THE visual images on television channels of masked goons attacking students and teachers in the campus and hostels of Jawaharlal Nehru University have brought home to many people the startling fact that the Modi regime is engaged in an assault on public funded educational institutions, particularly central universities.

The JNU has been a prime target of the Hindutva brigade. It is a premier institution which has built up a reputation as an academic centre where a democratic atmosphere of free speech, enquiry and reason prevails.