JNU in minutiae

JNU: THE MAKING OF A UNIVERSITY
Rakesh Batabyal
HarperCollins;
567 pages (paperback); Rs 799

The murder of Avijit Roy, whom The Guardian described as a "prominent American blogger of Bangladeshi origin ... founder of the Mukto-Mona (Free Mind) blog site - which champions liberal secular writing", last week is yet more evidence of how dialectical voices are under threat from fundamentalist forces all over the world. But the subcontinent is under particular threat. The site of the murder is the historic Teacher-Student Centre of Dhaka University, host to a number of important meetings during the liberation movement of 1971. Besides calling into question the security provisions on campus, the incident also highlights how universities as sanctuaries of dissent and debate are on the retreat in the region.

A history of another leading education institution of the subcontinent - Jawaharhal Nehru University (JNU) - is perhaps a timely reminder of the lofty ideals that once governed institutions in neighbouring nations. JNU: The Making of a University by Rakesh Batabyal, a former student of the institution and the history of media teacher at the Centre for Media Studies, attempts to do just that.

In the acknowledgements, Mr Batabyal - the author of titles such as Communalism in Bengal: From Famine to Noakhali (1943-47) and editor of The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Speeches - writes: "The history of an institution ... requires a special historiographical treatment. There are innumerable people associated with an institution ... A historian's account ... needed to be approximate to that larger canvas of the institution, while at the same time not allowing the little histories to be treated merely as pale reflections of the real [bigger] entities." An admirable ambition, very much in line with contemporary historical writing.

True to his word, Mr Batabyal introduces readers to M C Chagla in the very first chapter. Chagla, a chief justice of Bombay High Court and Union education minister, was instrumental in initiating and doing the groundwork for setting up JNU. Yet it is his fate to be shrouded in obscurity. "He had been completely erased from memory," writes Mr Batabyal, "not only in Indian politics but also in the annals of JNU." Immediately after this, he states the purpose of his book: "[It] will discuss the visionary contribution of people like Chagla."

Many other such characters - Shri Bhakt Darshan, Kishen Pattanayak, R K Khadilkar, V S Jha - occupy the pages of the book, the well-known rubbing shoulders with the unknown in a seemingly endless parade of dramatis personae. Although the aim to record the names and deeds of anyone who might have in any way affected the fate of the university is a noble one, few of these characters can claim the limelight on such a crowded stage. Concentrating on fewer figures in greater detail would perhaps have made for more lucid reading.

Also, the book is full of nuggets of fact that don't really have anything to do with the central narrative. For instance, in the second chapter, Mr Batabyal conscientiously records: "The motion to move the JNU Bill for discussion in the joint committee coincided with the day the Indian army was mobilized [sic] into war, 31 August, 1965." This is interesting trivia, but one is left wondering how the fate of the war with Pakistan could have possibly affected the formation or growth of the university.

Similarly, details of the responses of the JNU students and faculty to global events like the Palestine situation, the revolution and formation of the Islamic republic in Iran and the subsequent Iran-Iraq conflict, and the Afghanistan War in the later chapters display the fertile intellectual life of the university. But the nitty-gritty of each and every debate, discussed at great length, does not really enhance our appreciation of the JNU ethos. It is important to remind ourselves that these debates and responses were not confined only to the JNU campus, but were universal in Indian academia.

For instance, a former student of English at Jadavpur University recalls how he had published an editorial for the department's cyclostyled magazine Jabberwocky, claiming that it was the last edition because the editor had gone into hiding in solidarity with Salman Rushdie soon after Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa. Sure, this was more in jest than a spirit of serious political engagement, but taking out marches in support of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua on the JNU campus could hardly have hoped to achieve anything.

Way more interesting is the chapter titled "Life of the Mind", which narrates the scholarly engagement of the teachers and students with the intellectual questions of the day. Mr Batabyal claims to have read "four hundred to five hundred theses and dissertations of JNU scholars" as part of his research. This erudition allows him to bring to light the nuanced scholarly activities for which JNU has gained as much acclaim as for its popular politics.

The narrative, however, ends abruptly in 1989. Explaining his reasons, Mr Batabyal writes: "I joined as a student, and became both a participant in the institutional process as well as an inheritor of the traditions already evolved." A historian's suspicion of the personal infringing upon the professional? Whatever the reason, the 25 critical years during which left-leaning JNU survived liberalisation, post-Mandal commission politics and the technological revolution remain unchronicled. Perhaps, it would be the perfect subject for a sequel, and maybe one that would address the doubt over what space a university named after Jawaharlal Nehru has in a nation that is being steadily led into a post-Nehruvian polity by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.