An Outsider at JNU

The moment one enters Jawahar Lal Nehru University (JNU), opposite the first bus stop, one finds a heap of trash, definitely not a good advertisement for the citadel of left-wing ideology. However, as one ventures further inside, one finds quite a beautiful campus marked by dilapidated buildings. One can't shake off the impression of being inside a loss making PSU (public sector undertaking), the kind that Mumbai based business magazines would like to get rid of.

The annual fee for any course at JNU is less than Rs. 500/-, though a technocrat would wonder why anyone with sense would opt for a course like Persian studies or the Study of Social systems. The government spends a few lakhs on educating each student, but in my opinion, a cost/benefit analysis of the spending on the various teaching and research programmes at JNU could yield a negative result. The career options at JNU are limited to NGOs and media houses, a majority of which are foreign funded, which is ironical, as foreign capital in the technology sector is taboo for a majority of the students of JNU. As a friend from the Delhi School of Economics mentioned, the red flag has always attracted the educated unemployed who are unfit for wielding either a hammer or a sickle.

Another interesting feauture of JNU is the number of posters dotting the walls of all (without exception) buildings. According to my estimates, the amount of paper spent on preparing the posters should provide enough fuel for the mid-day meal scheme of a rural school for a year. AISA, AISF, SFI, NSUI, ABVP, I'm afraid if I keep rolling out the abbreviations, all possible permuations that can be formed from the letters of the English alphabet would be exhausted.
The student unions can be broadly divided into three categories based on the three major ideological groups, the left (CPI (X), where X can be substituted for M, M-L, etc..), Indian National Congress (NSUI) and the Sangh parivar (ABVP). To be fair, the left student unions are intellectually better equipped than either the NSUI or ABVP, which favour rowdyism to rational debate.

Two popular words that attracted my attention and can be found in almost all the posters at JNU are 'demand' and 'protest'. This provides insights into the mentality of the student unions, all sound and no fury. A lot of empty vessels, all of them, unfit to produce leaders who can actually solve problems instead of creating them. But the most devastating feature of present day JNU is the ubiquitous mobile phone and a universal consumerist class that a typical Marxist textbook would exhort to exterminate. Given this background, I am convinced that JNU's capacity for rabble rousing is overestimated, anti-left intellectuals need not lose much sleep over it. Withdrawl of the government from various sectors coupled with economic reform should despatch such regressive forces to oblivion.

I am more than convinced that our political/bureaucratic/intellectual class (a product of JNU type universities) is completely bankrupt. Most of the members of the above category can't generate a single paisa. Neither are they fit to govern/guide this country. This is a golden opportunity for a lot of entrepreneurs to get into the business of politics, sidelining the criminal/intellectual type of candidates traditionally thrown up by college student unions. The future of our country may depend on it.

Tailpiece: If my memory serves me right, in an article, S. Gurumurthy, columnist for The New Indian Express, had mentioned that a condom-vending machine had been installed in the JNU campus. I had a look at the machine and it dishes out soft-drinks and biscuits as well. One shouldn't depend too much on hearsay.