The protest at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi intensified on Sunday as students gathered around the campus, tried to enter by climbing gates, and faced heavy police deployment, a day after the university administration attempted to forcibly remove the demonstrators and shifted all classes online.
With gates and libraries closed and campus water facilities cut off, students who had been protesting since October 11 for the restoration of their students' union remained defiant, staging a demonstration that has become the largest at Jamia since the 2019 protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
The sequence of events over the weekend illustrates how quickly the standoff escalated. On Saturday, October 24, security personnel, teaching and non-teaching staff attempted to remove students who had been protesting for the restoration of the Jamia Millia Islamia Students' Union (JMISU).
The tent was uprooted from the lawn inside gate number 7, campus electricity and water facilities were suspended, gates and libraries were closed, and all classes were announced to be conducted online until further notice. Students responded by gathering in large numbers and staying through the night, singing songs, raising slogans and demanding the restoration of the union.
On Sunday, October 25, a similar scene unfolded. With classes suspended and no entry or exit allowed, students still gathered in large numbers and staged a protest. Heavy Central Reserve Police Force and Delhi Police personnel guarded the entry gates and dispersed students who were trying to enter.
"We have been trying to go inside the campus but the security personnel are not allowing us. They have barricaded gate number 7 and no entry is allowed from other gates as well. In the afternoon, some students from the hostel tried to access the health centre from gate number 4 but were not allowed," said Md.
Zubair, a second-year bachelor's student, quoted in reports.
Some students climbed gates to enter the campus, and Delhi Police personnel stopped many from entering, in some cases pulling and physically handling them. Some students were detained. Reports varied on the exact numbers: one account said four to five protesters were dragged away and detained at around 3 pm, with four female students also reportedly detained outside the gate.
Another account described students being detained as they attempted to enter amid barricading outside gate number 7. The students demanded the release of those detained, the reopening of the campus, adequate safety measures and democratic dialogue with the administration.
At the centre of the protest is a demand with a long history. The students are seeking an election notification and a date for elections to the Jamia Millia Islamia Students' Union. The last elections were held in 2005, and the union was dissolved in 2006, which means that generations of Jamia students have passed through the university without an elected student body.
The protesters argue that this absence leaves them without formal representation when decisions affecting hostels, facilities, fees and discipline are made. Their other demands include the revocation of disciplinary action against protesters, an assurance that no further action will be taken against them, and the removal or resignation of the Chief Proctor and the Security Advisor.
The hunger strike has become the most visible element of the agitation. Several students have been on hunger strike for nearly two weeks, and reports on Sunday described four to five students persisting with the fast despite the campus shutdown. One account described a master's student of social work on his twelfth day without food, who said the students' breaking point had been the neglect of basic demands, including the repair of a water cooler.
The hunger strikers have drawn support from current and former students, and on Sunday hundreds gathered in solidarity, raising slogans, holding posters and playing daflis near gate number 7.
The protest has also spread to the hostels. Students in the girls' hostels marched through Saturday night, with corridors echoing with chants of "Inquilab Zindabad" at around 2 am, according to one report. Students inside the campus said they were unable to access filtered water and had to rely on friends to bring water for them.
One student told reporters that girls on the campus were using boys' toilets, that there was no light in hostels on Saturday night, and that basic facilities were not being provided. Another questioned the decision to keep the campus closed and shift classes online, saying the move was affecting students' academic lives.
The administration's response has been firm. The university's High Level Committee has been cited by the student movement as offering a response that was "partial, delayed, and in places misleading". The university registrar, Mahtab Alam, accused Congress MPs Imran Masood and Imran Pratapgarhi of instigating students, saying they had entered the campus illegally and brought in protesters from outside.
The students, for their part, have opposed the continuation of online classes and the closure of libraries, describing the shutdown as anti-student and arguing that it punishes the entire student body for a protest by a section of it.
The situation appeared to be under control on Sunday morning, but tensions escalated after Vice-Chancellor Mazhar Asif and the proctorial team were seen touring the protest site around noon. The team later left without speaking to the protesters, according to one report. By 1.30 pm, the number of police and Rapid Action Force personnel deployed at the site had doubled, and the situation outside gate number 7 grew tense as former students and others joined the gathering.
Protesters alleged that food and water bottles were being prevented from entering the campus, with some students throwing water bottles through the grilled gates as the standoff continued.
The protest has drawn attention beyond the campus because of its scale and duration. One detailed account described it as the largest student protest at Jamia since 2019, and noted that nearly 500 students had stood in clusters around Gulistan-e-Ghalib and the canteen beside the political science department on Saturday, shouting slogans and making plans.
The comparison with 2019 is significant: that year, Jamia became a focal point of nationwide protests, and the university's name carries a particular resonance in debates about student politics in India.
There are also questions about what happens next. Reports have suggested that the agitation could intensify from Monday, when students were expected to return to campus after the Puja holidays. If the campus remains closed and classes remain online, the confrontation over entry is likely to continue.
If the administration opens a dialogue on the union election, even a timetable for discussion, the temperature could fall. For now, neither side has publicly signalled a compromise, and the students have said they will continue until their demands are met.
The Jamia standoff raises broader questions about student representation in Indian universities. Student unions, where they exist and function, provide a formal channel for grievances about hostels, facilities and academic decisions. Where they have been suspended for years, students often resort to protests to be heard, and administrations often respond with disciplinary action, which in turn becomes a further grievance.
Breaking that cycle requires a mechanism for dialogue that both sides trust, and the demand for an election date is, at its core, a demand for such a mechanism.
For the moment, the campus remains a place of barricades, slogans and hunger strikers. Students say they are fighting for the right to elect their representatives. The administration says it must maintain order and academic functioning. Between those two positions, hundreds of students continue to gather at the gates, climb them when they can, and wait for a response that has not yet come.
(Reporting based on The Hindu, The Tribune and The New Indian Express.)