ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

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Remembering Rajat Datta (1956–2021)

The intellectual excellence of Rajat Datta, enmeshed with his wit and humour, is elaborated. A broad vision and a mature stance defined his approach towards academics and his students who remember him fondly. 

A Committed Scholar

C P Bhambri believed that the task of social science, like all other sciences, was to arrive at the truth on the basis of well-established facts. It was for his students and listeners to present an alternative argument and the facts to back it.

An Apostle of Sociological Theory

A student and fellow sociologist reminisces about Yogendra Singh, a distinguished scholar and theorist, and a founding member of sociology centres at the University of Rajasthan and Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The University that Made a Difference

The assault on students and faculty of Jawaharlal Nehru University has raised a number of questions about politics on the campuses of universities. When students protest the massive hike in fees and other recently formulated regressive procedures of university functioning, it cannot be dismissed as student politics. It is as much a protest against a prime university being systematically dismantled. JNU is now being reduced to a teaching shop because supporting the advancement of knowledge that it pursued, is not on the agenda of those in authority, nor is it a characteristic of the ideology that is being sought to be imposed.

Are Public Universities and the State Destined to be at Odds?

In light of the recent protests at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, we explore the EPW Archives to gain a better understanding of the public university as an institution and its relationship with the state.

Do Universities Threaten National Security?

Is the government trying to change the nature of the university as we know it?

How BJP Appropriated the Idea of Equality to Create a Divided India

Right-wing populism has managed to turn the traditional progressive political practices on their head. The BJP began with a critique of poor implementation of NREGA through a discourse on corruption, but gradually resignified it into a critique of welfare itself; anger against growing economic inequalities leads to the election of more pro-corporate government. This article looks at the future of right-wing populism in India, arguing that instead of a moral rejection, we need to undersand the "moral structure" on which it builds its politics.

'Autonomy' for Universities: Government's Move To Privatise is Exclusionary

While the government claims that autonomy gives greater academic freedom and allows universities to innovate, students and teachers argue that the Graded Autonomy Regulation ensures disproportionate financial and managerial powers to managing trusts and university administrations to cut costs, raise student fees, and start courses in the self-financing mode. This NITI Aayog-prompted policy is a decisive move towards the privatisation of higher education, and will mean the exclusion of economically and socially disadvantaged sections.

Diversity, Democracy, and Dissent: A Study on Student Politics in JNU

Qualitative and quantitative evidence collected over the last four years (2014–18) at the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus reaffirms the crucial contribution of the institution’s diverse and democratic base to Indian politics. The authors suggest that JNU promotes a diverse yet inclusive campus, gives space to radical voices not only from the organisational left movement but across the political spectrum, and finally upholds a tradition of dissent which is in line with protecting the rights of free speech and promoting the values of democracy.

Why Indian Universities Are Places Where Savarnas Get Affection and Dalit-Bahujans Experience Distance

Dalit Bahujan students relentlessly dream and struggle to experience an intellectual ambience in elite institutions sans caste prejudice to recreate their “being” in radically new ways in a society that otherwise seems to be forgetting what resistance with conscience can deliver in reimagining life and politics afresh.

Bridging the Dalit-Left-Liberal Divide

Dalit and Adivasi politics, long enslaved by liberal civil society, has found a new voice in the aftermath of Rohith Vemula's suicide and subsequent student protests. The left-liberal establishments will benefit from standing together with this subaltern democracy in resisting the Hindu right-wing forces.

Democracy and the Popular Discourse on History

The people of India are disillusioned. The present phase of neo-liberal capitalism, and the changes that it spells, do not take into account the vertically and horizontally disintegrated working class and the structurally remodelled castes-communities. The Jawaharlal Nehru University debate around the constitutional right to speak only re-emphasises the fact that if we wish to stall the rise of fascism, the past needs to be reconstructed as a paradigm for the future.

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