Ever since the Modi-led BJP formed the government at the Centre way back in 2014, one key aspect of national, primarily centrally funded (and prestigious) higher education institutions (HEIs) has been the focal point of its attention: the (largely left-wing) politics of their students and their organisations.

From the beginning, the central government has tried repeatedly and aggressively to change the framework of students’ politics in different ways in these HEIs. Sadly, very often, it has succeeded.

However, there is one constant and one troubling aspect of students’ politics: every year, new students are admitted to these institutions. These students have their own ideas about their institutions. Further, since these students are young, not all of them have lost their innocence; not all of them are cynically focused on making a career.

Inevitably, there are some students who want to challenge institutions, want to change them, and want their dissenting voices and concerns to be heard and want to make them visible.

Outsized visibility of select institutions

Even as these institutions only cater to a minuscule number of students, they have an outsized impact and visibility among students and society across the country. (For example, think of JNU: just one university with a few thousand students and a few hundred teachers, and yet it has singularly haunted this government for almost a decade!)

Clearly then, for the present ruling dispensation, which is uniquely obsessed with ideological control over politics and society, these HEIs and their students need to be........

© Free Press Journal