Deadlock at Jadavpur University

If you happened to visit the Jadavpur University campus in the past few days, you would probably have thought that there is a vacation going on. The campus wears an almost deserted look, with few students in the campus sitting in closed groups discussing something in a hush-hush manner or a lonely soul roaming about, looking for any signs of campus activity. As you approach the Union room, you will find banners and posters calling for a boycott to protest the police brutality on campus and perceived apathy of the authorities to the incident. JU campus has witnessed student movements against the authorities many times previously but none has had as big an impact on each and every stakeholders of the University as this one. The functioning of the University has been crippled and no one refuses to budge.

Any naive bloke might tell you this is a result of campus politics or political polarisation of the students and authority. But JU students have always pursued academic excellence while being politically thoughtful. They have never hesitated to raise their voice on issues affecting the socio-political scenario. Moreover, the current student's union of the engineering faculty(FETSU) is not in the least bit under influence of any political party( being a current student, I can vouch for that). So, what has resulted in this deadlock? Well, this has been the result of long escalating tensions between the student's union and the authorities.

Partly, this is a result of political polarisation, but of the University authorities. It is not a secret that the policy-makers of JU are not completely apolitical. Having a political ideology is not necessarily a bad thing. However, when scoring brownie points from one's political masters becomes a driving factor of decision making, then we are bound to have problems. This is one of the key factors behind the current crisis. However, the problem is graver than it seems. This boycott is a result of a huge trust deficit that has built up between the authorities and the students over a period of time. Of course, the major defaulter has been the University authorities but the student's must also share the blame.

Whenever the executive council's actions or inactions on certain issues have irked the student's union, the routine procedure of gheraos, dharnas and class boycott have been followed. The University authorities at first reject the demands outright and then, an understanding is reached when they promise to "look into the matter". Very little is actually done. After a few months, a new issue crops up and the cycle is followed all over again with additional accusations by the student's union that very few of their previous demands have been met. Thus, JU is caught in a static frame, moving from one movement to another with very little net result. Movement after movement has galvanized the authorities who now have taken it for granted as a routine process in the campus. Similarly, here too the authorities are adopting the wait and watch policy, oblivious to the fact that we are losing valuable working days. Had they been a little more level-headed, they would have made a genuine effort to reach out to the students and take them into confidence. Instead of that, they have been going about their business as usual barring making some bizarre statements to the media. This has further resulted in an atmosphere of tension and mistrust. The authorities, supposed to be more 'mature' and the local guardians of the students, is only aggravating the problem by adopting their 'them vs. us' policy.

Leaving aside the inaction by the authorities, the students must realize too that they cannot be at war with their own University for long. The on-going situation in Jadavpur is a reflection of the arm-twisting tactics used by the political parties of the state. If, as students, we start emulating the outside world instead of changing it, then there will be no progress made. The student's union must make an effort to try and escape this web of gherao and boycott. An argument frequently used by the student's union is that the University is here to serve us and must be accommodative of the student's interests. True, but it's also a fact that we, as student's have some obligations towards the University. The professors are already established people in their fields and we have gone to seek their service. We must respect this fact and must never try to equate our limits with theirs. We cannot keep exploiting the loopholes in the functioning of the University by disrupting academic activities repeatedly. One must always remember the first and foremost objective of joining this University was education to build something for ourselves. The University has been brought to a standstill and it is every bit our duty as is the authorities' to restore normalcy.

This is the second instance of lathi-charge in the campus in a space of 5 years. Clearly, something is horribly wrong in the functioning of the institute. The powers that be must realize this and must take immediate steps to stop this heritage University from going downhill. The first step towards that would be bridging the trust deficit with students by initiating constructive dialogue with them. Keep politics of any kind as far as possible from the campus. Otherwise, this cycle is bound to repeat itself. As for the average Jadavpurian, lets keep our fingers crossed and hope that normalcy returns to our beloved institute.

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