In light of current fee hike #JNUProtests , and twitter trends such as #ShutDownJNU , I thought of making a thread on how and why JNU became a bastion of anti establishment and radical leftist sentiments.
A disclaimer: Views expressed are based on sources mentioned in the end.

To understand the ideology of JNU we need to go back to its genesis. Established in 1969, the first lot of JNU faculty largely came from Presidency College Kolkata. They were Marxist in their writings with Communist Party ties. Hence from its inception JNU had a leftist bent.

However, being left leaning in itself is not a bad ideological stance as long as the leftism is centered around genuine issues like student farmer and labour unions.
Thus, keeping with true democratic pluralism of India the University flourished with state subsidies and grants.

But over the period of time the successive Governments failed to realize how the students had begun to be inducted in Marxist-Lenin's, Mao's radical ideology which had led to gulags and genocide in Russia, China and other communist countries.

An entire ecosystem was constructed where via seminars, workshops and repeated exposure to radical left literature the students were made to internalize these thoughts as progressive and liberal while being kept deliberately ignorant of the legacy of bloodshed behind them.

Even incidents of contemporary violence by Communist regimes were whitewashed. A prominent example being 1989 Tiananmen Square protests where Chinese government massacred in cold blood pro democracy student protestors.

While this massacre of youth invoked feelings of horror in India and rest of the world, inside the JNU campus a different version of events was being presented by some.

Sitaram Yechuri, a leading Communist leader and product of JNU student movement proclaimed, "Not a single drop of blood was shed" and openly targeted what he labelled as the "bourgeoisie" press of India and US for spreading baseless rumours to destabilize the Chinese system.

Now one might be surprised why an Indian politician would be concerned with Chinese establishment. The answer lies in that fact that communism is an international ideology.

Classical Marxism-Leninism thinks of nationalism as an aberration or deviation so anybody talking about national interests is seen as narrow or parochial. State is an enemy and these ideologies talk of a global unity born out of a stateless, classless society.

Thus, as this ideology looks down upon nationalism so in a show of global solidarity concerns of Communists regimes of Russia, China etc takes precedence over Indian interests.

The biggest manifestation of this was the CPI and CPI(M) split over the issue of which country to support in the 1962 Indo China war.

CPI(M) felt that CPI had betrayed the international labourer interests espoused by Chinese regime.

So, CPI(M) criticized the CPI by calling them "nationalist" which in their book was the most derogatory expletive.

In similar vein, JNUites find no emotive appeal in patriotic sentiments because India as a state means nothing to them.
Their whole political stand is internationalist, their brethren are the communists all over the world (see the similarity with Is!amic ummah?)

Also, an environment of institutionalized superiority complex is created, whereby those outside this ideological framework are painted as regressive or ignorant of how systems truly function

And this brings an almost missionary zeal in these grads of making rest of us ignorant souls aware of the great capitalist conspiracy and hidden agenda behind everything by all means possible(again doesn't it remind you of the Abrahamic obsession of spreading one true religion)

Thus, politicized and distorted the academic temperament of JNU, social science department especially, is often accused of teaching disguised sloganeering to students as academic knowledge; making them quick to label anything against their ideology as fascist, communal etc.

Till 1991 as long as USSR remained, World Communist Movement was openly taught and widely discussed in JNU Social Science curriculum as a futuristic vision which is going to revolutionize the world as we know it and create a global anti imperialist movement.

When Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and gradually as Communist Party of China started assuming a capitalist economic structure too, the JNU academicians changed their terminology and stopped quoting Marx and Lenin as abundantly as they used to.

However, the internalized content of their social science teachings remained the same which can broadly be boiled down to

I) internationalism
II) anti Hinduism
III) pro separatism

Reasons for suport of internationalism have been explained above. Anti Hinduism also partly stems from anti state sentiments as dharmic teachings have an ingrained reverence for Indian motherland. ( Recall the Ramayana verse जननी जन्म भूमिश्च स्वर्गादपि गरीयसी || )

Meaning mother and motherland are superior even to heaven. Similarly, Dharmic culture shaped by ethos of Indian freedom struggle emphasises worship of, among other deities Bharat Ma(Mother India) with chants of Vande Matram, which doesn't gell well with Communist way of thinking.

Anti Hinduism is also popular among these circles owning to Marx's popular adage, "Religion is the opium of masses."

But then one might ask why oppose only Hinduism of all religions while Communists are generally seen being sympathetic to radical Is!amic factions?

The reason lies in third principle of this ideology which is pro separatism.
Since state is seen as the enemy in the class struggle, thus anything which weakens the state or is pro separatist is looked upon as a positive development to be promoted.

Thus radical Is!amic terrorism, missionary conversion activities, pro secessionist movements from Kashmir to North East and any other isms which suit their bourgeoisie vs. proletariat fight of anti establishment, find a natural ally in JNU ecosystem.

So the need of the hour is to understand how this ecosystem functions and work on remedying this toxic academic environment accordingly, keeping in view the true ethos and fabric of Indian society and polity.

Sources:

1. Talk by Dr. Shankar Sharan on JNU "legacy"


2. JNU:The Making of a University by Rakesh
Batabayal.

3.JNU: क्या है ये आंदोलन?