The impossible has become possible in West Bengal. Or perhaps it was always there, hidden behind a camouflage. Jadavpur University, the state’s most premier institution, has brought together the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), arch rivals in every electoral battle in recent memory, over a shared mission – to systematically vilify and dismantle this centre of academic excellence.
Sample this: “The university should be cleared out of left hooligans,” declared Jadavpur Lok Sabha MP Saayoni Ghosh from TMC. Ghosh is an alumna.
Meanwhile, BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari called it “a hub of anti-nationals.”
In the local media, which has ties to both TMC and BJP, primetime debates rage over a lone old graffiti of “Azad Kashmir” and another advocating “Free Palestine” at JU. Celebrity anchors brand graduate students as members of the so-called “tukde tukde gang”, as “Maoists”, as “Urban Naxals”, as “druggies and alcoholics”. One particularly zealous news anchor even compared the university to a breeding ground for terrorists like Ajmal Kasab and said it was “a bastion of Pakistan’s ISI.” His show also saw a top lawyer say the army should be brought into JU.
Republic Bangla promos saying, ‘Like Kashmir, JU will also cool down’ and ‘Is JU working for Pakistan’s ISI?’
The rhetoric did not end there, but has spiralled into outright threats. Heavyweight TMC minister Arup Biswas claimed he could seize control of JU in “one minute.” His party colleague Madan Mitra boasted he could do it in “30 seconds.” BJP’s Dilip Ghosh had set the stage for this years ago, vowing a “surgical strike” – something he has repeated now, along with the declaration that he can “take over” JU in “30 minutes.” This is not mere political showboating, it is a chilling normalisation of considering universities as political trophies, to be captured rather than nurtured. Both parties, while trading barbs in public, speak in unison whilst calling the university a “den of anarchy,” wilfully erasing its globally recognised academic achievements.
This is a course of action copied straight from the BJP’s treatment of JNU, where dissent has been criminalised as “sedition” and students branded “anti-national.”
Today, JU faces the same siege – but with an irony: the TMC, once a vocal critic of the BJP’s assault on JNU, now mirrors its tactics. By reducing Bengal’s top-ranked state-run institution to a partisan battleground, both parties expose their shared contempt for free thinking and their fear of campuses that dare question power.
In both Jadavpur and JNU, fear has been weaponised. Students who dare challenge the state’s narrative are labelled as extremists, drug addicts, or traitors. The consequences of this vilification are for all to see – the attempt on Umar Khalid’s life, the assault on Kanhaiya Kumar outside the court, or firing on students at Jamia Millia Islamia by a Hindutva terrorist. This is the logical culmination of state-sanctioned vilification. Now, terms like “tukde tukde gang” or “urban Naxal” or “Kasab” are not mere slurs but licence for persecution.
Behind the cacophony of manufactured outrage lies a calculated silence – one that masks the systemic dismantling of academic freedom. Under Modi-Shah’s regime, JNU has faced brute-force repression like police invasions, orchestrated smear campaigns, and the appointment of pliable administrators to muzzle dissent. In Bengal, the TMC has taken a subtler yet equally sinister strategy – prolonged administrative instability to weaken the institution from within.
JU does not have a permanent vice-chancellor, registrar or finance officer to manage its administrative affairs. The faculties of Arts, Science, and Engineering are running without deans. Critical governance bodies like the Executive Council, Faculty Councils, and ICC remain unelected, stripped of democratic representation. The University lost its Institute of Eminence (IoE) status due to the state government’s drastic budget cut from Rs 3,299 crore to Rs 606 crore.
Compounding this institutional erosion is the state’s suspension of student union elections, a right denied despite repeated directives from the Calcutta high court and hollow assurances from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee herself. This is not mere neglect, rather a blueprint for allowing campus control through patronage and extortion. For BJP, the latest chaos is an opportunity to replicate the JNU template in Bengal – tarnishing a free-thinking institution to polarise voters and position itself as the ‘saviour’ of law and order.
- The collusion reveals a chilling truth: authoritarian regimes, regardless of party, fear autonomous universities and free-spirited youth.
A politically conscious student body is a direct threat to both TMC and BJP’s authoritarian tendencies. The coordinated attack on Jadavpur is an attack on this very spirit of independent thought.
For those who saw Mamata Banerjee’s TMC as a bacon of democracy counter to Modi’s BJP, the crackdown on Jadavpur University should serve as a reality check. The smear campaigns, administrative sabotage, and media vilification are not just about one university, they are about controlling the narrative and silencing dissent.
