Nation and its students : Reflections on educational activism from a public university in Delhi, India.

This article analyzes student mobilization at the University of Delhi (DU) in response to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of 2019, highlighting how campus activism facilitated political socialization intertwined with students' identities and ideologies. It documents polarized protests both supporting and opposing the CAA, reflecting broader ideological divides between right-leaning groups like the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and left-leaning groups such as the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) and the All India Students' Association (AISA). Using Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical framework, the study argues that university activism produces political capital by shaping dispositions and enabling students to engage in broader political fields. The article concludes that universities serve as contested spaces where competing nationalisms are performed and political agency is cultivated amid the tensions of neoliberalization and rising religious nationalism in India.