JNU students march, HRD minister gets stuck for 3 hours

NEW DELHI: The row over JNU revising its hostel manual with a hike in the composite hostel fee escalated on Monday when students staged a protest march and assembled outside the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), where the convocation of the university was taking place. As a result, human resource development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ got stuck at the venue for about three hours.As 500 students held their ground, the police used barricades and water cannon to disperse the crowd and eventually got the minister out.
The hike — though differential, depending on the accommodation and the mess — roughly amounts to almost double of what the students were paying before the revised manual was passed at a meeting of the inter-hall administration on October 28. The jump is about 84% for a single-seater and 73% for a double-seater each month if the mess bill is assumed to be a minimum of Rs 2,500.
The hostel fee consists of some miscellaneous charges apart from the room rent and mess bill. The largest component is the mess bill and the hike varies from mess to mess. Only mess charges and room rent have been hiked.
Students now also have an additional burden of Rs 1,700 as utility and maintenance charges and a hiked one-time security deposit of Rs 12,000.
The issue has been festering for over a week and came to a boil when at 9am, a large group of students assembled near the north gate of the campus facing Munirka to leave for the AICTE office but were blocked by the cops.
Incident ‘unfortunate’, even chancellor not spared: Admin
The students then tried to break through from the west gate but failed. Eventually, they got through the barricades at the north gate but had to cross three more layers of barricades before they could reach Nelson Mandela Marg.
By the time the students reached the AICTE office — around 11.30am — Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, the chief guest, had left. The convocation, however, continued till 1.30pm. The students were, meanwhile, joined by some of the students who had attended the convocation. The crowd demanded a meeting with the vicechancellor, M Jagadesh Kumar. Earlier, two members of the students’ union had met the minister for human resource development and submitted a memorandum demanding rollback of the revised hostel manual.
The memorandum also opposed the 11.30pm curfew timing and stated it “fundamentally contradicts the constitutional values of liberty and freedom of movement as given to citizens of the country and promotes surveillance rather than security and fosters a culture of intimidation.”
The students claimed that the minister had heard them out and assured them that he would call for a meeting between the students and the administration soon to resolve the issue.
Calling the protest by students an unfortunate incident, JNU administration said “even after the HRD minister talked to the representatives of the protesting students, he was not allowed to leave the venue for several hours. Unfortunately, the chancellor of JNU was also not spared and his vehicle was not allowed to leave AICTE. He remained confined with all the top officials of the university for many hours.” It accused students of not participating in a constructive dialogue.
While the police briefly used water cannons and pushed students away from the main gate of AICTE, another protest was unfolding inside the venue. Mithilesh Kumari, who finished her PhD in 2018 and received her degree, complained she and others tried to meet the VC over the hostel issue but he refused. “There was no need to conduct the convocation in such a manner,” she said.
It was only around 4.16pm that the police managed to get the minister and VC out of the venue in a convoy. Condemning Delhi Police for “unprovoked violence on the students,” JNUSU claimed a few students were injuries. Police, however, rebutted it, saying there was no violence and “no student has been detained.”
JNU Teachers’ Association condemned the police action and demanded the VC’s resignation.
At the convocation, Naidu said it was “a matter of pride that JNU has become synonymous with academic excellence in the country.” He stated that under the current VC, the university had established several new fields of studies “which are vital to skilling our youth, generating a knowledge industry and enhancing employability. The School of Engineering and School of Management and Entrepreneurship, along with the Special Centre for ELearning, have added much strength to the university.”