Students are the pillars of a nation's future. Swami Vivekananda in his discourses always mentioned that education is the manifestation of perfection that is already within us. So it becomes a deeply painful situation for any society when its students are involved in communal riots. Natasha Narwal, a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), was arrested on May 30 for her role in communal riots that engulfed Northeast Delhi in February 2020.

When a student of a premier institution like JNU, which was set up to keep noble ideas in mind and provide accessibility to students from weaker sections of society, indulges in such acts, it makes us wonder why JNU has been infested with left-wing extremism in its campus?

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was established back in 1969. Even in 1965, when the bill for its formation was introduced in Parliament, it was held that this should not be just another university but instead a centre for “scientific socialism”.

The first vice chancellors and senior professors at the university were all eminent educationists and administrators, but their leftist leanings were unmistakable. Over the decades, JNU remained a government think tank, notably for the social sciences, and as long as the prevailing political paradigm in the country was left-of-centre, as seen through the prism of the Congress idea of pluralism, and as peppered with a mild dose of Marxist thinking, all went seemingly well in this institution, with successive generations of professors mentoring students in their image and these students going on to become future professors.

Significantly, quite a few successful politicians at different points of the spectrum also began their political life in the student unions of JNU, and this has played no small part in the aspirations of politically inclined students of the university till this day. The students, many of whom came from middle-class backgrounds, were influenced by the mild optimism generated by the soft leftist doctrines that prevailed during those years.

The essence of any higher level university is that it is a forum for constructive and progressive engagement between thoughtful, kind and enlightened teachers and questioning, critical and respectful students. Once this equilibrium is established, a university can go on for centuries, independent of the political realities of the day and which political icon is the flavour of the season.

The University of Bologna is nearly 1,000 years old. It is still the best university in Italy. But Italy as a unified country has existed for only around 150 years. The University of Cracow is 650 years old. Poland did not even exist as a country for around 120 of these years, between 1795 and 1918. Wonderful universities do not derive their authority from the people in power in government. Much of the JNU’s apparent strength arose from the fact that it was favoured by the benign gaze and patronage of the government in power in New Delhi. In general, such a situation does not provide for long-term stability.

In hindsight, it is unfortunate that the Congress government of the day saw fit to create a university in order to have a think tank. The JNU is now reduced to a shouting brigade that opposes everything that the government does – with no well thought-out, articulate reasoning. Words like “azadi” and phrases like “reclaiming the republic” have no meaning in a country where a solid 40-50 per cent of the voting population feel that they are quite free and are masters of their republic.

By making an entire university a leftist think tank and a laboratory in which dubious social science experiments are conducted, the government has let down the vast majority of teachers and students of the JNU who wish to do an honest job. An honest student would like to take advantage of the environment afforded by a prestigious central university like the JNU to broaden their outlook, and to use the education received there to obtain gainful employment after they leave the university. Both these communities have been betrayed by the JNU management, successive vice chancellors and the governments over the past 20 years.

AISA, a Front for the Communists in Indian Education

JNU student union All India Students' Association (AISA), the largest student union at JNU, is the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist), one of the most radical leftist and Communist groups in India.

Communists in India still honor Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. They have never renounced or even criticized violent Communist revolutions or dictatorial states like the Soviet Union or Communist China.

While decimated at the polls, the Communist Party is trying to remain relevant and stage a comeback through its student activists, who have become their foot soldiers and media images in their new revolutionary fervour to challenge the success of Narendra Modi and the BJP.

AISA states that they believe that Marxism is the science of revolutionary change and human emancipation. AISA defines itself as a revolutionary, democratic students’ organization.

In reality, AISA is an association following the old failed Communist ideology of the twentieth century and emulating its cult of violence. Marxism is not a science but a political propaganda system. It has brought about revolutionary changes, but these have decimated whole countries and populations and cultures. It has not emancipated anyone, but created state tyranny wherever it has gained power. To associate it with democratic rights is a mere subterfuge. Marxism has never been democratic anywhere, unless as a temporary step to gaining totalitarian power.

AISA and Revolutionary Violence

These young revolutionaries look back to violent revolutionaries of the twentieth century like Che Guevara or Fidel Castro as their role models. They also sympathize with Naxalites, separatists and Jihadis like Burhan Wani or Afzal Guru.

