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Student Activism for Saving Public Universities in India: Reflections on Idea of the University, Student Solidarity and Movement Towards Social Justic

Presenter:

· Monika Maini National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (New Delhi, India)

Timeslot:

None

Abstract

Since, the rise of right-wing government in 2014 the public universities in India, known for their ethos of critical thinking are under the threat of reduced autonomy and increased privatization as expressed by recent policy initiatives. The one university that has undergone a huge turmoil is JawaharLal Nehru University (JNU). In order to preserve the democratic ethos of the university, the student activists started “Save the JNU” campaign in 2014 after the Police arrest of their Student union leader for participating in a protest. Since, then this campaign has garnered transnational student support as well as solidarity from students and teachers from universities across India along with the support of liberal thinkers from community such as actors and Journalists. This paper, will investigate the moral arguments of student activists campaigning to ‘Save the JNU’ to save Public universities. Drawing from the philosophical idea of the university given by Kant and Habermas, this paper will illustrate how the moral logic is utilized by students to develop alliances with teachers and community to save the public system of higher education. Further I will discuss how the new form of activism disrupt the hegemonic form of leftist activism, questioning the class primacy in leftist student collectives. Highlighting the incidences of persistence of caste, class and ideological hierarchies within the student activist spaces, I argue that these hierarchies limits the egalitarian potential of this movement for higher education for all. Yet there is deployment of strategies to achieve solidarities across ideological differences for social justice.