Beyond Walls: How University Housing Can Bridge Cultural Divides

The recent inauguration of the newly-built Barak Hostel in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) might suggest that the university administration has done injustice to students from the northeastern states. But on closer examination, we feel inclined to agree with the vice chancellor of JNU.

One may disagree with her arguments in favour of the decision, but her basic point is correct: there is a need to promote a culture of integration among different types of students on university campuses. Separate hostels should not be built on the basis of identities, whether they are religious, caste-based, linguistic or regional.

According to a report by The Scroll, the university's vice-chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit declared that there would be no reservation in the hostel for students from the North East. "JNU believes in unity,” the vice-chancellor is heard saying in a video shared by students. “It doesn't believe in isolating any community on the campus.”

She added, "JNU follows the Constitution of India. No separation of any identity on this campus."

Further, she said, "Tomorrow if Maharashtra wants to give or if Tamil Nadu gives, then we cannot set up a hostel just for students from that state."

The vice chancellor says that JNU believes in unity and does not want to isolate students from any community. The argument of unity sounds good but can sometimes be used against diversity. Therefore, it would have been better to say that JNU believes in the principle of diversity and is in favour of keeping various identities side by side in every residential place. They are expected to create the possibility of friendship rather than establishing unity.

The North Eastern Students Council of JNU, opposing the vice chancellor's decision and reiterating the demand for a hostel with 75% seats reserved for themselves, said, "This is a demand for a safe place which was promised to us by those in power, so that more students from this region can be encouraged to apply to JNU (which is evident from the decline in enrollment of Northeast students in the past years)." 

This statement suggests that students from the Northeast do not feel safe everywhere on the JNU campus if in the minority, and hence they are demanding a hostel where their numbers would dominate others. According to them, the initial agreement included a promise to reserve 75% of the seats for Northeast students in the 'Barak Hostel,' which the vice chancellor is now not ready to honour.

The students claim that the MOU between the university and the council clearly states that 75% of the hostel seats would be reserved for students from the northeastern states.

The students from the Northeast claim that a dedicated hostel would give them a sense of security. They are making this demand as bearers of a Northeast identity. However, is there a single umbrella of northeastern identity under which students from Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Tripura, Mizoram and Sikkim can come together and feel safe?

Students from northeastern states need to consider how ironic it sounds when they argue for a composite northeastern identity in 2025. 

Also read: Academic Censorship Has Become the Norm in Indian Universities

In 2023, I participated in a protest by Kuki students in Delhi University in the wake of the violence against them in Manipur. There were people from other states but no Meitei could be seen there. I did not find any Naga or Khasi students either. Just before reading this report, we learned that the Meitei Heritage Welfare Foundation had submitted a formal representation to Union home minister Amit Shah alleging that Meitei pilgrims were barred from reaching Thangjing Hill – a site of religious significance for the Meitei community. According to them, Kuki groups were preventing them from reaching the hills.

What we see is that even in Manipur, we do not have one Manipuri identity. It is so fractured that someone from the Meitei community now feels safer with a North Indian than a northeastern person.

After the violence in Manipur, it was expected that the Kukis and Meiteis living in universities would be able to come together and protest against the violence. It did not happen. They too became representatives of their respective ethnic groups. Even the advantage of living far away from Manipur could not keep them away from the hatred that these two groups had developed toward each other. Here too, they started fearing each other. They got divided in JNU or Delhi University too. We did not see a northeastern unity or identity appealing enough to bring the two together.

On the other hand, in the Northeast, if the Mizos opened their doors for the Kuki community, they closed them for the Chakma people. A warning was issued against the entry of Mizos in Assam. Inner line permit was demanded in Meghalaya, which would also affect people from the rest of the northeastern states. Keeping this in mind, how is the university expected to put students from these groups together in the same hostel?

It can be said that this is an extraordinary situation and does not refute the point of the northeastern students. But how valid and weighty is their argument of insecurity in the context of the campus? Do they feel insecure from students of other states? Can teachers also say the same thing? Shouldn't the teachers too demand a separate Northeast teachers' colony for themselves?

