For nearly a decade, students from the North East looked forward to having a dedicated hostel for them at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.
In 2016, the university had signed an agreement with the central government’s North East Council, which promotes the development of India’s northeastern region, to build a new hostel on campus, primarily for students from the North East.
The council funded the construction of Barak hostel, named after a river that flows through Manipur, Mizoram and Assam.
However, when the new hostel was inaugurated earlier this month, the students received an unpleasant shock.
The university’s vice-chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit declared that there would be no reservation in the hostel for students from the North East. “JNU believes in unity,” the vice-chancellor is heard saying in a video shared by students. “It doesn’t believe in isolating any community on the campus.”
She added, “JNU follows the Constitution of India. No separation of any identity on this campus.”
Further, she said, “tomorrow if Maharashtra wants to give or if Tamil Nadu gives, then we cannot set up a hostel just for students from that state.”
But students point out that the memorandum of understanding that the university signed with the North East Council in 2016 stated, “JNU will ensure that the seat sharing ratio of 75:25 (NE and Non-NE students) is strictly maintained.”
At the inauguration, when students asked to see the minutes of the meeting held between the North East Council and the university administration, Pundit responded that she would provide them with the minutes, and then appeared to take a threatening tone. “You show me where this is mentioned.” Then, she added, “I will convert this hostel into an administrative block.”
Pandit’s remarks at the inauguration sparked a statement of protest from the university’s North East Student Forum. “It is the demand for the safe space that was promised to us by those in power, to encourage more students from the region to apply to JNU (evidenced by the decline in enrolment from North East students over the past years),” the statement said.
Reacting to the abrupt shift in the university’s position, a PhD scholar who requested not to be identified, said, “The administration makes it sound like 75% is a fictional number the student body came up with.”
The scholar said that it felt as though students from the North East had been used as a “tool” to obtain funding from the council, and were now being abandoned.
Questions sent by Scroll to the university administration remain unanswered at the time of publication.
The plan
Members of the North East Student Forum told Scroll that discussions about a hostel specifically for students from the region began in 2013.
In a statement detailing the timeline of events, the forum mentioned that the chief ministers of two northeastern states and members of the North-East Members of Parliament (NEMP) Forum had first begun negotiations for a separate hostel for the students.
The statement the forum released notes that the project saw delays and that in 2016 when students contacted Jitendra Singh, then the Union minister of state for the ministry of development of North Eastern Region, and chairman of the North East Council, he stated that the ministry had acquired “a piece of land in the campus, and after a delay due to forest clearance from Delhi Administration, the land was ready to be used”.
From the start and through its development, students noted, the hostel was intended for students from the northeastern states. A poster released in 2017 publicising the “foundation stone laying” ceremony carries a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and mentions that the stone laying will be done by Jitendra Singh. It refers to the project as the “Barak hostel for North East students”.
This intention appeared unchanged in February 2023, when the university released a report on its achievements upon the completion of the vice-chancellor’s first term. In the report, the university states that “The construction of a special hostel for the northeast students – Barak – is nearing completion.”
In March that year, the North East Council issued a revised administrative approval for the “construction of a hostel for the North East Students at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi at an estimated cost of Rs 28.675 crore”.
This document specified that 75% of the seats should go to students from eight states in the northeastern region. “The allocation of the remaining 25% seats for students from the North East should be done in other hostels of the university. This 25% should be over and above the existing allocation of seats to North East students in such hostels,” the administrative approval stated. It also clearly states that the university is to use the funds “only for the project for which it has been approved”.
The forum mentioned in their statement that over the years, they followed up with the administration periodically, seeking updates about the hostel. In 2024, they were told that the hostel inauguration was delayed because there were problems with water supply and electricity. In February 2024, a ceremony was held at which Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated the hostel, but the facility did not open even after this.
Later that year, the forum said in their statement that they had emailed the ministry, after the administration informed them that the university had not received funds from the North East Council, which was leading to delays in construction. The forum stated that it received a response in August.
This response, too, explicitly noted that the hostel was meant for students from the northeast, the forum’s statement observed. According to the statement, the ministry said “that 75% of Barak Hostel seats should be reserved for students from the North East, as per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed”. Further, the statement said, the ministry noted that “Barak hostel was constructed with an aim to provide safe and secure accommodation for the students of the North Eastern Region”.
The U-turn
On April 1, however, the student forum said that Manuradha Chaudhary, the dean of student affairs, told them here “there was no assurance of 75% reservation in the first place, and the fact that money came from DoNER did not justify the reservation of seats for students from the North East”.
Though the administration had taken a U-turn, the forum stated that on the day of the inauguration, Chaudary, assured them that the first list allocating rooms in the hostel to students would not be released until a meeting was scheduled between the forum and the administration. But, they said, this assurance was not met, and the list was released on April 8. In this list, students noted, 88 seats have been allotted, of which only five have been allotted to students from the North East.
“Every time the issue was brought up, the administration refused to give us a proper meeting and now they are saying that reservation is not allowed,” the PhD student said.
On April 11, the university released a circular that only added to the confusion. The university explained in the circular that the first allotment list for Barak hostel was out and that priority had been given to students from the North East, in accordance with a 2023 memo issued by the ministry of development of north-eastern region. At the same time, it stated, “No hostel is reserved on the basis of specific region or culture in JNU” and that the university had a policy for hostel allotment, and “the same matrix of allotment will be followed for Barak hostel”.
The circular also reiterated arguments the vice-chancellor had made, such as that students from different parts of the country had to “learn to live together”.
Marginalised on campus
Students from the North East noted that though various student bodies had in recent months protested the delay in inaugurating the hostel, none had expressed concerns about the reservation for students from the region. “There was no mention of it anywhere,” the PhD student said. “We had been fighting since 2015 for the hostel.”
This was part of a larger pattern of marginalising students from the region, they explained. “There are many vulnerabilities that students from the North East face. Often our roommates have various prejudices and preconceived notions about us and our culture,” the PhD student said. “There are many casteist stereotypes thrown at us and we find it very hard to fit in.”
She added, “Hostel is home for us, at least the university must ensure that that space is safe for us.”
Among the main problems that students from the North East face is a discriminatory attitude towards their food. “The administration told us that in order to address this issue, we should stand for elections and win the post of mess secretary,” she recalled. “But we are such a small minority, how would we win an election? This issue affects a small number of students and so nobody else will be able to relate.”
She noted that the students had hoped that a separate hostel would give them more freedom to eat the food they wanted.
The student also pointed out that the administration’s defence of their decision that they did not want to “isolate the students” showed a poor understanding of the matter. “We are students from eight different states. We are in no way a homogenous group. There is a lot of diversity among us,” she said.
The forum is now demanding that the university roll back its first allotment list and that it makes public the memorandum between the council and other university, as well as other agreements signed between university and the ministry pertaining to the matter. They also demand that food from the region be made available in their mess, that North East students from other hostels be allowed to apply for a seat at Barak hostel and they be given all future assurances in this matter in writing.
“We want to be provided all assurances officially and in written format as we no longer have faith in the DoS and its verbal assurances,” the forum said in their statement.
