JNU�s political legacy

It is not for the first time that there has been ‘trouble’ in New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University. Let it be clarified that ‘trouble’ is indeed not the right word here but it is used intentionally.
Way back in 1975, PS Bhinder, then Delhi Police Commissioner, had picked up Prabhir Purkhayastha, like Rambo would do in cinema, driving his white ambassador car with doors open and pulling into it the student that Prabhir then was. Well. He had not intended to pick up Prabhir. He had mistaken him (wearing thick rimmed glasses) to DP Tripathi, now a senior leader of the Nationalist Congress Party, then President of the university’s students union. Prabhir, nevertheless, was also critical of the Emergency and Indira Gandhi and hence Bhinder ordered (or was it Sanjay Gandhi) to keep Prabhir too behind bars. Tripathi too was arrested soon, apart from such others as Sitaram Yechury (all of them SFI leaders then) to secure the integrity of the nation, which was in danger according to Indira Gandhi. There were such others as the late Digvijay Singh, who would become a minister in the Union cabinet and represent India as its junior minister for foreign affairs for a while. He was not a communist. JNU also was home to Prabhakar Parkala (he was a Congress students wing leader then and now in the BJP) and his wife Nirmala Sitaraman, now a Union minister (though not known to have held any political positions then). Selvagana­pathy, who was last seen in the DMK, was also a student of JNU. There was Maneka Gandhi, who too was a student then in JNU and now a Union minister.
The list will be endless if one tries to name those in the bureaucracy, the Intelligence agencies, including the RAW, and the scores in the media at various levels. Baburam Bhattarai, whose comrades ruled Nepal for a while was also a student of JNU.
In 1983, then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi was shouted down by students while addressing a function. Slogans against her were, incidentally, heard on the AIR, broadcasting her speech live that day. Over 300 students were arrested, charged under various sections of the Penal Code and even sent to the Tihar jail the same year when the administration decided to put down a strike in the campus.
 DNA

JNU�s political legacy

It is not for the first time that there has been trouble in New Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University. Let it be clarified that trouble is indeed not the right word here but it is used intentionally. Way back in 1975, PS Bhinder, then Delhi Police Commissioner, had picked up Prabhir Purkhayastha, like Rambo would do in cinema, driving his white ambassador car with doors open and pulling into it the student that Prabhir then was. Well. He had not intended to pick up Prabhir. He had mistaken him (wearing thick rimmed glasses) to DP Tripathi, now a senior leader of the Nationalist Congress Party, then President of the universitys students union. Prabhir, nevertheless, was also critical of the Emergency and Indira Gandhi and hence Bhinder ordered (or was it Sanjay Gandhi) to keep Prabhir too behind bars. Tripathi too was arrested soon, apart from such others as Sitaram Yechury (all of them SFI leaders then) to secure the integrity of the nation, which was in danger according to Indira Gandhi. There were such others as the late Digvijay Singh, who would become a minister in the Union cabinet and represent India as its junior minister for foreign affairs for a while. He was not a communist. JNU also was home to Prabhakar Parkala (he was a Congress students wing leader then and now in the BJP) and his wife Nirmala Sitaraman, now a Union minister (though not known to have held any political positions then). Selvaganapathy, who was last seen in the DMK, was also a student of JNU. There was Maneka Gandhi, who too was a student then in JNU and now a Union minister. The list will be endless if one tries to name those in the bureaucracy, the Intelligence agencies, including the RAW, and the scores in the media at various levels. Baburam Bhattarai, whose comrades ruled Nepal for a while was also a student of JNU. In 1983, then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi was shouted down by students while addressing a function. Slogans against her were, incidentally, heard on the AIR, broadcasting her speech live that day. Over 300 students were arrested, charged under various sections of the Penal Code and even sent to the Tihar jail the same year when the administration decided to put down a strike in the campus. DNA