Campus Politics: Righting the Left in JNU

With India celebrating the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda as the NationalYouth Dayon 12 January since 1984, series of academic, cultural and sporting functions marked there calling of the contribution of the great son of soil who is credited with the spread of Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the western countries. Educational institutions across the nation organized debates, discussions, speeches, seminars, musical events, competitions, etc to in still the values and ideals of Swami Vivekananda among Generation Next. However, New Delhi-based premier Jawaharlal Nehru University, the bastion of the Left ideology, went way ahead and hosted a week-long event to commemorate the special occasion. It followed the virtual inauguration of the statue of the youth icon by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently in the sprawling central university in the heart of the capital. Many other events like the hosting of pujas, convocation ceremonies, naming of internal streets etc in recent past led to the claim that the great ideological divide existing in the campus since its inception more than 50 years ago, has be endemolished by these successive events and the unveiling of the Vivekananda’s statue which was disfigured last year by a disgruntled group opposing the right wings. It is popular story in the lush-green Aravali campus that no Prime Minister, including late Mrs Indira Gandhi, who founded the university in 1969, was allowed to enter the Left-fort due to the prevailing ideological differences among the students of JNU. Does it convey that the Right has conquered the Left bastion in JNU? Difficult to say, as the left groups have been a dominating force in the campus for long even winning the JNU Student Union elections most of the time. However, the unveiling ceremony and other recent functions did symbolize that the winds are blowing in the other direction, slowly but gradually. 

Well-known for producing prodigious luminaries like Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Foreign Minster Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee, Communist ideologues Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury, Amitabh Kant - CEO of NITI Ayog, Nepal’s former Prime Ministers, Prachanda and Dr Baburam Bhattarai, among others, JNU has been a citadel of the Left ideology. But, it has steadily witnessed the rise of the rightist wings. And, with the BJP’s ascendance to power at the Center, its student wing got major thrust to have a larger say in the political space and ideological discourses. With JNU’s rightist groups getting whole-hearted support from its national entities and star campaigners, the political and ideological divide got deeper and sharper. It led to the student politics seeing more intense tussle for supremacy and power-politics. The rightist young thinkers actively and regularly participated in the debate and discussions in the campus and outside also. They managed to place their ideologues and icons visible in the campus with many remarkable changes in their efforts to drive the left-dominated campusright. In their efforts to give right turn to the left politics, they propelled transition and transformation. And on the way, it helped them influence the young generations and secure more foothold not only in the campus politics, but also in the student politics across the country. Only future will tell which way the ideological tussle will move further – left or right.