It has begun again. As I walk through the familiar, leafy corridors of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the air is thick not just with the winter smog of Delhi, but with the suffocating smoke of a renewed media trial. The cameras are back at the gates, the hashtags are trending, and the prime-time anchors have donned their judicial robes. The verdict is being delivered swiftly and without appeal: JNU is "anti-national."
The accusation? That students raised slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The ghosts of the "Tukde Tukde Gang" narrative have been summoned from the shallow graves of 2016, and the calls to "Shutdown JNU" are echoing across the digital landscape.
But as a student of history at this university, and as an activist who believes in the constitutional promise of India, I am compelled to pause and ask a fundamental question—one that seems to have been erased from our collective memory in this noise.
Modi-RSS ka virodh desh virodh kab se ho gaya? (Since when did opposing Modi and the RSS become opposing the country?)
We are standing at a point in our democracy where the distinction between the State (the government of the day) and the Nation (the enduring collective of its people) is being deliberately blurred. To understand why the protests within JNU are not only legal but deeply patriotic in their own way, we must look beyond the screaming headlines and return to the texts, the history, and the very philosophy of what a university is meant to be.
The University: A World of its Own
To understand the rage of the student, one must first understand the sacred purpose of the university. The popular narrative paints the students as freeloaders, wasting taxpayer money on politics instead of studying. But this view is a crude caricature that ignores the essential function of higher education in a free society.
In his seminal work on university politics, the scholar Gordon Johnson provides a definition that every critic of the University should read. Referring to the famous academic satirist FM Cornford, Johnson describes the university as "one of those peculiar forms of social organisation which have evolved for the express purpose of creating, discovering, preserving and transmitting knowledge."
This "creation and discovery" cannot happen in a vacuum of obedience. It requires friction. It requires the testing of ideas.
Johnson notes that for a university to function, its scholars and students must be "free from undue interference from those who do not share immediate membership of their society with them." The university is, in essence, "a world of its own," a sanctuary where the immediate, pragmatic demands of the political world are suspended so that truth can be pursued without fear or favour.
Cornford argued that a university must maintain an "absolute impartiality towards all matters of speculation." It is a place designed to question the unquestionable. When a student stands at Sabarmati Dhaba and question the policies of the RSS, or when he/she critiques the Home Minister’s vision for India, they are not attacking the nation. If a university cannot critique the most powerful men in the country, it ceases to be a centre of learning and becomes a propaganda wing of the state.
The Canary in the Coal Mine
A common question thrown at us is: "Why are students always the first to protest? Why can't they just focus on their degrees?"
The sociologist Philip G Altbach, a world-renowned authority on student movements, offers a profound answer that frames dissent not as a nuisance, but as a service to the nation. He compares student political movements to the "proverbial canary in the coal mine."
In the early days of mining, workers would carry a canary in a cage down into the tunnels. If the bird stopped singing or died, it meant that toxic gases, invisible to the human eye, were building up, and an explosion was imminent. The bird did not cause the danger; it warned of it.
Altbach writes that student protests "May be a sign of a social explosion to come or of a building political crisis." When JNU students shout slogans against the economic policies of the Modi government, the communal rhetoric of the RSS, or the administrative overreach of the Home Ministry, they are acting as that canary. To silence the students, to kill the canary, is not to solve the problem, it is to invite the explosion.
Altbach further explains that this "intellectual ferment" is a "natural result of the academic setting." He notes that in many nations, the concept of "sowing wild oats" extends to politics, where it is assumed that students will take an "active and often volatile role." This volatility is not a crime; it is the heartbeat of a living democracy.
Nehru’s Vision: Students as the Conscience of the Nation
The irony of labelling student protesters as "anti-national" is particularly bitter when one considers the history of Indian independence. The current regime seems to have forgotten that the very freedom they enjoy today, the freedom to hold office, to make laws, to govern, was won by students who disobeyed the law.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of modern India, did not view student politics with the suspicion we see today. He regarded it as a moral and revolutionary force essential to India’s struggle for freedom. He believed that students carried within them the "conscience and courage of the nation," capable of transforming protest into purposeful action.
