16/04/2025
The BJP government’s attack on public education is deeply harmful to India's future. Public universities are facing severe fund cuts. This forces institutions to depend on loans and private funding, which makes higher education unaffordable for students from marginalized communities. At the same time, universities are losing their independence. Central authorities like the UGC are imposing rigid, top-down curriculums that discourage unbiased research, critical thinking and creativity.
Students and teachers who speak out are being punished—through legal threats, arrests, or administrative pressure, like what we saw in JNU, Jamia and other educational institutions. Reservation policies meant to support social justice are being quietly weakened. MANF fellowship for minority communities has been discontinued. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 pushes a model that favors corporate profits over meaningful education. On top of this, education is being "saffronized"—history and science are being rewritten to fit a narrow ideological view, replacing facts and reason with dogma. This is a direct attack on democratic, inclusive education. We must resist this, urgently and together, to protect public education and intellectual freedom.
But there’s another problem hindering the fight against this attack on education: the binary politics of our own campus. Student politics at JNU has been reduced to a tired, shallow fight between the Left and the Right. This fake binary limits our thinking. Every student issue is forced into this rigid Left vs. Right narrative, ignoring the deeper, real struggles on the ground—especially those related to caste.
For last couple of years, the Left rhetorically talks about social justice, but when it comes to caste-based discrimination, they shift the focus. When SC, ST, OBC, and Muslim students received unfairly low marks in viva exams—from professors across the political spectrum—these students protested. But the Left-led JNUSU diverted the focus towards general issues like the MCQ entrance exam. When students from marginalized backgrounds were denied the right to PhD admissions or faculty posts under the vague excuse of “Not Found Suitable,” the Left dismissed it as just part of a broader job crisis. The Right, on the other hand, twists the idea of reservation into false debates about “merit” or “appeasement.”
Neither side is truly addressing the problems of caste discrimination, attack on reservation, access to education, or equal opportunity. This binary helps those in power and silences those who are already struggling.
Instead of reflecting on their failures, the Left uses fear tactics. They say, “If you don’t vote for us, the ABVP will take over.” This old slogan is repeated every election, like a broken record. But fear is not a substitute for real struggle against the issues hampering participation of marginalisaed communities. It’s a tool of manipulation by so called progressive left.
We believe in a different path. One based on socialism—not as a fashionable word, but as a guiding principle rooted in justice, equality, and solidarity. The Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha stands for a politics that goes beyond this fake Left-Right fight. We center the voices and struggles of the Pichhda, Dalit, Adivasi, Alpsankhyak, and all marginalized groups.
We call upon the JNU student community: Reject the binary. Make space for voices that have long been ignored.
