Page 58 - EW-January-2026

Cover Story

"There is a fake narrative" more women to top positions in the university.

Women faculty has increased from 18 percent
n international relations Ph D from to 28 percent during the past four years.
AJNU, Santishree Dhulipuli Pandit
was appointed Vice Chancellor of JNU in What are your main achievements?
2022, the first woman to hold the position. We’ve implemented the National Education
Excerpts from a hurried interview. Policy 2020 and introduced the Indian Knowl-
edge Systems in all streams. We have demo-
The JNUTA has accused you of high handedness. craticised and decentralised the functioning
What is your response? of 14 schools and 10 special centres. We’ve
JNUTA propagates half truths to promote improved infrastructure by mobilising public
their fake narrative. In JNU there’s a re-emphasis on re- and private funds and have encouraged Indian languages
search and academics. During the past four years, aca- in interdisciplinary studies. I am the first VC to conduct
demics and research has been conducted in a peaceful yet four convocations in person for the ninth time in JNU’s
vibrant atmosphere. In April, JNU was awarded the pres- history.
tigious PAIR (Partnerships for Accelerated Innovation and
Research) grant, becoming a Hub institution to mentor Are JNU's core values still the same as they were at the begin-
other universities in basic sciences. We have also signed ning?
an MOU with IIT Delhi. JNU celebrates unity in diversity and is a nationally re-
This is a great national institution that serves the nation nowned space of critical thinking, debate, discussion and
via the lowest fees in the world to provide high-quality deliberations with multiple narratives. We are improving
higher education. We attract students from 15 states coun- our infrastructure to become comparable with the best
trywide; faculty recruitment has also seen diversity. More- worldwide. We are set to reduce the fee for international
over as the first woman VC of JNU, I have empowered students by up to 80 percent.

cretion of JNU’s academic council. economics and president of JNUTA.
This placed JNU with its excellent fac- Sudha Bhattacharya, who quit
ulty on a par with substantially lower- JNU in 2020, describes the teacher-
ranked universities resulting in a drop student relationship with nostalgia.
in M.Phil and Ph D scholars in JNU. “JNU had a very inclusive atmosphere
Between 2015-16 and 2021-22, JNU’s where students were drawn from var-
total research expenditure dropped ied backgrounds, ideologies, and cul-
from Rs.30.28 crore to Rs.12.78 crore, tures. In my case, since the students
a 57.8 percent decrease. Expenditure spent a good five-six years in my lab
on research and student-related ac- for their Ph D, I developed a very close
tivities has been hardest hit. relationship with most of them. For
The steady dilution of this presti- example, one of my students was the
gious research university by UGC with first generation from a farming com-
acquiescence of the vice chancellor, munity reading for a Ph D, another
has dismayed the faculty and JNUTA, could not converse in any language
which complains that the faculty se- other than Bangla. Yet another, a
lection process has also been gamed. Mazumdar: compromised selection Kashmiri Muslim girl student, slowly
Currently, every selection committee shed her orthodox inhibitions, and so
has three subject experts, chair of the “Earlier, the primary consideration on. Meeting such students was pos-
centre, dean of the department, and was academic and the specificity of sible because of JNU’s inclusive ad-
a member appointed by the Visitor. the study centre’s requirements. But mission policies. Apart from my own
The committee is chaired by the Vice now JNU’s faculty recruitment pro- mentoring, JNU provided them the
Chancellor. But with the heads of cen- cess has been undermined. Over 300 free atmosphere to grow, become
tres being chosen by the Vice Chan- faculty members have been appointed self-confident but not arrogant,” says
cellor, and the experts being chosen during the tenure of Jagadesh Kumar Bhattacharya, a former professor at
by the Dean, the earlier system of and Pandit,” says Dr. Surajit Ma- the School of Environmental Sciences,
selection by seniority has been com- zumdar, an alum of Delhi University and currently a fellow at the National
promised. and JNU, and currently professor of Academy of Sciences, Indian Academy

58 EDUCATIONWORLD JANUARY 2026