The Jawaharlal Nehru University students and teachers have repeatedly said that the Vice-Chancellor does not even meet them. But PhD scholar Raghavendra Mishra of the same university just had a meeting with the VC and all the top officials about the fee hike where he told the officials that it is their duty to take care of the students and demanded total rollback of the fee hike. And he attained this feat quite easily he claims.
Even though the protesting students have been unable to meet the VC, Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar, Raghavendra said that all he had to do was ask to meet him. "The administration needs to take care that the fee hike is rolled back. It does not matter whether they get funds from UGC or the MHRD. But the students too should reconsider their way of protest. They need to think about who the real victim is in all this," said Raghavendra. "The VC is a very considerate man and he listened to all my demands. But that does not mean you will assault him, both physically and verbally, and chase out professors from the University. What type of protest is this? How will we have a constructive outcome from this?" asked the man known as the Yogi of JNU.
In Raghavendra's opinion, there should be debates and not just sloganeering at a protest. "Why did the protestor not organise a series of lectures on the issue? Why not organise debates and publish journals so that the world outside JNU can also know about what's going on here. Violence is never the solution," said the Sanskrit scholar who has been in JNU for the past eight years. "Why is it necessary to break someone's car or vandalise the university. The BA and MA students are the ones who are affected the most. Their careers are destroyed in all this mayhem, for the benefit of a few," he added.
But why are the youngest in a university the most affected? Raghavendra explains, "There is a nexus here. Some teachers spread propaganda. The Masters and PhD students spread it more and in turn influences the Bachelor's students and these are the ones who get affected the most. They have to prepare for their upcoming exams. Their academic life has just started. Why ruin that?" he asked. Raghavendra feels students should not stray away from academics. If they do there would be no meaning for all the sloganeering and the protests.
