New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh claimed on Wednesday in Rajya Sabha Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was systematically undermining its social justice mandate, citing a 25 per cent decline in SC/ST enrolment, irregularities in reserved faculty appointments and remarks by the Vice-Chancellor that he said were against the founding principles of the university.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Singh noted the irony that two prominent JNU students were sitting on the Treasury benches, even as the institution — ranked among the top 10 universities in the National Institutional Ranking Framework — was moving away from its core mandate of national integration, values of social democratic justice.
He noted recent media remarks attributed to the JNU Vice-Chancellor, who reportedly described assertions from historically marginalized communities as “perpetual victimization” and suggested that such realities were manufactured.
“Such statements raise concerns about the sensitivity of the institution to caste discrimination, equality and constitutional values,” Singh said.
Citing a JNU Teachers’ Association report, Singh said enrollment of SC and ST students had fallen by about 25 percent in just three years.
On faculty recruitment, he said that out of 326 vacancies for which selection committees were set up, over 40 per cent resulted in candidates being declared “unfit”, with most of the affected posts being reserved positions.
Singh also listed 89 pending faculty promotion cases at JNU, of which 62 had exceeded the stipulated processing period, saying the delays were affecting career advancement and the capacity to supervise PhDs.
He urged the government to ensure strict adherence to reservation norms and uphold the constitutional commitment to inclusiveness across JNU and other central universities.
