Brinda Bose, JNU

In this paper I will explore the space of the public university in the Indian metropolis in this, an age of increasing governmental and administrative control of education and culture. The university has always been conceived of, and perceived as, a utopic space for the free exchange of ideas housing a community that embodies, paradoxically, the possibility of soaring fearlessly and democratically within and outside of it. The state of the public university in India today, particularly in its premier cities, has however degenerated alarmingly into sinkholes of surveillance and control, moral panic, discipline and punishment.

Examining particular situations/events at two university campuses in recent times – Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and Delhi University – I will attempt to think through questions of the utopic and the dystopic in the public university space vis-à-vis the city it is a part of. Is there a growing intention to turn the public university into a site at which a conformist, passive citizen of the future will be bred and trained? Is there a sense across political parties that targeting educational institutions and clipping any impulsions toward free-thinking will eventually result in adult voters who will be unresisting and amenable to greater and more hardboiled state control in all spheres of metropolitan life? Today the public university is being rapidly transformed into a closely-monitored gated community.

What are the ways in which its inhabitants can try to resist these political moves of the state so as to keep the passage between the university and the city outside its walls clear for a two-way movement, even if this includes the possibility of combat and danger? How can stakeholders of the public university stop the closing of its gates (metaphorically and physically) in the name of their security and safety, knowing that such restraints are far more dangerous for the future of the university – and thereby, the city it inhabits – than the free play of outsiders and insiders, ideas, arguments and dreams through and between them?