Why JNU Is In Turmoil

On January 5, pepper spray saved Aditi Patil, 32, a PhD student at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), from getting her face smashed in by a masked man with a rod.

- Sonali Acharjee

She then found refuge behind a water cooler. Others on campus were not as fortunate, as dozens of armed thugs attacked students and teachers with bricks, beer bottles and sticks, while the Delhi police failed (or refused) to intervene. Some 34 people were treated at AIIMS hospital for head injuries and abrasions. “Extreme violence like this does not happen at JNU,” says Patil, who has been at the university for eight years. “Students like me who don’t belong to any political outfit were never a target.”

What happened at JNU has received wide attention. Messages of solidarity with the students have poured in from Mumbai, Hyderabad, Cape Town, Munich and New York. “I don’t know which side is to be blamed. But I know the government has failed its students. The thugs walked away, while the victims are being named in FIRs,” says Abhay Singh, 21, an IIT Bombay graduate who was among the 500-strong group protesting at the Gateway of India.