The Jawaharlal Nehru University has been, for the past 50 days, since the controversial release of the Inter-House Manual on 28th October. But it all seemed to be over on December 13th, when the Ministry of Human Resource Development released a mediating statement based on talks between JNU Administration, JNUSU and MHRD. However, are all the stakeholder’s satisfied? Read further to find out.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development after a series of talks with the JNU Administration and the JNU Students’ Union put forward the aforementioned statement. In the statement, the MHRD states that the fee of a single occupant room and the double occupant room remain Rs.300 and Rs.600 respectively. While the BPL or Below Poverty Line students will get a concession of 50% on the fee. All of the costs of utilities and services shall be borne by the University Grant’s Commission or UGC. The MHRD has also directed the administration to adhere by the Delhi High Court’s orders and therefore notify JNUSU. Furthermore, the statement has requested the Academic Council to give the students relaxation of two weeks to compensate for the loss of the academic period. In addition to this, the MHRD has directed the JNU Administration to take a ‘Lenient View’ on the incidents that have occurred since October 2019. Lastly, via this statement, the JNUSU has been directed to stop all kinds of dharnas around the administrative, academic blocks and in the residential areas of the varsity staff. The MHRD has urged both the JNUSU and JNU Administration to take immediate steps for the restoration of the normal functioning of the university. It has also been directed that any further issue shall be resolved only via dialogue as per university statutes.
Talking to us, Musaib Ul Haq, the JNUSU hostel prefect, says, “JNUSU has from the beginning of this protest demanded a full rollback and therefore we reject anything which is short of that. Most of our demands have not been met and apart from that, we demanded the taking back of all the cases against agitating students. However, the statements only use the word ‘lenient action towards the protesting students’ which is why we have maintained that the language used in the notice is just unacceptable. Our slogan for these protests is ‘Complete rollback and not an inch back’ therefore for us the talks are still on and nothing is decided yet. Our movement is still on and it will continue, there is no call back of these protests as of now. Apart from this, there was a meeting with the JNU Administration just yesterday wherein all the senior admin members like the Dean of Students were present. But, as of now the movement has not finished and is still continuing.”
Even though the stakeholders in this issue still do not find themselves on the same page but what has become better is that a deadlock has been broken and the JNUSU and JNU Administration have now started a dialogue. As one of the main issues of the protests since its inception is the lack of communication between the students and the administration. Thus, the solution to this problem now seems to be feasible.
Featured Image Credits- ANI
Aniket Singh Chauhan
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