They are certainly not peaceniks or Gandhians in their behaviour. They would never follow Yoga, Buddhism, the Dalai Lama or any Dharmic tradition from India, which they see as little more than fascism. They are violent revolutionaries, who stage regular protests and riots, who block teachers and research professors, even the Vice-Chancellor from doing their work or going to their offices.

No other democratic country today has such Communist student unions dominating a major university. If they did, such a university would have the same problems as JNU.

Not Victims but Instigators

What kind of behaviour would we expect from these revolutionary student activists? Of course, it is to create a revolution as quickly as they can, violence and deception not excluded.

India’s leftist media likes to portray Communist students as merely liberal young students and glosses over their violent connections and temperament, keeping the word "Communist" out of their description. The western media also never mentions the fact that these students are Communists, a combination of both ignorance by some, but old leftist sympathies by others. You will never find Barkha Dutt highlight JNU Communist student sympathies with the party of Stalin and Mao, for example.

When violence occurs on campuses where this radical left is in power, you can be certain they are involved as instigators, and not peaceful or innocent victims, which is absurd given their temperament.

Let us stop glorifying the romantic image of the young violent revolutionary seeking to overthrow the government for Marxist equality, which has yet to succeed anywhere in the world. The media should stop instigating them with publicity and sympathy, which is to promote violence and social division.

AISA and its affiliated bodies are not seeking freedom of expression. They will stop anyone from speaking against their party line if they can. They are not asking for democracy. They will not allow anyone to oppose their views when they control the scene. Everyone who challenges them is deemed a fascist, but their violence is for the glory of the revolution.

Time for India to Move beyond Marxism

India does not need a JNU Communist-inspired cultural or political revolution, which would only destroy the country and its great civilizational heritage. The Communist cultural revolution in China wiped out much of traditional Chinese culture, which the Chinese are still trying to recover.

Hindu Yoga and Vedanta offer a universal science of Consciousness compared to which Marxism is superficial, ignorant and spiritually blind. It is time for India as Bharat to rise again. It is time to discredit the Marxists and Communists in the educational system, where they only function as a poison.

JNU community is now losing the confidence of the academic community and the general population is their perceived intolerance to viewpoints other than their own. In part, this may have risen from the inability of the Congress to accept that they lost an election in 2014 – and that too so comprehensively. We live in a parliamentary democracy. We are never tired of invoking the sophistication of the Indian voter. It is quite difficult for one political party to secure a majority in the Lok Sabha. Let’s concede this to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). If the present government does not do its job, as seen by the voter, they will be duly voted out of office in 2019. India does not need the JNU to tell us that the BJP government is not good for the country, and certainly not every single day of our lives. We will be quite able to come to this conclusion in 2019, or otherwise, on our own. In the meantime, I think a great many honest tax-paying citizens are asking themselves as to exactly why they are subsidising this large, unproductive and now, frankly speaking, disruptive rabble called the JNU.

It appears that the teachers of JNU were having such a comfortable time doing practically nothing that they have now erupted at the first sign that their cosy status quo has been threatened. As for the students, they seem to have forgotten that their first responsibility is to their academic pursuits – and no, holding placards in Connaught Place and asking for the break-up of our republic are not recognised as academic pursuits, not by any stretch of the imagination.

JNU is an educational campus funded by the citizens of India who hope their kids will too pursue higher education from a renowned institution. But, sadly, certain elements at the campus are aligned with the leftist groups who mislead them towards the path of anti-national activities. It’s unfortunate that such students have become paid political agents and propagandists of forces that are inimical to India’s integrity and want JNU students to perceive all nationalist patriots as enemies.

Herein lies the paradox: at one of the top-ranked universities in the national capital is a group of students whose ideological allegiance lies to capitals of Pakistan and China. These leftist students have spoiled the whole atmosphere of JNU; but it’s the well-meaning students at the campus who are suffering.

JNU must get rid of anti-national forces in its campus and transform the institution into a centre of educational as well as cultural excellence. The thugs who defaced Swami Vivekananda’s statue in JNU are equal to the Talibani extremists who seek to remove all cultural, civilisational and historical heritages and use force to enforce their agenda, which is dark and appalling.

Finally, the day will come when students like Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid will be punished for their dastardly crime of chanting “Bharat tere tukde honge.” People like them must realise that patriotic 1.3 billion Indians love their motherland and that no Chinese and Pakistani ideology will be tolerated on an Indian educational campus, even though it may be named after Jawaharlal Nehru.