Student movements and students bodies have always been the heart of the JNU campus, many other universities have even shaped their student - staff/administration interaction based on the JNU model. However, with every passing month, the student bodies in JNU are being pushed away from participating in any such administrative procedure. Today, the administration issued a notice to the Student Union barring them from attending the upcoming academic council meeting.
The campus has always prided itself on giving so much importance to its student union when it came to the academic council meetings. They have always been allowed an equal platform to dissent to ideas and even put forth their own. But over the last few months, students union members have said that their voices are being shut down slowly. That's why when the Student Union President, Geeta Kumari received the notice barring them from participating in the upcoming AC meeting, she wasn't entirely surprised.
The notice said that the Union was being denied permission this time because they had a proctoral enquiry against them for "using abusing language against the Vice- Chancellor." The students say that they had not even heard about the enquiry and didn't know why that meant that they could not participate in the AC meeting. "Yes we did protest that day and because the convention centre is quite small, we were standing close to the dais but we were not abusive and we have never been abusive in the past or in any of our other protests as well," Geeta said, "There was no show cause notice or warning. We were not intimated about this enquiry at all and now suddenly I've received this notice," she added.
Over the last year, the Student Union has repeatedly complained about the lack of space they've been given at the meetings, often being asked to leave or spoken over, "They never record what we say and our points are never taken into consideration while taking decisions for the university. If we disagree, we are immediately shot down. Things are already pretty bad and now they're stopping us from even entering the meeting hall. This is nothing but a slow process of eliminating the student body completely from participation of any kind," she explained.
The Union is planning a protest on June 13, the day of the meeting, "Since we've just received the notice we haven't had the chance to discuss in detail about our next move but we will most likely protest outside the building on the day of the meeting," Geeta said.
