The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Ever since 2016, the university has been a site of turbulence, with police crackdowns over one event or another. There have been arrests of students, violent protests, and media hysteria, creating an atmosphere of permanent crisis. The most recent battle began in October, as JNU imposed a fee hike.

It was proposed that students would now need to pay a service charge of ₹1,700 ($24) per month as part of their hostel (student hall) fee — a charge which did not previously exist. Rent for a single room has been increased from ₹20 ($0.28) per month to ₹600 ($9), rent for a double room from ₹10 ($0.14) to ₹300 ($4.21) and the security deposit from ₹5,500 ($78) to ₹12,000 ($169) — all in all, a near 300 percent fee hike.

Students soon responded. They stood outside the venues where the administration held closed-door meetings to discuss the fee hike, organized sit-ins, occupied the administrative block, and raised slogans on the streets of Delhi. But then the confrontation took a violent turn, as the police brutally beat up protesting students.