 Education is not sold. That is what JNU stood as an idea and today the fight is exactly that. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today we are here at the Jawaharlal Lehru University in New Delhi, India where massive student protests have been going on since the last few days. These began when the administration announced its decision to hike the hostel fees and impose curfew timings on the hostel. So on Monday, the students began a long march which started at the university campus and they had planned to end it at the parliament, but on the way the students faced multiple police barricades and violent police repression, many students got injured during the baton charge by the police. Our reporter Arun Kumar was also among the ones injured during the police violence. So talk more about this, these developments. What the movement is, we are joined by Aishri Ghosh who is the president of the JNU Students Union. Aishri, thank you for joining us today. So firstly, can you tell us what the movement really is about? What is this fee, the fee must fall movement and why the students so strongly opposed to the fee hike? So specifically talking about, I'll talk about the fees must fall movement which was started actually in South Africa in 2015 October, if you see and the president of then union was Shahira Kalla who started majorly. The idea was that educational institutions should be more funded by the governments, it should be public funded education systems where government spends a lot more on educations and there was exactly a fee hike happening in those universities at that time in South Africa. The movement went for an year and at the end of the year a student led protest which started with fee hike and public spending in education was all the demands were met where the government had to agree to all those points. Exactly we see in the Jawaharlal Nehru University something like that so far happened. In the month of October suddenly a hostel manual comes into place in public domain where it was told that fees will be hiked and suddenly we see more than 1000% fee has been hiked and JNU as in premier institute has been known for an institute which has always accommodated the whole of the country. It has accommodated students from distant part of this country giving deprivation points to those places which have not even been known to maybe the certain sections of the population of this country. There have been students from Kala and in Urissa there have been students from distant parts in Maharashtra, UP, Bihar, Bengal and the most quartile districts of this country and that is the beauty of JNU. The JNU has always been a university when it was built by the act of parliament. It was a university which gives education, higher education at an affordable price and education is not so sold. That is what JNU stood as an idea and today the fight is exactly that. That hostel fee hike will lead to thousands of students leaving this campus within a month. It's not even a month for the new registration to come up. It will lead to the maximum students leaving the campus and today this protest is about that that today we are not fighting for this generation who is still there in JNU. It's also about the fight of the upcoming many generations which would see look beyond that tomorrow if they want to get a research degree they would love to come to JNU, a space like JNU where a PhD degree is affordable at a rate of 283 rupees and that is where the sole problem lies at this moment in a capitalist world, in a world, in a global order where there is sectors which everything has been privatized. It's that education sector is left in some of the corners and spaces of the world which is trying to be preserved that they are able to preserve themselves as the last and the sole of the country's public funded education system and those are been in the sole attack at this moment that if these sole heart in these different countries are finished then the whole problem ends and it will be a win-win situation for the capitalist model. At this moment if you see in Chile, in Pakistan, similarly in India at this moment huge protest at the similar timing is going about fee hikes if you see. And can you tell us about the sort of response the administration has given to all these protests because we've also there's also been many reports that the VC the vice chancellor of the university has not really been engaging with the students at all. Today is the 24th day it's going to complete and there has been no response from the vice chancellor or the administration because this is the agenda if you see of privatized capitalist mind this is the agenda to slightly tire down movements to not respond to suffocate the movements into themselves but the GNU students have shown the way this time. They have been indomitable spirit and united spirit and struggle that this time we are not leaving the way whether it's fighting it within the campus people have gone out and this is not the long march only if you see GNU students have been out on the streets also on the 11th of November when our convocation was happening and when the M.H.R.D. minister was present we went there and brutal Lathi church happened that day also obviously lesser than the one which happened during the parliament but water cannons were also there tear gas was there but students didn't back out because this time it's the question of the survival of the students the right to study the right to existence within university spaces the first generation learners their right to even get an education first time in their family so the administration has been clearly deaf to our demands but what we have gotten response is by the higher power committee which the M.H.R.D. has formed and today the GNU SU had met the 46 member council of the GNU students union have met the ministry of human resource development's high power committee setup and we have clearly put up that the university should be listening and today if the crisis is going on and there's an 24 day crisis within the GNU campus it's only because of the incompetent vice chancellor and not because of the students because the students have been ready for dialogue from the very first day till the 25th day today and the students are still ready for the dialogue because of which they're waiting outside the vice chancellor office but the vice chancellor