Jamia Millia Islamia is no ordinary educational institution; it is a living testament to the national and political awakening of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent—an awakening forged in the crucible of the 1920 Rowlatt Act, the Khilafat Movement, and the Non-Cooperation Movement. When Maulana Mahmud Hasan, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan, and Dr. Zakir Hussain stepped out from the colonial shadow of Aligarh to lay the foundation of Jamia, their vision was to nurture a generation of youth capable of looking power in the eye and demanding truth and justice. Yet today, within the very same campus, when a student goes on a hunger strike to demand the restoration of their fundamental democratic right—a Students’ Union—they are met not with dialogue, but with the batons of the Delhi Police, the heavy tread of paramilitary boots, and the repressive measures of the university administration.
Twenty-Year Democratic Drought
The dismantling of the Students’ Union at Jamia Millia Islamia was no accidental occurrence. On March 31, 2006, the then-administration dissolved the Jamia Millia Islamia Students’ Union (JMISU), citing alleged ‘violence’ and ‘indiscipline’ on campus. This rationale mirrored an old tactic employed by colonial rulers, who would strip the people of their rights by labeling them ‘immature.’ If the conduct of certain individuals was problematic, disciplinary action should have been directed at them; how could it be considered just to stifle the democratic voice of the entire university?
The two decades that have followed 2006 stand as a record of the patience displayed by Jamia’s students, contrasted against the duplicity of the administration. It was also in 2006 that the recommendations of the J.M. Lyngdoh Committee were introduced—recommendations that were subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court. The Lyngdoh Committee explicitly stated that student union elections should be mandatory in universities to foster healthy student politics. However, instead of implementing the Lyngdoh Committee’s recommendations, the Jamia administration resorted to legal maneuvering.
When former students and activists approached the Delhi High Court in 2012, the administration responded with a barrage of excuses. For ten years, the matter was kept ‘sub-judice,’ a pretext used to silence any student who dared to even mention a student union. When the Delhi High Court finally disposed of the petition in December 2022, clarifying that there was no judicial bar on holding elections in the future, the true face of the administration was laid bare. Despite the absence of any legal restriction, the administration rather than announcing election dates chose to maintain a mysterious silence.
In place of a student union, the administration established a structure consisting of ‘subject associations’ and nominated ‘student councils,’ in which Heads of Departments (HODs) and Deans hold veto power. This is not democracy; it is a puppet show orchestrated under administrative patronage, designed to crush the autonomous voice of the students beneath the heels of the bureaucracy.
Administrative Repression and Blatant State Interference
The question arises: why is the Jamia Millia Islamia administration so afraid of the student union? The answer lies in the corporate-style arbitrariness and ideological agenda of power within Jamia.
An elected and independent student union means:
Questioning sudden fee hikes, the plundering of self-financed courses, and the cuts in scholarships for poor students.
A strong union would directly curb the allegations of appointments based on political loyalty and ideological proximity that have surfaced in recent years.
The administration absolutely does not want an institutional body on campus that has the legal and moral mandate to hold students to account for their rights, sitting at the Vice Chancellor and Registrar’s desk.
This is why, whenever students have raised their voices, the administration’s attitude has been that of a guardian, not a repressive colonial police officer. Dissenting scholars and students are served show-cause notices, threatened with eviction from hostels, fabricated inquiry committees are set up to ruin their academic careers, and hefty fines are imposed. The Proctor’s office has been transformed from a disciplinary committee into a police apparatus that spies on and harasses students.
Militarization of the Campus
December 15, 2019, is one of the darkest dates in the history of Indian higher education. That night, the Delhi Police and paramilitary forces broke into Jamia Millia Islamia’s gates and entered the Central Library, Zakir Hussain Library, and Ibn-e-Sina campus, unleashing brutality that shook the entire world. Tear gas shells were fired inside sacred places of worship and study halls, bones of unarmed students were broken, and one student was permanently blinded.
The criminal silence of the Jamia administration that night and its tacit consent to the police entering the campus proved that instead of protecting its own students, it had become a tool of the oppressive machinery of power.
