New Delhi, Nov 13, TEN Network | The protest against hostel fee hike at JNU has student outfits from across the political spectrum on the same page.
While the JNU Students’ Union, led by all four Left organisations — Students’ Federation of India, Democratic Students’ Federation, All India Students’ Association and All India Students’ Federation — has been leading the protest, other outfits hold the same view.
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), RSS’s student wing, is opposing the fee hike, although they have criticised JNUSU’s mode of protest. The ABVP will be holding a sit-in protest at the UGC office Tuesday.
“We believe education must be inclusive and affordable. The present fee hike in JNU is inappropriately high and this shall make higher education inaccessible to a large section of students in the present and future too,” said ABVP JNU unit secretary Manish Jangid. “However, the problem’s root is the UGC which has stopped funds to the university. The JNUSU should work towards a solution to the problem, but they are protesting aimlessly,” he added.
Congress students’ wing National Students’ Union of India has expressed its “unconditional solidarity and support” to the protests. JNUSU councillor from NSUI Vishnu Prasad said the move is “outrightly exploitative and against the Nehruvian ethos and values on which honourable former PM Indira Gandhi established JNU”.
The Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association has also spoken out against the fee hike and participated in JNUSU’s calls for protest. In their pamphlet, BAPSA said JNU was among the “few public universities wherein educational cost and expenditure is affordable and viable to all marginalised communities”.
The Chhatra Rashtriya Janata Dal slammed the move. Priyanka Bharti, a leader of the organisation, claimed, “We are continuously protesting against this fee hike. Yesterday, we even got beaten up by police, but we stood as most of the Bahujan students here and economically weaker sections will have to leave the campus (if the fee is hiked).” (TIE)
