Thousands of students from the northeastern states of India flock to the Delhi National Capital Region in pursuit of a higher education. They are often denied housing for various reasons and face harrowing challenges to merely find an accommodation. This creates a need for hostels in university campuses. In an article published on April 18, Apoorvanand wrote that he “felt inclined to agree with the vice-chancellor of JNU” and urged the northeastern student community – or what he referred to as the “Northeastern Students Council” – to “reconsider their demands” for 75% reservation in the newly constructed Barak Hostel. It is important to first clarify a factual error: there is no organisation on campus called the “Northeastern Students Council.” The only representative body that has been engaging with the administration on this issue is the North East Students’ Forum (NESF). Misnaming or misrepresenting the student body not only weakens the credibility of the argument but also reflects a lack of familiarity with the issue and those directly involved. This article is a response to it. At first glance, his arguments may appear reasonable, but a closer examination reveals deep flaws in his overall approach to the issue.75% reservation: A red herringThe issue at hand is not merely about securing a 75% reservation; it is fundamentally about being heard, respected, and taken seriously. 75% is not an arbitrary figure. It is a reaffirmation of an earlier understanding between the Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Ministry for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), represented by the Northeastern Council (NEC). Leading up to the inauguration of the Barak Hostel, students from the Northeast, under the banner of the North East Students’ Forum (NESF) made several good-faith efforts to engage with the university administration, seeking clarity and assurances. These efforts were met with silence and condescension. The demand for 75% is not rooted in parochialism or regional exclusivity – it is rooted in a history of marginalisation and the promise of redress. Had the administration chosen to engage sincerely with the student community, the trajectory of this issue might have been very different. What we see today is not a failure of policy alone, but a failure of communication and care.The Barak Hostel was envisioned as a dedicated, secure space for students from the northeastern states of India. It was a response to the structural and institutional discrimination and everyday racial injustices faced by these students on university campuses. In the aftermath of the racially motivated murder of Nido Taniam in 2014, the government-appointed Bezbaruah Committee identified “accommodation” as a major challenge for students from the Northeast. On page 54 of the report, it specifically recommended the immediate sanction of a 500-room accommodation facility in JNU. Construction of the Barak Hostel began in 2017, following a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2016 between the North Eastern Council and JNU, a document that, to this day, has never been made public, despite repeated demands from students for transparency.From the foundation-laying ceremony to the inauguration and the publication of the first allotment list, Barak Hostel was consistently projected as a special hostel for students from the Northeast. This framing was not incidental – it was intentional. The sudden, arbitrary U-turn by the administration is not just disappointing; it is an act of deception. It undermines years of student engagement, betrays the purpose for which the hostel was built, and erodes the trust between the university and one of its most vulnerable student communities.The demand for 75% reservation is not a call for exclusivity; it is a collective assertion for safety, dignity, and rightful recognition in a university that claims to stand for inclusion and social justice. The lack of transparency surrounding the MoU, coupled with the administration’s decision to renege on its commitments, speaks volumes. This is not merely bureaucratic negligence – it is a disregard for the lived experiences and concerns of northeastern students.The Indian liberal imagination and the burden of assimilationUpon reading his article, one is left with the impression that the Northeastern student community on campus is the torchbearer of parochialism, while the JNU administration led by the Vice Chancellor is cast as a progressive force nobly fulfilling the national duty of uniting India’s diverse citizenry. Throughout the piece, there is not a tinge of scepticism towards the administration. Its actions are presented as unassailable, even virtuous.This glaring lack of critical engagement suggests one of two things: either the author has not followed the issue closely, or his stance reflects a deeper malaise within the Indian liberal imagination that perennially seeks the perfect victim and, in times of crisis, has no qualms about siding with oppressive forces. The same imagination routinely critiques the crumbling state of higher education in the country and predictably blames the current regime, yet, in this instance, shows an alarming deference to institutional power. The article does not merely misrepresent facts, it effectively vilifies Northeastern students while sanctifying a university administration that has, time and again, failed to uphold its own commitments. This is not just irresponsible- it is revealing.The burden