JNU sedition row: In varsity melting pot, Kanhaiya and ABVP leader are hostel neighbours

A wall in Singh’s room carries pictures of Hindu deities and the Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji. On Kumar’s walls, says Singh, are posters of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx.

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“Kanhaiya and I have been living in this hostel since last year. We have our ideological differences but it is never personal. We would sit in the hostel mess together, eating and talking. I might not agree with his political ideology but all kinds of views should exist in a university,” says Singh, adding that he often used to slip into the neighbouring room for tea and “charcha”.

Over the last 10 days, as JNU witnessed protests over the arrest of Kumar following an event on campus to protest the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, its political faultines appeared to have widened beyond repair. But a walk through the corridors of its hostels, all named after rivers, is a reminder that the university continues

to be a unique melting pot of ideologies. Students say there are Sanskrit and Arabic scholars staying together, left and right-wingers engaging in furious debates at mess rooms while sharing tea, and discussions over the Manusmriti after a caste clash.

Of the two wings at Periyar hostel, rooms on the right showcase pictures of Veer Savarkar, Swami Vivekanand and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The left wing has pictures of Che Guevara, Mao Tse-tung, Lenin and Marx. On one room you see a cartoon showing two fingers from each hand and the line: “No left, no right, only left of centre”.

“Rooms are allotted randomly but students get their friends in through mutual adjustments. The wings were originally named according to their locations. But we are JNU, we make everything political,” says a PhD scholar. Students say mess halls are unofficially recognised venues of political and current affairs debates, especially during dinner.

Abhimanyu Kumar, an MPhil student at the Centre for Historical Studies (CHS) who has stayed in two hostels on campus, describes the debates at the mess and campus dhabas as the “backbone of JNU culture”.

The mess debates also serve “as a medium to arrive at a mutual understanding”, say students. For example, as most students congregated near the administration block on February 19 for the public lectures as part of their protest, a student at Mahi Mandvi hostel started scrubbing out a slogan he had fashioned on the floor at the entrance of the hostel a few days ago.

“Anti-nationals go to Pakistan, India is for not for you,” the slogan said. Students say hostel committee members asked the student to explain why he had painted the slogan. “He said he had meant it for mediapersons who were misrepresenting JNU. Then, he said it was for people who (allegedly) raised such slogans during the Afzal Guru event on February 9. If they were outsiders, he did not have a problem but if they were from JNU they should leave, he told us,” says hostel president Alimmudin.

In recent years, this hostel has been widely regarded as “right-wing dominated”. But then, its occupants point out it has for years been hosting JNU’s Grand Iftar. This year, it elected Alimmudin as president.

Students have found other ways to resolve their ideological clashes. After protests escalated in Hyderabad university last month following the suicide of Rohith Vemula, students across JNU put up posters of the Dalit student outside their hostel rooms. However, one student at Mahi Mandvi tore apart a large poster of Vemula in anger. “We held a meeting, where this student spoke, and then the occupants of the room spoke. They said they were hurt, and defacing or tearing posters did not help the debate. So the two sides ended up speaking about Manusmriti, the origin of caste and other things,” Alimmudin added.

Saurabh Sharma, who won a seat for the ABVP in the students union elections for the first time in 14 years, says he has “enjoyed many debates” with Umar Khalid, who is being hunted by police for his alleged role in organising the Afzal Guru event.

“I am associated with ABVP, and that has become a stigma these days. In every debate, they act like we put Kanhaiya Kumar in jail. The government mismanaged things and the real issue of anti-national slogans has been diverted,” says Sharma.

A Brahmin from Bihar, who completed his MA in Sanskrit from Allahabad University, Sharma says he “took time to adjust” to his Muslim roommate from Jamia Milia University. “We argue and fight but when I get sick, I know he will be the first person to get me a cup of lemon tea in the room. I don’t know if this can happen outside JNU,” he says.