According to several student accounts, the first signs of trouble on the campus came when clashes broke out between the left-leaning and right-wing student bodies on October 9, 2014 over a cartoon published in Forward Press magazine. It depicted Goddess Durga in a manner that many religious minded students found “derogatory.”

Forward Press has a reputation of being a magazine that speaks for the Dalits and has a history of triggering intense debates at JNU over a demon in the Hindu mythology named “Mahishasura,” who is killed by Goddess Durga in a good versus evil fight. “A section of leftist Dalit students considers Mahishasura a noble king,” said a member of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union (JNUSU). “They think it’s an upper caste Brahminical construct that Mahishasura was a demon just because he was a king from a tribal area. They [the Dalit students] feel that it smacks of upper caste prejudice against the lower castes and they have often observed Mahishasura’s death as the day of his martyrdom.”

In September 2015, the left-leaning All-India Students Federation (AISF) and the All-India Students Association (AISA) swept the polls, defeating the BJP’s student wing ABVP.

Two months later, a major controversy explodes on the campus, when a student organised a ‘havan,’ lighting a fire in the middle of his hostel room to celebrate his birthday. The hostel warden, Prof. Burton Cleetus, who’s a Christian, asked the student to put out the fire. “The birthday boy along with a group of ABVP activists filed a police complaint against Burton Cleetus. He levelled charges such as sexual harassment, committing atrocities against SC/ST students and hurting religious sentiments against him,” said another JNUSU member, pleading anonymity.

Then a month later, in December 2015, another professor, Arshad Alam, was accused of sexual assault. “The victim was a Hindu and ABVP activists spread the rumour that a Muslim professor pursuing Love Jihad ended up raping a Hindu student. They accused the leftist student parties of being anti-feminist.”

The two consecutive events were soon “exploited” by the ABVP activists, consolidating a lot of support among the female students, said the JNUSU member.