STUDENT MOVEMENT AT J N U 53 changes j.n the university's undemocratic setup- and policies^ They have built up a strong democratic movement in the course of the struggle for democratizatiatx by cwmt6ring tto bourgeois-landlord educational ideology propagated assiduously in Indian higher education. 1 One of the deans is a member of the CPI," another dean and professor is a Congress-nominated Rajya Sabha member. a Three of the four members of the Task Force were: Yogendra Singh, T K Oommen and Imtiaz Ahmcd (all ofJNU). The fourth was a deputy commissioner of police. The report is entitled "Emerging Social Processes and Patterns in India and Their Implications for Police Training", A Report of the Task Force, Committee on Police Training, Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi, 1972. One of the recommendations in this report is "Maybe there is a need for a speical cadre of police officials to deal with students." (p 54) 8 Roughly 16 per cent of the bookings of participants in the ^Spotlight* programme of AIR who earned the maximum fee of Rs 100 between 1 December 1970 and 30 November 1973 came from JNU. (Answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No 4503) 4 Attention should be drawn here to the statement of the Minister of Defence: "A number of projects (of the Research and Development Organization) have been farmed out to ... universities and other scientific institutions with a view to develop the capability in these institutions for taking up Defence-oriented research..." (Reply to starred question No 247 answered in Lok Sabha on 8 March 1973). Obviously JNJJ is one such university with its developing School of Life Sciences (dealing with biological and chemical sciences), computer sciences etc^ ideal for this type of research. 5 See Patriot of 9 April 1975 for report to the effect that the government has relaxed the ban imposed in June 1972 on financing of research schemes from PL-480 funds in the fields of agriculture, education, health and family planning. These are the projects cleared by the Indo-US Commission talks and the leading initiative in defreezing PL-480 funds has been taken by vice-chancellor Nag Chaudhuri. 6 Staff-to-student ratio was on an average of 1:5 in 1973, but thanks to the union's fight for increased admissions it averages around 1:10 now. 7 Some of the academic council members like Bipan Chandra of the history faculty tried their best to block this resolution on the plea that this would not help the really deserving SC/ST candidates and that indiscriminate entry would lower academic stird^r ^ 8 The struggle to accomplish this was conducted by the students in February-March 1973 which included dharnas, demonstrations and a one-day strike. 9 "Examination Report, A Plan of Action", University Grants Commission, 1973, pp 11. 1 ° One of the common arguments is that this right of appeal would be used by the authorities to muzzle teachers or a hostile students' union.. It is however conveniently for* gotten that students would not participate in the re-evaluation process. Further, another argument put forward is that this would be used against 'leftist teachers' in the future by a right-wing students^ union. This boils down to the point that to safeguard the rights of leftist teachers' the democratic rights of all students must be denied. ! l For instance in the grades given to MA students graduating in 1974 it was found that an A grade in the Centre of Political Studies when converted to equivalent percentage was 3 to 4 marks less than in other centres. 12 The union was forced to raise this matter in March 1974 when the union president placed a resolution in the academic council to the effect that JNU academics roust fulfil their primary commitment to the academic work within the university. 18 G P Deshpande, lecturer in East Asian studies in the School of International Studies