students and teachers organised a public meeting in the evening of January 7, an event which saw Bollywood star Deepika Padukone quietly standing in a corner and listening to reverberating slogans like “Azadi” and “Jai Bhim”, an observation drone was flying over the gathering.

Welcome to the new JNU, that of VC M Jagadesh Kumar, in a new India, a surveillance state helmed by Hindutva poster boys Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.

The evening of January 5, Sunday, has changed Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a crown jewel among India’s public-funded educational institutes, forever. And teachers and students are pointing their fingers at the complicity of the JNU administration, led by Vice Chancellor Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, with the masked attackers who beat up students and faculty members, pelted stones, ransacked hostels, destroyed public and private property, smashed furniture and cars for a good two hours. Very interestingly, just a few days before this incident, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had sounded a dogwhistle: that the ‘tukde tukde gang of Delhi’ would be taught a lesson.


In the words of Mohinder Singh, “What could never have happened has actually happened. A certain red line has been breached. JNU will never be the same again.” Singh was also a student at JNU and lived in a hostel like Sabarmati which bore the brunt of the attack. He is still in disbelief.

“I was there in front of Sabarmati that evening and our peace meeting had just ended. I was sipping tea with some colleagues when I saw these masked characters advancing towards Sabarmati Hostel. I still thought this must be some kind of infighting between students and will soon be handled and I was walking back to the main road. I realised it was a different matter altogether when I saw our colleague Sucharita Sen, bleeding from her head, being taken to the hospital on a motorcycle. It was then that it occurred to me that these were masked goons from outside.”

Professor Sucharita Sen, Professor at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, received multiple stitches for her head wound. “Can you imagine? Can you identify the campus? Sucharita is scared to come back to the campus which has been her life. What have they done to JNU? The VC and the administration are singularly responsible for bringing this to JNU,” says a disturbed Rajat Datta.

Datta, who was present when the assault began and had to jump over hedges and run between bushes to save himself, injuring himself in the process, categorically states, “This assault was a pre-medidated attack where people were identified and targeted while the JNU administration not just remained inert but also was complicit. JNU has seen many agitations and there have been differing opinions but masked goons assaulting teachers and students?”


Datta is not wrong. The Indian Express reported how the Chief Proctor of JNU, Dhananjay Singh, was part of a WhatsApp group called ‘Friends of RSS’ with ABVP members where messages threatening violence against students were shared.

A day earlier, when another round of violence broke out on School of Languages lawns, apparently the Dean of the School of International Relations was seen to be egging on ABVP students to beat up leftist students, many students and faculty members say.

It is also strange that the Delhi Police FIR on the incident states that the cops were aware of armed goons assembling in JNU at 3.45 PM but permission to enter the campus was only given by the VC at around 8 PM after the mayhem was over and the goons armed with iron rods, sticks and sledgehammers had slipped away.

“In Jamia Milia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University, the police did not need permission to enter and beat up students. But here they needed the same to save students from getting beaten up by lumpen elements. And the JNU administration and the VC conveniently withheld permission despite numerous SOS messages since 6.30 PM,” says Datta.

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