Student Uprisings and the Political University: Perspectives from India

Roundtable Discussion
Thursday 2 June, 18:00-20:00. Alte Mensa, Wilhelmsplatz 5, University of Göttingen

Over the past year, university campuses across India have witnessed a series of intense and protracted student protests. Although decisions taken by the university administration have been the immediate target, the protests have been galvanized by a far wider set of sociopolitical concerns, ranging from caste and gender discrimination to the privatization of higher education and the concerted assault on democratic rights and freedoms by political authorities. The increasingly authoritarian tendencies of state power stand exposed in the fraught space of the contemporary Indian university. At the same time the university is also a place of active democratic experimentation and transformation, where studentmovements are forging solidarities across existing divisions of ideology and identity and building a new politics of hope and struggle.
To understand the significance of student uprisings and the "political university" in the context of similar struggles that are unfolding in universities from South Africa to the United States, the Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS) of the University of Göttingen will host a roundtable discussion. Three senior Indian scholars with first-hand experience of the recent events at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), will present their reflections to a public audience. The conversation will be moderated by CeMIS faculty.

Speakers
Prof. Dr. Neeladri Bhattacharya, JNU
Prof. Dr. Ayesha Kidwai, JNU
Prof. Dr. Janaki Nair, JNU

Moderators
Prof. Dr. Ravi Ahuja, CeMIS
Prof. Dr. Srirupa Roy, CeMIS

Contact
Dr. Karin Klenke

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