JNU Vice-Chancellor Says Intellectuals Very Important as 'Political Power Requires Narrative Power'

The conference was inaugurated by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, who said that it is time to “reclaim our intellectual sovereignty.”

The Wire Staff

The conference was inaugurated by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, who said that it is time to “reclaim our intellectual sovereignty.”

jnu vice chancellor says intellectuals very important as political power requires narrative power

JNU vice chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit. Photo: Facebook/officialJNU

New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Vice-Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit said on Thursday (July 10) that political power must be supported by narrative power, which requires the contribution of academic institutions.

“Political power requires narrative power. So, intellectuals are very important,” said Pandit on Thursday, reported The Hindu.

Pandit made the comments in her welcome address for the first three-day annual conference on Indian Knowledge systems being held at the JNU. The conference is being jointly organised by JNU and the Ministry of Education’s Indian Knowledge Systems Division, and it aims to provide a forum for academics, researchers, and practitioners to present their views and research on Indian knowledge.

“We hope this first conference will come out with path-breaking papers and will form the basis for any systematic study of Indian knowledge systems. It will also help build narrative power with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to make Viksit Bharat,” said Pandit.

The conference was inaugurated by Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, who said that it is time to “reclaim our intellectual sovereignty.”

“Now is the time to cast off the chains of borrowed narratives and inherited distortions. It is time to reclaim our intellectual sovereignty. This will be done through hard and patient scholarship. We would require an army of translators, researchers, scholars, professors, analysts, linguists, modellers, and the like,” Dhankhar said during the event.

On the sidelines of the event, the JNU Students’ Union continued its indefinite hunger strike, demanding the reinstatement of in-house entrance examinations for all courses, with several students alleging that they were “assaulted” by the Delhi police personnel when they tried to protest outside the convention centre where the conference was being held.

This article went live on July eleventh, two thousand twenty five, at nineteen minutes past three in the afternoon.

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