The recent interview given to a media outlet by the JNU Vice Chancellor Prof. Shantishree Dhulipudi Pandit could be an interesting text for a language student to work on. It could be used well for example to teach paradox, contradiction, ambivalence and other figures of speech in the same cohort. We could have even indulged and allowed ourselves some dark humour had it not been symptomatic of the profound harm that is being currently brought upon our institutions, in this case a public university of formidable academic repute like the JNU. That this harm is intentional, systematic, and systemic and has to be located beyond the individual that is the vice chancellor is something that one needs to acknowledge and which could even serve as her defense, albeit a poor one. She has, however, surpassed all her predecessors in using the office that she holds to publicly disseminate her partisan views with impunity that go way beyond the stated position of the UGC or any other institutional norm. In this last instance she seems to have outdone herself in her overreach of ideas as well as the distinctive use of language which often times seems to acquire the uncanny attribute of putting the very people that she is ostensibly batting for, in the dock. That last bit and the sundry asides that this latest rumination brings to light are however not the most important; at least not for us who are more concerned as stakeholders in the university’s collective ethos emanating from the understanding of education as a public good. That is the exact ethos which encouraged and achieved in good measure the academic excellence and equitable access that JNU is known for. This emphasis on ensuring access through innovative measures such as the deprivation point system, brought regional and social diversity, an essential prerequisite for a comprehensive tapping of a society’s ‘talent’ and thereby adding to the country’s resources for the benefit of all. This indeed has generally been the framework within which teaching and learning was practiced with a lot of rigor and passion over generations of academics, students, teachers, officers, karamcharis who made JNU the institution that it was and continue to fight for its survival as such even as its core value of democratic functioning is being dismantled and fear of retribution looms threatening academic freedom.

In the now widely known podcast, thanks to the outrageous nature of the VC’s swashbuckling utterances, we are confronted with a text which can be characterized as both Orwellian and quixotic in scope. Only that it intends and starts of as enthusiastically Orwellian but ultimately ends up being rather quixotic. The entire interview is replete with the Orwellian doublespeak which account well for the paradoxes, contradictions, ambivalences and untruths. In this she may even have met some success among those who are not very well versed with the specific issues that the JNU confronts today, some of which one is taking the liberty to briefly mention here just so some perspective can be added to the hunky dory picture of governance that the podcast seeks to paint. There is sense of indignation among a large number of teachers who are overdue for promotions and have been waiting for years. Promotion itself is being weaponised to seek a ‘falling in line’. This routine indignity has been heaped upon several faculty including women faculty who have had to face the ignominy of retiring from service without as much as being afforded a chance at getting their long overdue promotions even after repeated appeals to the VC. So much for women’s empowerment! Even the crèche facility on campus, a legally binding responsibility has not been provided. The legitimate rights of the teachers whether it is promotions or long leaves are being governed by a policy of pick and choose. The appointment to key positions of academic administration like Deans and Centre Chairs are made by the highest authority without any specifically laid down criterion instead of the fair and transparent norm of seniority that had always governed JNU before 2016. The result besides bringing opaqueness to the entire process also ensures an overwhelming composition of the highest decision making body the executive council, owing their ‘seat at the high table’ entirely to the will of the VC. That the ‘table’ is only virtual and the meetings are always online and short reducing the chances of any well considered decision making is another matter. So much for democratic functioning! The students too are facing a shrinking of their spaces both as critically thinking individuals and as a community of primary stakeholders of the university. The NEP induced core subject dilution has resulted in confusion and a sense of academic alienation among the undergrads who are forced to opt for online IKS courses offered by a certain Foundation, whose terms of association with the university are not known nor were they discussed in any academic body. Same is the case with the decision to install the FRT at the library which , as the podcast gives us to understand, was discussed with everyone. It is completely unknown in which university body the discussions regarding this took place and the subsequent decision taken. The issues mentioned here are just indicative and not exhaustive. The moot point is , as Prof. Pandit herself admits in the interview, that she doesn’t listen to anybody! In order to strengthen her point she alludes to the ‘mother goddesses who don’t listen to anybody’. Perhaps it would be much more prudent to act fair and let the goddesses judge our actions. Besides, if the essence of the mother goddesses permeates us all as mortals, as teachers, as students, as vice chancellors and as workers and if none of us listen to nobody, how does any dialogue or genuine exchange ever take place? Clearly such a university functioning, as is so clearly indicated by the VC, would only run on a top down approach, slowly depriving academics of the vigour and vibrancy that it demands as a precondition.

The most shocking part of the almost hour long interview of course comes towards the end where she comments on the recently issued UGC equity regulations which came to existence because of the case filed by the mothers of Rohit Vemula and Payal Tadvi, who bore the brunt of caste discrimination in higher education institutions, seeking establishment of better institutional mechanisms to curb discrimination in HEIs. The regulations have been stayed by the SC and the matter will be heard later. The VC may have her own opinions as a private citizen, but as JNU vice chancellor how are we to understand this bizarre statement of calling the regulations’ irrational’, ‘ not needed’ and ‘formulated in secrecy’? Don’t they flow from the orders of the Honourable Supreme Court and ultimately the Constitution of India? Just as one began to overstretch to accommodate this bizarre view under the ambit of vagueness of the provisions, the words that followed immediately betrayed her own absolute clarity on the matter dismantling instantly any benefit of doubt that there might have arisen. Her labelling of the dalits and the blacks as sufferers of a ‘permanent victimhood’ has to be called out for what it is, an old and time tested attempt to gaslight entire communities and society at large facing discrimination. She refers to the drug of victimhood. Perhaps it would be in the fitness of things to remind ourselves instead of the great intoxicating effect of power on vulnerable people. But that wears off as power goes. It is indeed Orwellian to see that ‘eternal victimhood’ is being seen in this case but her own marginal identity is evoked routinely. It should be clear that the rights of those on the margins have not been ‘given’ by anyone on a platter. They have become reality after generations of people have fought for them. The university spaces are also testing grounds for access and equity, after all the whole society progresses when everyone gets justice. We are with the VC when she says that she faced misogyny in the administration and condemn it with all our might, but Orwellian attempts at selective victimhood trying to brazenly follow a partisan agenda will not work. In fact it only makes the attempt look quixotic as there is another reality which is beating down.

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