Ever since the amorphous Cockroach Janata Party managed to surprise the nation, especially its all-too-powerful Modi government, in the past two months, dissent has once again acquired a new visibility in our public and political consciousness. Pushed onto the back foot, the Modi government is struggling to figure out how to deal with the emerging scenario.

So far, the ruling dispensation has responded with a two-pronged strategy: to placate the young protesting students at one level and, simultaneously, to question their politics at another level.

Thus, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan had to resign, and the National Testing Agency (NTA), primarily responsible for conducting a range of centralised examinations relating to admissions to various courses and universities, is being massively reorganised. The Prime Minister has also, repeatedly and not very successfully, publicly tried to address the concerns of the young protestors regarding paper leaks and other anomalies in the examination system.

Dissent under greater scrutiny

However, far more depressing and familiar is the other part of this strategy: to question the politics of the young students, their ‘suspect’ supporters, and their motivations and increase vigilance across institutions—already alarmingly wide-ranging—against young students at every level. In other words, to turn our universities and other higher education institutions into even more oppressive and restrictive spaces for the students and faculty than they already are. Here are a few relevant incidents........

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