Managing Dissent In Education Through Intimidation, Harassment And Attack

Ever since the amorphous Cockroach Janata Party managed to surprise the nation, especially its all-too-powerful Modi government, in the past two months, dissent has once again acquired a new visibility in our public and political consciousness. Pushed onto the back foot, the Modi government is struggling to figure out how to deal with the emerging scenario.

So far, the ruling dispensation has responded with a two-pronged strategy: to placate the young protesting students at one level and, simultaneously, to question their politics at another level.

Thus, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan had to resign, and the National Testing Agency (NTA), primarily responsible for conducting a range of centralised examinations relating to admissions to various courses and universities, is being massively reorganised. The Prime Minister has also, repeatedly and not very successfully, publicly tried to address the concerns of the young protestors regarding paper leaks and other anomalies in the examination system.

Dissent under greater scrutiny

However, far more depressing and familiar is the other part of this strategy: to question the politics of the young students, their ‘suspect’ supporters, and their motivations and increase vigilance across institutions—already alarmingly wide-ranging—against young students at every level. In other words, to turn our universities and other higher education institutions into even more oppressive and restrictive spaces for the students and faculty than they already are. Here are a few relevant incidents during the week preceding the Independence Day!

On August 15, in his Independence Day address to the nation, in a frontal assault on dissenting intellectuals and activists, Prime Minister Modi asked the public to ‘identify and isolate dimagi naxals’ and those with a Maoist mindset and ‘align the nation’s youth with the mainstream’.

On August 14, a scheduled lecture on pluralism, democracy, and the constitutional idea of India by Professor Zoya Hasan, a well-known professor of political studies at JNU, at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, New Delhi, was abruptly cancelled because the Delhi police refused to guarantee ‘security’ at the event from the VHP protestors against the lecture. Ironically, the lecture was a part of the Independence Day function at the school.

NALSAR row and JNU cancellation

On August 13, chairman of the Bar Council of India, a BJP MP, Manan Kumar Mishra, ordered state Bar Councils not to enrol new graduates of NALSAR, a law university at Hyderabad, as advocates on account of their opposition to inviting Chief Justice of India Surya Kant as the chief guest at the convocation for the graduating class this August. He directed the vice chancellor of the university to inform him about details of students who were instrumental in ‘initiating, circulating, coordinating or mobilising opposition’ to the invitation. In his letter, he also accused teachers in the university of ‘doing nasty politics on the campus’ instead of teaching.

(Under prompt, intense and widespread pressure, he has since completely reversed his order, but the fact that he issued the order at all is a reflection of partisan politics that treats all opposition to the present regime as a threat to the nation.)

On August 10, a scheduled discussion on Umar Khalid’s book, ‘Fractured Communities: Adivasi Histories and the Politics of Power’, was cancelled by the JNU administration. Ironically, the book is an outcome of the PhD thesis accepted by the JNU itself, which conferred the degree on him! (As a sign of the determination of students, the discussion was held unofficially on the JNU campus in an open space.)

Taken together, these incidents suggest a blueprint of coordinated action to further restrict any meaningful discussion that could counter the nationalistic rhetoric of the ruling dispensation.

Earlier actions against protestors

Of course, this aggression against the dissenters is a continuation of the Modi government’s earlier policy for dealing with protestors, including the one at Jantar Mantar. For example, on July 18, the Delhi police had entered the CPI(M) party’s office in Delhi in an attempt to arrest its student leader Aishe Ghosh without bothering to serve her with a proper warrant. Ghosh is Delhi state secretary, SFI, the student wing of the CPI(M), and has been actively involved in the recent protests at Jantar Mantar. Before this attempt, Ghosh was being continuously followed and was under surveillance by the police.

In July, Delhi University and JNU had issued orders to students and faculty against participating in the ‘unlawful assemblies’ at the then-ongoing Jantar Mantar protests, warning them of potential legal and disciplinary action. The administrations of both universities cautioned students that their participation could ‘jeopardise their safety, academic progress, and future professional careers’.

University actions draw criticism

Similarly, in July, the interim vice chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, issued an order directing the student union to refund Rs 2.81 lakh released to organise a national conference. The administration alleged that the publicity posters to promote the conference, displayed across the campus, had political overtones and violated the prohibition on conducting political activities or programmes using university funds. The posters had expressed solidarity with the student movement at Jantar Mantar led by the Cockroach Janta Party. (The Kerala High Court stayed the order on August 7.)

Clearly, even as Prime Minister Modi has, recently, often tried to behave as a benevolent patriarch of the protesting young, largely college and university, students, simultaneously, he, his party and his government are busy aggressively targeting those who dissent with his politics. The focus also remains sadly familiar: to intimidate, harass, and attack the dissenting intellectuals and to curtail their access to public and academic spaces like schools, colleges, and universities. The march to unfreedom continues.

Vrijendra taught in a Mumbai college for more than 30 years and has been associated with democratic rights groups in the city.

Published on: Thursday, August 20, 2026, 09:34 PM IST