Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been in the headlines consistently for nearly two years now. The reasons are many – political, academic and crime-related.

Now, in what are being called fresh attacks on the university, the vice-chancellor of JNU, M Jagadesh Kumar, is bringing in certain new regulations for implementation in the new semester.

These include 75 per cent compulsory attendance for all students on campus, substitution of MPhil (and potentially PhD) public viva-voce for one that would be based on an interaction/assessment over Skype, and diversification of the kind of courses that are offered in JNU by introducing management and other related courses.

These rules are coming from the top, and being implemented without questioning at the ground-level – the basic academic units/Centres of the university. The logic given by the V-C is that the regulations would help make JNU function like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

It is, however, not limited to this bizarre idea and not that simple. The measures have been thrown like bombs on the student community since February 9, 2016, as their destructive capacity is promising and has also yielded magnificent returns for the administration.

The reason behind saying this is, whether it is the seat cut in the varsity or scuttling of deprivation points or adoption of a negligent stance over the disappearance of JNU student Najeeb Ahmad or bypassing of bodies to announce arbitrary decisions – all have been the result of following a highly bureaucratic policy of reforms.

The benefit comes from the fact that these decisions are difficult to reverse (or are taken to court, which inevitably consumes time). Once announced, it is considered the final word. It is also a way of academically and administratively sabotaging JNU by appointing allies as stooges in the various Centres and Schools and within the administration itself.

Before coming to the analyses of these rules per se, it is also important to speak about the constantly changing nature of JNU, in the wake of these policies. The university traditionally has been a Left-dominated institution and a premier university for pursuing research. It is important to keep on highlighting the much-repeated fact that JNU stands for Debate, Dissent and Discussion. It is a place that harbours and promotes rational and argumentative thinking.

Hence, it is always on the radar of the current government which is essentially Right-wing in all its sense and meaning. It is from here that government policies are questioned from the pulpit, criticised and dismissed. To reform JNU by these rules is to destroy the fundamental ethics on which this university was built and stood for so long.

The demography is changing and that too rapidly too. This is not to say or mean that there has been no criticism from within the student community, teachers and staff – everybody struggled to resist the draconian moves in their own ways. Students protested, went to court, paid fines, every parcha, poster and wall of JNU resisted before giving it all up due to the disillusionment of not “winning” much in the battle.

Protest are now few, reduced to a token showcase, “student leaders” have taken up online protests, and nominal measures of retaliation are referendums and signature campaigns. Dhabhas are now closed at night and outside discussions and debates have been restricted. Key issues have been reduced to political gimmicks – the cost of which is what JNU is in the process of becoming.

Coming back to the rules and diktats – the first is compulsory attendance for all. Now, let us give the benefit of doubt to the administration and assume blindly that this can make some sense for students enrolled in graduate and post-graduate courses – but how does it make sense to call MPhil and PhD students to sign attendance registers daily?

Research means a scholar has to go to the archives, museums, conferences and other places for fieldwork. What is the rationale of calling them to the department like school kids to attest their presence so that they don’t go missing?

It also constrains the quality of research by bringing everybody physically to buildings which are infrastructures of imparting knowledge. It goes against the heart and soul of JNU that has always fostered learning outside these restricted structures; where knowledge is gained outside and inside classrooms and most importantly without force and coercion.

Compulsory attendance is then a mask to discipline and regulate the lives of students, to snatch away their choice of being outside class for learning, for debate and for politics. Not surprisingly, it punishes students for being defaulters and could also stop them from appearing in the semester-end examinations, or stall their fellowships, if attendance is not satisfactory. Further, it gives them a chance to complain at home by citing these meticulously maintained records.

What happened recently is one such example of this kind of coercion. In a statement issued by the JNU Students’ Union, it has been alleged that a Professor from the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in a lecture for the Monetary and Banking Institutions paper “refused to allow students out of class without signing the attendance sheet”.

The union calls it “an extremely shocking incident when a faculty coerced students both verbally and physically to sign sheets of paper without their consent”. Such acts will help the administration in creating a pawn army of students that is less rebellious or questioning and more robotic.

Comparisons with the IITs are drawn for justification. It is not my place to comment or analyse what the former stands for but it is important to say that JNU and IIT have their own importance in their own different ways, and to equate the two and more so homogenise these distinctive sets of institutions is like comparing lemons and mangoes. To deliberately equalise them is to erase the distinctiveness of both.

Coming to diktat number two – substituting public viva voce of MPhil and possibly PhD students by conducting it on Skype. Now this strikes at the heart of the matter, i.e. making an integral part of research just a formality that can be conducted anywhere and anyhow.

The JNU Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) has rejected the absurd move by clearly saying that it will be a compromise on the nature of the intellectual engagement between the researcher and those taking the viva. The JNUTA in its resolution said “whether this comes from a fundamental lack of acquaintance with the joys of learning and thinking freely, or from some darker malefic motivation, the recent dikat on “Skype vivas” by the vice-chancellor strikes at the heart of what makes research meaningful in a university”.

It will limit any free and fair enquiry given the limitation of the technology itself. There is no rationale behind the move as it is substituting an already working reputed exercise with one that will be less accessible and less suitable for this purpose.

The third and last diktat is to diversify courses to bring in different varieties, including engineering and management. To this effect a proposal has already been sent to the University Grants Commission (UGC). The plan is aimed at transforming the nature of JNU from an essentially research-based institute that produces thinking intellectuals to one that would produce obedient beings looking for jobs.

It will create a young population that would be more job-oriented and careerist than intellectuals, writers and academics. To some degree it may give a more comprehensive and holistic nature to JNU as it will grow not only as an institute for studies in humanities and particularly social sciences, but also as one that could also excel in other subjects – however, on the whole it will surely dilute the basic nature of the university.

Further, given the infrastructural and other limitations, it can also be perfectly possible that in bringing other courses and putting greater focus on them, humanities and other already established course take a backseat, to the extent of being ruined.

Thus, it can be said that in supposedly “innovating” JNU through these fresh norms, they in effect are destroying it. Homogenising institutions by taking IITs as the model example is unacceptable and cannot be explained by reason.

By failing to prove the university as “anti-national” publicly, the regime has resorted to a more intricate process of its destruction. While JNUTA has refused to coordinate in following these diktats, the students’ union gave a call for a strike on Monday, working closely with members of the student faculty committees.

As the circular calling for compulsory attendance has already been publically burnt by the union, it is also launching a mass signature drive against the measures. The outcome of such modes of protest is unsure and to what extent it will be continued (given the patches of slumber which the union undergoes) is yet to be known.

Nevertheless, these are effective physical and symbolic means by which JNU is “Fighting Back”.