This conviction was vividly expressed in 1936, when Nehru inaugurated the All India Students' Federation (AISF), India’s first national student organisation. Through this, he sought to channel youthful energy into a united front against imperialism, fascism, and social injustice.
Nehru admired the revolutionary zeal of students who, through marches, strikes, and underground activities, kept the flame of resistance alive when political leaders were imprisoned.
Yet, Nehru was equally insistent that revolution must rest upon discipline and moral clarity. In his 1945 address to Congress student workers, he warned that "passion without purpose could dissolve into chaos." He urged students to cultivate intellect, courage, and service, to be politically conscious yet selfless, bold yet balanced. For him, student politics was not about personal ambition but about building a just and humane order.
When university protests today, it is the heirs of this legacy. Their slogans are not "chaos"; they are the "purposeful action" Nehru spoke of.
The Tale of Two Protests: Allahabad vs JNU
To see how far we have fallen in our tolerance for dissent, we need only look back at a forgotten chapter of our history involving Indira Gandhi and the University of Allahabad.
There was a time when the Department of Ancient History at Allahabad University, led by the legendary Professor GR Sharma, invited Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to inaugurate the university museum. The campus, much like JNU today, was a stronghold of vibrant student politics. When Indira Gandhi arrived, she was not greeted with sycophancy. Instead, she faced what reports described as a "bhayankar virodh" (ferocious protest).
Students raised black flags. Slogans were shouted against her government. There was stone-pelting. It was a chaotic, violent expression of student anger against the most powerful woman in the country.
But here is the crucial difference: No one called those students "Desh Virodhi".
No news anchor sat in a studio and demanded the university be shut down. No police force stormed the library to beat students studying for exams. The protest was seen for what it was, a sharp, perhaps volatile, political disagreement between the youth and the state. Even in the heat of the JP Movement, when students across Bihar and Gujarat rose up against the Congress government, Jayaprakash Narayan was hailed as a patriot, and the students were seen as the vanguard of a "Second Freedom Struggle."
Similarly, during the tenure of Dr Manmohan Singh, students burned effigies, marched against corruption, and mocked the government. The Congress party may have disliked it, they may have used police force to disperse crowds, but they never equated themselves with the Nation. They never claimed that to hate the Congress was to hate India.
So, I ask again: When did the rules change? When did Narendra Modi become India? When did Amit Shah become the State? If questioning Indira Gandhi in the 1970s was democracy, why is questioning Narendra Modi in 2026 treason?
A False Equivalence
The narrative being spun today relies on a dangerous conflation. By equating the ruling party (BJP) and its ideological parent (RSS) with the "Nation," the media tries to immunise the government from criticism. If you criticise the RSS, you are accused of attacking Indian culture. If you criticise the PM, you are accused of attacking India's pride.
This is a deception. The RSS is a non-governmental organisation. The BJP is a political party. Narendra Modi is an elected servant of the Constitution. None of them are the country. The country is the Constitution, the people, the land, and the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
When we raise slogans against the "Sangh," we are criticising an ideology that we believe threatens the pluralistic fabric of this nation. When we critique the Home Minister, we are questioning the policies of the state apparatus. This is not treason; it is the most patriotic act a citizen can perform.
As Altbach noted, in many nations, it is assumed that students will take an active and often volatile role in politics. In the US, it was students who stopped the Vietnam War. In France, it was students in 1968 who reshaped the republic. In India, it was students who fought the Emergency.
The students of JNU, are not fighting against India. They are fighting for it. They are fighting to preserve a country where a young research scholar can stand up and say "No" to the Prime Minister without being thrown in jail or branded a terrorist.
They are the heirs of the legacy Nehru built, the "awakened minds and compassionate hearts" that act as the vanguard of freedom.
Protesting against Modi and the RSS is not treason against the country. It is the sound of a democracy breathing.
(Akhilesh Yadav is a Research Scholar, Centre for Historical Studies (CHS), JNU, and Former Vice President of Allahabad University Students' Union. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)