A university is a dynamic space where social, cultural and political movements engage with often conflicting histories of social groups, including the marginalised. Indeed, if there is actually a microcosm of society, it’s the university campus. The university then isn’t just a place for producing and acquiring knowledge, it’s also a contested terrain of power.
Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University is visibly marked as a theatre of both learning and politics. The Bharatiya Janata Party government and its allies in the media have portrayed the university as a national enemy, accusing it of producing traitors to the nation because of its perceived ideological tilt to the Left. For the left-liberal camp, on the other hand, JNU epitomises the imagination of the “argumentative India”. Who, though, has the privilege to participate in this argumentative space? Whose narrative prevails and whose is the victim in this “graded” left-liberal discourse dominated by privileged caste groups?
