Statement about Assault on Indian University

The AAUP issued a statement condemning the violent assault on faculty and students that occurred at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi on January 5, less than a month after students were tear-gassed and assaulted by police in the library of another New Delhi university. These troubling assaults came in the context of systematic defunding and other attacks on higher education in India. The statement cited evidence that the most recent attack was state-supported and noted the apparent complicity of members of the university’s administration and of the police, who stood by as an armed mob invaded the campus.

The AAUP joined scholars in India and around the world in calling for an independent inquiry into the assault and for justice to hold perpetrators and their accomplices accountable. The statement expressed support for the rights of students to protest injustice peacefully and concluded that “attempts to crush their protests with violence are nothing short of a blatant attack on academic freedom and democracy itself.”