JNU Protest: Students' union urges MHRD to remove Vice-Chancellor

As student protests continue to simmer in JNU, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) blamed the Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar for the continuance of the crisis in the university and urged the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to remove him from his post. Students are protesting inside the administration block of the university against the increase in hostel fees, even though JNU announced a rollback in the hike last week. The students have dubbed the partial rollback as an "eyewash".

"The JNUSU and the elected councilors met the High Power Committee constituted by the MHRD at Shastri Bhawan today. We apprised the committee of our strong concerns at the functioning of the JNU administration and repeated violations of the statutory provisions of the university... The JNUSU has emphasised time and again our attempts and appeal to start a dialogue process. It is a commentary on this character of this administration and the VC who heads it, that they have willfully denied appearing before the committee," a press release by the JNUSU on Wednesday read.

The press release also stated that the MHRD should consider the removal of the Vice-Chancellor with this attitude of the administration and the students union welcomed the process of engagement with the MHRD and looked forward to the meetings ahead over the crisis. During the course of the meeting, the JNUSU also pointed out that it seeks to arrive at a new manual through an acceptable deliberative process.

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The rationale behind student protest

The students of JNU have been protesting for the last few weeks about the new hostel manual which advocated a hike in hostel fees, dress code regulations, and curfew timings. While the JNU administration announced a partial rollback of some of the contentious provisions, the students expressed their dissatisfaction. On November 17, the JNU administration called upon the students to return to their classes and resume their academic work. On Monday morning, a large group of protesting students decided to march to Parliament demanding a complete rollback of the hostel manual.

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(With ANI Inputs)