is continuously communicating through twitter or social media accounts which is not the way for communication if you have to communicate you have to talk to all these stakeholders of the university who are going to get affected by this policies by and large and this actually is not happening dialogue has no other way other than coming down on a table and discussing the matter in a large detail and finally why do you think that GNU particularly has been targeted so relentlessly in these past few years but particularly since this right-wing government bgp government came into power in terms of both as a part of both the attacks on public education and also because you know jnu has been your left space so uh exactly i would agree to it because if you see i will take a note from the recently passed comments on jnu that jnu has been hub of urban nuxels jnu should be shut down again the debate of shut down jnu going on and why is jnu been targeted is quietly because jnu has been seen as a left dominated space because this jnu has always talked about in free education for us jnu has always talked about affordable education because jnu students union has always talked about an education system which is just affordable for all accessible for all and that is something which is pricking the eye of this right-wing government that they want every space to be privatized whether we are breathing whether we are drinking water everything should be chargeable and that is what is not the idea of the left movements largely if you see the all if you have seen ever left movements or students movement across they have always talked about things which would be state-owned how state can provide more facilities to the student to the people if taxes are been taking from students from the people of the citizens of the country that people should be repaid back through other facilities whether it's health care whether it's education whether other facilities to the citizens but exactly opposite what the right-wing governments want that no people will be charged for everything my father is paying tax my mom is paying tax and there have been other citizens who are paying taxes and why should taxes been taxes are been used on futile things why are taxes been used on crores on statues taxpayers are also in support if you have been seen in the last two three days there was a trend in twitter taxpayers with jnu exactly my point there are students who are getting grf they are also contributing through hre to the university and the administration so those money should be used to life for the students by building more libraries more hostile facilities more books in libraries more journals but that is exactly not the idea of the government at this moment their idea is to take the money and to give it up to the corporate houses which are looting people at this moment if you see there has been no question by the current government to need of modi that thousands of crores of rupees have been taken by that person and have been fled away from the country but till now questions have been asked that why jnu students are studying at 238 rupees because i want to ask what time has a jnu student done by occurring a phd degree a jnu student questions and that is what they don't want that students will study students will get educated they will get empowered they will question they will question why does governments don't spend more on education why do governments don't spend more on health care and that is what they fear they are exactly doing what the capitalist system and the global order wants them to do they're actually succumbing to that system where more spending should be there on the capitalist tycoons and lesser spending on the public spending and the citizens of the countries and finally can you tell us about the larger attack on public higher education right now because apart from jnu there are also other Indian institutes and universities who are facing similar suffering similarly right now see when we started it as a movement it was a very jnu centric movement but today when i stand i feel that this movement should go beyond jnu and from the first day even i had that in mind that this movement shouldn't be stuck only to jnu because if it sucks to jnu the movement fails if it's a fees must fall movement it should be for all and jnu has been known for it the jnu has always spoken has been the voice for the voiceless and today when we are speaking we are speaking for every iit every iam every kind of aims medical colleges uttarakhand ayurvedic colleges which are fighting from the last 60 days doing an hunger strike we are talking for every other public funded education and today also when we spoke to the high power committee we told ki we know jnu is nothing special we exactly know that and that's why we want that thousands of jnu should come up in a country like india because students want to study there are thousands crores of students who want to study and exactly they are not able to study because there has been no funding there has been no fellowship the government doesn't encourage education in our country education is always seen as an alternative to job this is the problem education is never seen as a sector where you can learn it has been seen as a profit making sector where you study to get a job only and that is where the problem lies so at this moment it's a larger policy level attack and this fight has to go beyond jnu i'm really happy to see that at this moment iITs are fighting today solidarity notes from iIT delhi and goati has come out and there is a larger movement which is happening bhu is fighting du is fighting and there are namely other universities which is actually maybe it's not reaching out to me they're fighting for their fee hike and that is what jnu wanted to do this government should understand that students are not handful the whole youth of this country is wanting free public education wanting more funding of the government in public education and that's where the movement success is it's not only just to diet out here in jnu campus but to make a narrative to given solidarity not only in this country but outside the country that public education should be made accessible to each and every citizen of the countries thank you for talking to us today and that's all the time we have for 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