RAIPUR/PATNA: The unrest in Jawaharlal Nehru University in recent weeks and the clash of students and teachers with Delhi Police has worried its alumni, many of whom are senior police or administrative officers.
Some officers, who credit the institute with inculcating in them the spirit of healthy debate and dissent, want that ethos of JNU preserved. They suggest that the controversies should be settled amicably without outside interference.
“Small sections on the campus holding extreme views of any ideology cannot be justified in the name of freedom of thought,” said Santosh Singh, a 2011-batch IPS officer posted as superintendent of police in Chhattisgarh’s Mahasamund.
“Police need to intervene when law and order situations go out of hand, but they should observe maximum restrain while dealing with university students,” said Singh, who joined JNU in 2007 to do M.Phil. “Without compromising its democratic ethos, JNU must remain vigilant to extreme views.”
Bastar district police chief D Shravan, a 2008-batch IPS officer, said the intellectual romanticism of Communist ideology has always appealed to young minds. “Being critical within the democratic space is fine, but that shouldn’t supersede the democratic spirit and ethos.”
Ashutosh Singh, a 2012-batch IPS officer posted in Kawardha, who studied political science and international relations in JNU, feels the reasons for the flare-up are more political than academic and called for introspection by all sides.
Tripurari Sharan Singh, chairman of Bihar’s revenue board, did his MA (Sociology) from JNU in 1984. A Bihar cadre IAS officer of 1985 batch, Singh is worried that the “openness of minds and spirit of tolerance that characterises JNU is getting eroded”. “The intellectual freedom JNU students get on the campus helps them excel in life as human beings and nation builders,” said Singh. “I have not followed the recent incidents at JNU closely, but I feel it is because certain shades of extremism in political opinions have crept in. During our days, we had faculty members and students espousing views of all kinds and, yet there was no clash.”
The need of the hour, Singh stresses, is to “preserve the ideals JNU stands for”.
Himanshu Shankar Trivedi, SP (Special Branch), Bihar, considers JNU “among the best gifts the nation has given to its youth”. The 2010-batch IPS officer did MSc. in physics from JNU in 2006. “Despite the disturbances and the controversies in recent years, I believe there is nothing in the university that indoctrinates students with a specific ideology.” However, he agrees in recent years, “some groups have started trying to control thought on the campus” and are working to “outsmart others holding different opinions”.