JNU’s Barak Hostel: Built for northeast students but houses only 12% from the region

In 2014, a brutal racial assault on a student from Arunachal Pradesh in Delhi triggered many protests and much soul-searching on problems faced by people from the northeast region living and studying in the rest of India. A panel formed to study their concerns and suggest solutions and measures noted the need for dedicated accommodation for them. Citing it as a positive feature, it talked about how a hostel dedicated to students from northeast was being planned at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The new hostel has indeed come up, more than 10 years later, after much delay. The plaster peeling off and the cracks on the walls of a facility built at a cost of more than ₹28 crore are only a few of the unkept promises, though. The most glaring one is that Barak Hostel houses only 12% of students from the northeastern States today, according to the student president of the hostel, Hrishikesh Talukdar.

Nido Taniam was an 18-year-old first-year student from Arunachal Pradesh studying in a college in Delhi who died following a brutal racial assault in the national capital.

He was in Lajpat Nagar on January 29, 2014, when he stopped at a local shop to ask for directions. Some men reportedly made remarks about his hair and hurled racial slurs at him. A confrontation ensued, and Taniam was allegedly assaulted by a group of men who beat him with sticks. He was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, where he died the following day. According to the autopsy report submitted by the Delhi Police, Taniam suffered nine internal and external injuries, including injuries to his head, lungs and face, which caused his death.

Taniam’s death, and the protests that followed, brought a fresh attention to the discrimination, hostility and insecurity experienced by people from the northeast outside the region.

In its aftermath, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in February 2014, constituted the Bezbaruah Committee, headed by M.P. Bezbaruah, then a member of the North Eastern Council (NEC), a statutory advisory body constituted under the North Eastern Council Act, 1971. The committee was tasked with examining the concerns of the people from the northeast living in different parts of the country.

Among the concerns noted by the committee was the need for safe and adequate accommodation. In its report, the committee referred to a proposal for a 500-room facility at the JNU. It noted that the university authorities were ready to implement the project and recommended that it be sanctioned immediately.

But it took several years for that recommendation to acquire a physical form. The Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) agreed to fund the project, following the signing of an MoU between JNU and the NEC. At that time, the Aam Aadmi Party was in power. The agreement provided ₹28.30 crore for the project, with 75% of the hostel’s seats to be reserved for students from the Northeast region and the remaining 25% for students from other parts of the country.

In July 2017, Dr. Jitendra Singh, then Minister of State for Development of North Eastern Region (Independent Charge), laid the foundation stone for what would eventually become Barak Hostel on the JNU campus.

A press release issued at the time stated that the NEC was funding 100% of the construction, at a cost of ₹28.30 crore. The hostel was expected to be completed within three years and accommodate 400 students - 200 boys and 200 girls. Of these, 320 seats were to be available to students from the northeast and 80 to students from the rest of the country.

The hostel was eventually completed in 2024, but remained unoccupied for another year, with the university citing shortage of staff. It was then virtually inaugurated by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on April 7, 2025. On the same day, JNU’s current Vice-Chancellor Santishree D. Pandit conducted the ribbon-cutting ceremony to formally open the hostel.

Barak Hostel was conceived as more than a building providing beds and rooms. It was conceived as a dedicated space for students from a region whose experiences of discrimination and exclusion had prompted the government to promise a safer and more inclusive university environment. Almost a decade after the foundation stone was laid, however, questions surrounding Barak Hostel extend beyond the promise of inclusion.

On the very day of the Vice-Chancellor’s opening ceremony in 2025, the North East Students’ Forum (NESF) organised a silent protest outside Barak Hostel. During the protest, JNU Vice-Chancellor Santishree D. Pandit was heard saying in a video that there would be no reservation for students from the northeast in the hostel. The video, recorded by protesting students, is on YouTube.

Today, as of August 2026, the hostel houses 420 students, but only 53 of them are from the Northeast, barely 12%, Mr. Talukdar said. The original mandate was 75% reservation.

Students from JNU’s NESF have repeatedly raised the issue with the university administration. They have approached the Dean and Vice-Chancellor, filed Right to Information (RTI) applications, and held protests, seeking clarity on the hostel’s and government’s original mandate. Yet, they say, the issue remains unresolved.

And while the dispute over whom the hostel was built for continues, another question has emerged: the infrastructure itself. Almost a decade after its foundation stone was laid, and barely two years after construction was completed, Barak Hostel is already showing visible signs of deterioration.

Moss has appeared on its walls; balconies and washrooms face waterlogging; toilet seats are broken; doors broken; Wi-Fi is inadequate; and the hostel has no mess facility, say students.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which The Hindu has accessed, stated that JNU would assign the work to public works agencies, including the Delhi State Public Works Division, for civil and electrical works. The State Public Works Division is a key operational unit of a State Public Works Department (PWD), responsible for the planning, design, construction and localised maintenance of public infrastructure.