With a few hours left for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inaugurate a life-sized statue of Swami Vivekananda on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus, the JNU Students' Union has asked him to retract the decision of inauguration and hold the Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar accountable for 'his failures and mismanagement'. "We see your decision to accept the invitation for the event today as a token of your support for the actions of the JNU vice-chancellor over the last four years," the JNUSU representatives Aishe Ghosh, Saket Moon, Satish Chandra Yadav and Md Danish says in an open letter to the PM. The inauguration is scheduled to be held at 5.30 PM, via video conferencing.
The letter begins with them listing out the administerial and structural changes in the university since 2016, the year in which Kumar took charge as the Vice-Chancellor. This, according to the letter, includes the dissolving of GSCASH, students being accused of sedition, the disappearance of Najeeb Ahmed, cutting down MPhil and PhD seats, the proposal for a 300 per cent fee hike, the alleged library fund cut and recruitment scam allegation.
"We believe that the Prime Minister of the country requires one to listen to the critics as well. You have many a time stated that criticism is like a treasure which you would cherish. Hence, we would like to apprise you of the situation in JNU, caused majorly by the actions of your government and the Vice-Chancellor who has been placed by it," the letter reads.
"We know that most people in the ideology you hold dear would like our university to be shut down and for us to be put in jail, as they peg themselves to be the only taxpayers of the nation," reads a line from the five-page-long letter. "JNU is a university which has throughout the years helped many to not only avail quality education, even to those who have worked hard on the fields or in factories (one of our security guards was inspired to study and qualified for its entrance). Do you think that it is only a matter of ideology that neither you nor your colleagues do not like JNU, or is it the case of education not reaching the hardworking men and women?" the JNUSU asks, adding that education must not be confined to the privileged few.
