Around 200 scholars and faculty members from various City-based research institutes protested against the government’s crackdown on New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University at Town Hall on Thursday.  

Students and faculty members from institutes like the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA),  Indian Institute of Science (IISc), National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) and International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS) participated in the protest. 

Abdul Raoof, a PhD student from the Institute of Social and Economic Change (ISEC) said: “The government is trying to promote a new idea of nationalism and trying to reframe this entire concept by using Brahmanical ideology. We have seen that it has been trying to re-write the history of the country and has made many attempts to promote Hindutva ideology.”   

“More than the action taken at JNU, the larger aim of this protest is about the need for democratisation of higher education. Sedition should not be used as a tool to curb dissent. In the case of Kanahaiya, he was victimised using this law. Just because I oppose the AFSPA Act, it does not make me an anti-national. Such decadent laws should be completely removed,” said Ashwin V S, an independent researcher at the Azim Premji University (APU).