On 7 February 1996, Badal Ghana Chakravorty, Associate Professor, Department of German, wrote a letter to the registrar of JNU with a subject matter – 'Rampant anti-national activities of the agents of Pakistan on JNU campus – that gives an eerie sense of deja vu.

JNU dosier

Chakravorty wrote, “The agents of Pakistan have become vigorously assertive on the issue of Kashmir in recent times. The valley of Kashmir, following total physical liquidation of all the non-Muslims, has practically become an all-Muslim territory. This has emboldened the agents of Pakistan on the J.N.U campus to intensify their vicious campaign for a full-scale secession of Kashmir from India,"

He writes, “Madam Registrar, I am writing these lines more in anguish than in anger. JNU, financed by the national exchequer, is being massively misused, with total impunity, as a spring-board to launch a heinous sabotage for another partition of India.”

"A seminar was held on 15 November, where a full-throated declaration was made for another partition of India. According to my information, armed terrorists, staying as guests in Aravali and Gomti, were present with arms hidden on their persons. Some terrorists are staying unauthorised in different hostels even today. Kindly press I.B. into immediate action,” Chakravorty wrote.

Press release, dated 10 April 1991 reads, “The Delhi police has uncovered a major international conspiracy involving persons based in UK, Canada, USA, and Nepal, working at the behest of elements in Pakistan, of funding militancy in J&K. The Delhi police arrested Ashfaq Hussain Lone, a top ranking operator of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, in Delhi and Sahabuddin Gori, a JNU student using the cover of Human Rights activists. Gori was acting as a conduit for funds and communications with terrorists in Kashmir. Rs 16.27 lakhs and incriminating documents have been recovered. The money and the documents were intended to be delivered to terrorists in the valley for expanding their subversive activities.”

“In Aril 2000, an Indo-Pak Mushaira was organised in JNU campus ostensibly as a poetic event, but actually to malign and belittle the Indian victory in the Kargil war of 1999. Two army majors (in civilian dress) who were visiting their friends in JNU were witness to pro-Pakistan slogans. The two army majors, who had just fought in the Kargil heights against Pakistan reacted to such slogans and got beaten up by the student mob that was instigated by anti-national elements in JNU “, the article read.

The article concludes, “And in this process JNU has become a den of organised sex racket in which some hostel karamcharis, maid servants, beauty parlours run in Munirka village and the activists of DSF, DSU, AISA and other rouge elements are coordinating their activities.”

"These three faculty members have recruited over hundred students  (for instance Ms. Deepti Tamang, Ms Priyadarshini, Rauf, Umar Khalid, Iqbal Majeed Bhat, Dawa Sherpa, Rona Wilson Shehla Rashid...are the most vocal slogan raisers) and activists by feeding them with funds, alcohol and other facilities like placements in different NGO’s, civil society groups, institutes that are run in India with the funding of Ford Foundation, foreign agencies, Action Aid, Oxfam etc,” the paper read.

Hari Ram Mishra, Assistant Professor, Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies, who helped compile the dossier said, “We compiled these papers over the time just to highlight the fact that how badly the campus has been affected by anti-national activities. We just wanted that this campus, which is known for its great academic work, is cleansed of any wrong activities.”

The reason attributed for doing all this in the paper is “to attack Indian sovereignty in Kashmir, North-East” and to “keep the Indian state as a destabilised state.” And the paper goes on to say that they are doing so by “recruiting young minds in JNU campus and elsewhere by addicting them to night parties/revelries, alcohol and cash payments to carry forward their agenda.”

By Premji