JNU not a place to pursue political aspirations: VC Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit

Students with political aspirations should pursue their interests outside the university, the first woman vice chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit said in an interview with news agency PTI.

She said language is a “sensitive issue” and pushing it “too hard” can lead to “regionalism”.

“JNU is not a place for pursuing political aspirations; those who did politics on campus are in jail… Language is a sensitive issue, pushing a particular language too hard could lead to regionalism,” Pandit said.

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Addressing the issue of multilingualism in the National Education Policy (NEP), the JNU VC said the government should be careful while pushing regional languages and it should not lead to “strong regional identities”, and suggested following the framework of multilingualism while promoting regional languages.

“NEP is for multilingualism and I totally support it. The only thing I have a slight difference of opinion is how we are going to teach 27 languages of India,” she said, adding, “We have to be a little careful on languages because it is a thing of primordial identity.” She also said linguistic parties are quite popular and they can take advantage if the mother tongue is pushed too much.

The vice chancellor further said universities must receive “good things” from NEP and it is not being forced upon anybody. “It (NEP) is just a document. This is not anything that is being pushed down on anybody. I think we can take good things from it,” she said.

Vice chancellor Pandit said JNU is a politically active campus, however, “ninety percent of the students are apolitical and only 10% are troublemakers.” She further suggested those students who want to be in politics should go outside and fight elections.