of being progressive—of assimilating with the rest of India is almost exclusively placed on people from the Northeast. The expectation is clear: blend in, don’t assert too much, and prove your ‘Indianness’ at every step. When students from the region assert their identity or demand safe spaces, they are met not with solidarity, but with suspicion even disdain from the so-called liberal quarters.Take, for instance, something as ostensibly banal as the mess menus in central institutions like NITs across the Northeast. A quick glance reveals a telling reality: local cuisines are almost entirely absent. These spaces are not designed for cultural plurality, they are built around the dominance of a particular idea of India, where the food, language, and sensibilities of the majority are normalized, and anything outside it is rendered invisible.In such an environment, any assertion of rights or identity is instantly framed as parochial or narrow-minded. This is the hypocrisy of the Indian liberal imagination: it celebrates diversity in principle, but is deeply uncomfortable when that diversity challenges dominant norms or demands structural space. The myth of the egalitarian university spaceUniversities are often idealised as egalitarian spaces where merit triumphs background, where students arrive shedding their biases, armed with open minds, and where everyone is presumed to stand on equal footing.In reality, universities mirror the very social hierarchies and prejudices that exist in the broader society. From caste and class to gender and race, institutions of higher education are rife with systemic discrimination and everyday micro-aggressions. The persistent fallacy of the liberal imagination is to treat the university as somehow removed from the structural inequalities of the “outside world.” However, the university is not an island, it is deeply embedded within the same social fabric that marginalises certain communities.For students from the Northeast, this reality is all too familiar. The intersection of race, caste, gender, and class creates compounded vulnerabilities. Northeastern women, in particular, are often exoticised in ways that are both dehumanising and dangerous. These experiences are not isolated incidents – they reflect entrenched patterns of exclusion and bias.From institutional neglect to the subtle violences of everyday interactions, the university space is far from neutral. It privileges some while rendering others hyper-visible, vulnerable, or invisible altogether. Recognising this reality is the first step toward transforming it.I have had a professor in JNU ask me straight to my face whether I was drunk or high, because, as he claimed, he had lived in a JNU hostel and knew that students from the Northeast were mostly “drunkards and party addicts.” I’ve had classmates question why I don’t “speak English in an Indian accent,” as if sounding different somehow makes me less Indian.These are part of a broader culture of stereotyping and casual racism that students from the Northeast routinely encounter even in spaces that pride themselves on being liberal, inclusive, and enlightened.A ‘Northeastern identity’There is indeed no single, composite “Northeastern identity” in the cultural or ethnic sense. The term itself is an umbrella, encompassing a wide array of distinct peoples, languages, and histories. But what binds us is not a homogenous culture, it is the shared, often painful, experience of being racialised, stereotyped, and othered in the so-called Indian mainstream. That commonality of experience – racism, invisibilisation, and exoticisation – is what necessitates the forging of a collective identity.To argue that the existence of internal conflicts between Kukis and Meiteis, or Mizos and Chakmas – invalidates any common ground among us is as flawed as saying there can be no composite Dalit identity because Jatavs and Chamars are distinct as they do not see eye to eye politically. Or, on a broader scale, it’s as absurd as denying the existence of a “Global South” simply because countries within it have divergent interests or internal contradictions.We didn’t invent the label “Northeastern.” It was imposed upon us by structures, institutions, and social imaginaries that see us as one undifferentiated mass from a far-flung corner of the country. If we now reclaim that identity, it is not out of ignorance of our differences, but out of necessity of the shared lived reality of discrimination that flattens us in the eyes of others. In the face of such flattening, unity becomes a form of resistance.RecognitionAt its core, the demand for 75% reservation in Barak Hostel is not about exclusion it is about recognition, dignity, and a long-overdue institutional response to the specific challenges faced by students from the Northeast. Reducing it to parochialism or mischaracterising the students’ collective voice only serves to deepen existing alienation. What is needed now is not lecturing from above or more condescension but listening genuinely and with the humility to acknowledge where institutions have fallen short. The university must choose: as must the Indian liberal, will it stand by its professed ideals of justice and inclusion, or continue to betray them through silence, distortion, and inaction?George Chakma is PhD Candidate, Centre for International Politics, Organization, and Disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and executive member of the Northeast Students’ Forum (NESF), JNU.