We have seen violence in Delhi due to prejudice against people from northeastern states. So the argument of insecurity is not completely meaningless. However, is putting the students from the Northeast in a separate residential corner a solution to this?

University campuses are different from the society outside. They challenge the prejudices prevalent in society. They try to create new communities instead of reproducing and reinforcing existing social communities and given social bonds. They create opportunities and space for new kinds of intimacies and friendships. It is the university which can imagine a Bengali-Tamil, a Manipuri-Bihari, a Haryanavi-Kannadiga, or a Kuki-Bengali couple. Hindu-Muslim, Sikh-Jain friendships get nurtured on campuses.

When we started building the campus of Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University in Wardha, students from the northeastern states arrived in good numbers. We saw deep friendships developing between them and North Indian students; in fact, some couples were also formed on campus.

We all have irrational prejudices about each other. Campuses provide an opportunity to examine our prejudices because they force us to sit next to people we have only heard stories about. We live in hostels with such strangers and then realise that they have the same weaknesses and strengths as we do, which means we are all human beings after all. The journey from strangeness to acquaintance and friendship is not easy but it is possible on campus.

Campuses should make conscious efforts to develop a new kind of mutuality. In a society like India, where discrimination is justified in the name of diversity, this is difficult but necessary. In Bihar, the experience has been that students of one caste unofficially reserve a hostel for their caste. Other castes feel insecure there. Bhumihars together in one hostel or one wing, Rajputs together in another, Kurmis and Yadavs carving out their own corners. They remained Bhumihar, Rajput, Brahmin even after spending years on the campus.

The most insecure were the students of the Dalit community. Separate 'welfare department hostels' were built for them because the feeling of security was most important for them. But separate hostels for the Dalit community should be a matter of shame for universities and the 'upper castes.'

Today, it is the Muslim identity which is most unsafe. People have all kinds of prejudices against them – and there is real fear. So, should separate hostels be built for them?

We should take advantage of this controversy over the ownership of the JNU hostel and start a debate on residential policies on campuses. When I started researching this matter, I found that no university considered it necessary to clearly declare a residential policy for students and teachers. Universities in India and abroad try to arrange accommodation for students and teachers on campus. This is necessary because students and teachers come from far away places, and it is difficult for many to find accommodation in the city. Hostels are built for them to live on campus. However, the policy on the basis of which students should be admitted to these hostels is not clearly stated.

In villages and towns, even in cities, Dalits and upper castes do not live together. Dalits are often victims of upper caste violence. How safe do these Dalits feel in a university where the upper castes are in the majority? What should be done about that? Will a separate hostel solve this problem? They will meet each other in the library, mess and class. Living together in the hostel will give them more opportunities to get to know each other. That can help in removing prejudices.

So, the students from the Northeast should reconsider their demands. They have been living in JNU since its beginning. Has any study been done on their experience of living on the campus which shows that they are not safe there? Has this study been done on people coming from other states? On that basis, a decision can be taken to have a separate hostel for the students of Northeast in JNU, decades after its formation.

What the students of Northeast are demanding, Biharis could have also demanded a while back because many prejudices about them have existed in Delhi for generations. Similarly, students from Kerala and Tamil Nadu can also say that they feel insecure due to the negative propaganda being spread about their states in North India. Should there be separate residential arrangements for them too?

The context is Delhi. But in Kerala or Manipur or Nagaland too, there is unfamiliarity and prejudice against people from other states. Students from other states also go to campuses there. What kind of residential arrangements should be made for them?

As we said in the beginning, campuses provide an opportunity for people speaking different languages, following different religions and beliefs to become each other's neighbours. They spend at least two years together. After this, they are able to understand each other more. They are able to become better Indians and better human beings. This is not part of any curriculum but perhaps the most important work of universities is this: to create new neighbourhoods. 

Barak Hostel can become the new base for this campaign of creating diversely harmonious neighbourhoods. Let us hope that 10 years from now, we will meet a Bihari and a Mizo whose friendship will transcend their regional identities and will have blossomed and developed in the Barak hostel. Instead of asking how many Nobel Prize winners came out of that hostel, we can also ask how many friendships and belongings like these were formed there.

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