Politically motivated action to suppress dissent: Student leaders, faculty members, MPs on JNUSU rustication

Lok Sabha MP Raja Ram Singh said the move reflected a familiar pattern. “When the voices of the poor and the marginalised rise, the response is an iron fist,” he said, adding that the JNUSU office-bearers were “fighting for the very soul of India’s democratic and secular education”.

Manoj Jha, a Rajya Sabha MP said, “A university is meant to be a space for dialogue, not a fortress of surveillance.” He also announced that the matter would be raised in Parliament.

Sashikanth Senthil, also a Lok Sabha MP, accused the JNU administration of acting at the behest of “political masters”.

Faculty members, meanwhile, warned against what they saw as “administrative overreach”. Uma Gupta, a professor at Delhi University, said the rustications went beyond disciplinary action. “This is a declaration of war against the idea of a public university,” she said. “They want campuses where students don’t question and teachers don’t think.”

Student representatives said there is an atmosphere of fear on the campus, citing steep fines and punitive measures imposed on those who questioned surveillance practices in common academic spaces.

JNUSU president Aditi Mishra said the rustications were aimed at weakening collective resistance. “The administration thinks rustication will break us,” she said. “Instead, it has only strengthened our resolve.” She also linked the action to students’ demands for the restoration of equity-oriented regulations in higher education and for legal safeguards against caste-based discrimination, including what activists call the ‘Rohith Act’.

Students’ body All India Students’ Association (AISA), which backs the current JNUSU leadership, said in a statement that the administration had labeled peaceful protest as vandalism to justify punitive action. “The real vandalism,” the statement said, “is the dismantling of constitutional values and social justice under the guise of discipline”.

According to AISA, the protest against facial recognition at the central library was driven by concerns that students were being treated “as suspects rather than learners”, and that surveillance technologies were being introduced without meaningful consultation.