Why are the students of Jamia protesting? Valid question. I will not attempt a political commentary that mainstream media is already immersed into. A more critical question is to explore this — why do students get so much time and energy to protest on matters that do not impact them in any way?

My last article on JNU ( Anurag Singh's answer to What is your opinion on the government's decision on increasing the fees of eminent universities like JNU and DU?) tried to connect the dots on the overall lack of accountability of students to their own careers, a general misdirection of energy, absence of realism on current economic issues and the low fee structure that creates total absence of urgency to do anything productive for the society.

The Jamia protests provoked me to explore the same for the university, with almost similar results. Probably worse. Let’s see the facts and you can decide.

Basics first. Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) has about 18,500 students in college level courses. Here is the breakup. Notice the 2003 students under Ph.D. This is almost 50 per cent of the overall PG course strength. This is disproportionately high for any university. This is supported by a teaching faculty of 729.