4 min readNew DelhiFeb 23, 2026 12:54 AM IST
Several hundred students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) marched across the campus late on Sunday night, escalating the protests against Vice Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit over her remarks in a recent podcast interview and the rustication of elected students of the JNU Students Union (JNUSU).
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The march began at Sabarmati T Point and proceeded to the East Gate near the VC’s residence, where student leaders addressed the crowd. Protesters said the turnout represented “the whole of JNU”, and described it as one of the largest mobilisations on campus in recent months.
“We are protesting against the VC’s casteist remarks…and against the rustication of the JNUSU office bearers,” said Nitish Kumar, a former JNUSU president, who was rusticated last year for participating in protests against the installation of a facial recognition system in the university’s Central Library. “Such a V-C has no place in a campus like JNU,” he said.
He said the march would later be diverted towards several academic schools on campus — including the Schools of Social Sciences, Language, International Studies, Arts and Aesthetics, and the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance.
“We will be doing a lockdown where we will divert the march to these schools and lock them,” he said.
The protest followed a JNUSU statement on Friday demanding the VC’s resignation over what it called “blatantly casteist statements” made during the media interview published last week. The union objected in particular to her criticism of the University Grants Commission’s new equity regulations, which she described as “totally unnecessary”, “irrational”, and an example of “wokeism”.
In the interview, Pandit said, “You cannot progress by being permanently a victim or playing the victim card. This was done for the Blacks; the same thing was brought for Dalits here.”
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The union said the remarks reflected “the chronology of injustice, caste supremacy, and perpetual systemic exclusion in universities and public spaces,” and announced a “national protest day” to press for her resignation.
The comments were made during a 52-minute podcast interview with The Sunday Guardian, published on February 16, in which Pandit spoke at length about student protests on campus, the recent rustication of JNUSU office bearers, and what she described as the role of Left-wing politics at JNU. She also addressed the UGC equity regulations, which were stayed by the Supreme Court last month.
Responding to the controversy, Pandit later told PTI that her remarks had been taken out of context and rejected the allegation that they were casteist. “I am a Bahujan myself, I come from an OBC background,” she said.
“I meant that wokes have written history like this. And those who opposed workers had this to say about permanent victimhood and imaginary worlds being created,” she said.
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On the equity regulations, Pandit said during the interview that they had been introduced without adequate consultation. “It was done secretly. Many of us who are part of the system didn’t even know what was in it,” she said, calling the regulations unnecessary and constitutionally flawed.
During the podcast, she also defended the university administration’s decision to rusticate five student leaders for allegedly vandalising surveillance equipment at the Ambedkar Library. “They destroyed this property, literally broke it down, sat on top of it, took pictures and they themselves put it on social media as though they have done something great,” she said.
She added that the students had been charged under what she described as the Public Destruction of Public Property Act — apparently referring to the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984 — calling it “a very strong Act.” “If they do it anywhere outside, it is jail without bail,” she said. The administration, she argued, had shown restraint by debarring the students for two semesters and imposing a fine of Rs 20,000. “It is taxpayers’ money. I am answerable as a Vice-Chancellor to the government, to Parliament, and to the people of India,” she said.