Since that brutality in 2019, whenever a protest has taken place at Jamia, barricades at Gate No. 7, Gate No. 8, and Gate No. 18, anti-riot vehicles deployed 24 hours a day, and armed CRPF and Delhi Police personnel are seen outside the gates even before the protest begins. What does this evidence? Is the university a sensitive international border or a prison?
The psychological impact of this continued militarization of the campus is horrific. A state of constant surveillance is being instilled among students. When students sit in Ghalib Lawn or the Central Canteen to discuss their rights, they are under surveillance by hidden cameras and plainclothes security personnel. A massive police force is called into the campus at midnight to arrest four or five students on a peaceful hunger strike. This is a direct attack on the university’s fundamental character, which advocates for independent thinking and fearless debate.
The Politics of Silencing the Muslim Minority IdentityThe attacks on institutions like Jamia and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) cannot be seen in isolation from India’s contemporary political landscape. In other central universities be it Delhi University (DU) or Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)—regular elections are held, and student politics is celebrated. But as soon as the issue of student unions is raised at Jamia or AMU, the entire system becomes attentive. There’s a deep and poisonous political motive behind this: to eradicate the political consciousness and democratic leadership of Muslim youth.
The regime fears the democratic courage displayed by Jamia students during the 2019 anti-CAA-NRC protests, using the tricolor and the Preamble of the Constitution as shields to awaken the entire nation. Since that movement, Jamia has been turned into a laboratory to test how the backbone of an entire community and a historic institution can be broken by administrative force and government pressure.
This undeclared twenty-year ban on unions is, in effect, an attempt to send a message to youth from minority communities that they may have the right to study, but they do not have the right to participate in national politics, to protect their rights, or to participate in policymaking. While making them obedient employees is acceptable, this regime cannot tolerate their existence as vocal, aware, and constitutional citizens.
Students’ Hunger Strike
Amid all this repression, police surveillance and administrative conspiracies, if there is any ray of hope left, it is those brave students of Jamia boys and girls who are sitting on hunger strike, putting their lives at risk. When Jamia’s female students and dozens of young people sit on hunger strike under the open sky in the nights of October, they are not fighting only for themselves. They are fighting for the generations to come who will enter through the gates of Jamia tomorrow.
The vague order recently issued by the administration that elections will be held 15 days after the Constitution is framed—is merely another ploy to divert the movement and break the students’ hunger strike. Until there is a written announcement of clear election dates, an impartial election committee, and the withdrawal of the false disciplinary cases registered against students, trusting such lollipops would be a betrayal of the students’ 20-year struggle.
Every fragment of Jamia Millia Islamia today is questioning its own guardians. This university is not the hereditary estate of any Vice-Chancellor, any Chief Proctor, or any minister sitting in power. This institution was built with the blood, sweat and donations of those fakirs, mujahids and thinkers who sacrificed their lives for the country’s independence.
Every fragment of Jamia Millia Islamia today is questioning its own guardians. This university is not the hereditary estate of any Vice-Chancellor, any Chief Proctor, or any minister sitting in power. This institution was built with the blood, sweat and donations of those fakirs, mujahids and thinkers who sacrificed their lives for the country’s independence.
The demand for a students’ union is not a beggar’s plea for favour; it is the fundamental right to form an association guaranteed under Article 19(1)(c) of the Indian Constitution. The Jamia administration must remove from its mind the delusion that it will bury the voice of 25,000 students forever with the bayonets of the police and the fear of suspension.
History bears witness that no matter how strong the palaces in which Pharaohs reside, a single spark of justice is enough to shake their thrones. The students of Jamia have shown patience for twenty years, but now their patience has become a movement that will not stop until the union is restored. The administration should abandon the language of guns and come to the democratic table, remove paramilitary forces from the campus, and immediately announce direct, impartial students’ union elections. Because the day Jamia’s student falls silent, not only will a university die, but one of the strongest pillars of this country’s democracy will collapse.
History bears witness that no matter how strong the palaces in which Pharaohs reside, a single spark of justice is enough to shake their thrones. The students of Jamia have shown patience for twenty years, but now their patience has become a movement that will not stop until the union is restored. The administration should abandon the language of guns and come to the democratic table, remove paramilitary forces from the campus, and immediately announce direct, impartial students’ union elections. Because the day Jamia’s student falls silent, not only will a university die, but one of the strongest pillars of this country’s democracy will collapse.
