Students are misled, being used as cannon fodder, says JNU professor Makarand Paranjape

A day after he criticised Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union president Kanhaiya Kumar's speech, and questioned whether JNU was a "left hegemonic space", professor of English Makarand Paranjape tells dna that academic space needs to be depoliticised, and that current student politics were one of extreme negativity.

How do you view student politics in JNU in the context of student politics in the country right now?

Student politics in JNU has many wonderful things attached to it. However, it's also negative, and frames itself as anti-establishment, anti-state, anti-administration, especially by the left bodies in power. We are not in a space of occupation. Why not have constructive engagement rather than being extremely negative? Noam Chomsky called it manufactured consent, but here there is manufactured discontent. As a president of JNUSU, you stand for all students. Yet, some students are treated shabbily when they don't agree with dominant discourse. After February 9, Kanhaiya could have reached out to students who were angry about the slogans raised. However, as a professor of JNU, I am for autonomy of the institutions. It is wrong to have a witch hunt against students. Sedition is a serious charge and our thorough legal system should release the two students in jail if it finds no evidence against them.

JNU student politics supported Occupy UGC, which fights for public education, and justice for Rohith Vemula, which is for an inclusive social fabric in higher education and against caste discrimination. Isn't that constructive engagement?

There is a great initiative by the government and other agencies for an inclusive education system. Almost 50% of our seats are reserved. JNU has backward points and deprivation points. You get points as a woman, as someone from backward classes. For example, a masters class with 30 seats will have 29 girls and one man. We've gone to the other extreme now. There are many beneficiaries of the state's attempts but no acknowledgment for it. All over the world there is affirmative action, no quota system. There is no free ride. Those with fellowships are subject to progress reports. If we want fellowships where is the accountability for quality work? Here even attendance isn't compulsory. Students should produce work, publish papers. This is politics of disaffection, where the state is your enemy rather than your elected representative.

Isn't your criticism of negative politics valid for politics as a whole, and not just for left bodies?

We need to depoliticise academic space. Re-academisation is another kind of politics, rather than the current dangerous divisive politics. This is devoid of content, of intellectual muscularity. There is an enjoyable performative quality to it, but it is vapid. If people had high quality debate I would participate. We aren't academicians anymore, we're rabble rousers. What worries me is the lack of new discourse. There is so much party politics as the campus is used as a training ground for cadres. Students are being misled, they are being used as cannon fodder but trained with no skills. They all won't get jobs with political parties after they graduate. It is no one's god-given right to be the only one's critiquing the state, nor is it JNUSU's. They talk of revolution but have no answers as to how they'll bring it about. If it is revolution through bullets it is unconstitutional, if it is through ballots then they are like everyone else.

You speak of there being bullying on campus, yet there are these teach-ins where divergent views are put forward.

It is not so divergent. I was the first speaker to have questioned the others' views. Even when I spoke, there were pamphlets being distributed against me. It is not lumpen politics but things are not so simple. Within left hegemony you are either brainwashed or branded or boycotted or bullied.