Jawaharlal Nehru University classes on, mostly in the open

NEW DELHI: Even though the winter semester at Jawaharlal Nehru University commenced a little over 10 days ago, classes have yet to pick up steam. Most of these have been organised outside the classrooms. The backlog from the monsoon semester, marred by constant strikes and boycotts, has yet to be cleared.
While vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar has, in a series of statements, maintained that normalcy has returned to the campus, teachers allege that there is no clarity about the future.After the students secured an interim relief from Delhi high court over registration on Friday, there is some hope that the months of agitation may end soon.
JNUSU had given a call for the boycott of classes and end-semester exams in December in protest against the hostel fee hike effected after an Inter-Hall Administration meeting on October 28.
On January 16, Kumar stated at a press conference: “A great number of faculty members are actively working to make sure that academic interests of the students are addressed.” Teachers, however, disagree. The unofficial line of JNU Teachers’ Association has been to either refuse to conduct classes altogether or do it of their own accord after discussions with students.
On Friday, too, some classes were held in the open. Sharad Baviskar, a professor of Centre for French and Francophone Studies, took a class on French literature on the stairs of Language Laboratory. He told TOI that he was clearing the backlog from the previous semester.
Many classes for graduate, postgraduate and pre-PhD courses were taking place in the same manner, “but only after coordinating with the teachers and only to clear the backlog from the previous semester”, said Raj Kishor, a student at School of Languages.
Preeti Umrao, a student at School of Life Sciences, said even exams had started, but these were not being conducted online or via WhatsApp as desired by VC. “MSc and pre-PhD scholars are coordinating with the teachers and planning their own tests. In our school, we sought a week’s buffer to finish the syllabus from the previous semester. We are now waiting for JNUTA’s call to start the classes for the new session,” she said.
A student at School of Computer & Systems Sciences, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “We have been asked to clear the exams and, then, start the classes for the next semester.”
Some students of management, engineering and Sanskrit, however, claimed that it had been business as usual all along and there was no backlog of classes.