At around 6 pm, teachers formed a semi-circular human chain around hundreds of students who sat on the ground outside the administrative block in rapt attention, some taking notes.
JNU students at a protest against the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhiaya Kumar inside the campus Wednesday.
JNU students at a protest against the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhiaya Kumar inside the campus Wednesday.
It was a class unlike any other at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). At around 6 pm, teachers formed a semi-circular human chain around hundreds of students who sat on the ground outside the administrative block in rapt attention, some taking notes. Many also occupied the steps to listen to the speaker. In the centre of them all stood Professor Gopal Guru speaking on ‘What is the nation?’
“This subject is important because some definitions of nation are simply unwarranted judgments. It is a serious problem that we are confused about what a nation is. For some of us, the response comes from emotions… I’m not to be bullied by somebody’s emotional definition of nation. You cannot define nation by forcing somebody to toe a line,” said Guru in his class, which was being live streamed.
Wednesday saw the first of the classes on nationalism that JNU teachers have decided to hold in the campus everyday in the evening, to counter the “anti-national” tag accorded to the students for organising an event on the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
