India, Nov. 23 -- When the red-brick corridors of Panjab University (PU) echo with chants instead of lectures, it feels like more than a campus disturbance. The university, that grand old institution straddling history and aspiration, has once again become a mirror reflecting how India's public universities are wrestling with a contemporary question: who gets to decide what autonomy really means. For over two weeks, PU has lived in protest mode. What began as opposition to an October notification by the ministry of education, which proposed a downsized and partly nominated senate and syndicate, has grown into a wider debate on institutional democracy. The Centre's notification, which sought to trim the senate from 91 to 31 members, was paused on November 7 after objections from faculty, students, and alumni. But the pause did little to calm tempers. The demand now is clear: hold the long-pending senate elections, overdue since 2020. The Panjab University Bachao Morcha, a collective of teachers and students, argues that without elections, representation withers into tokenism. The administration maintains that delays are procedural rather than political. It insists academic life cannot stop every time governance turns turbulent. Both camps are protecting the same ideal of autonomy, only through different definitions of it. The Panjab University senate is not a ceremonial relic. Created under the 1947 Panjab University Act, it brings together teachers, graduates, and government nominees from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and Chandigarh, making it a rare federal model in a time of increasing centralisation. Historically, this senate was never just a bureaucratic body. It was the conscience of the university. Its debates once shaped academic priorities, regional policies, and even the city's cultural life. Reducing its size may appear efficient on paper, but in practice it risks thinning the voices that give the institution its democratic character. Across India, similar tensions have surfaced in recent years, from Delhi University's disputes over appointments to Visva-Bharati's governance controversies. The University Grants Commission's 2023 note calling for "streamlined structures" may have been well-intentioned, but it raised an old question: can efficiency and democracy truly coexist in the same classroom? That this debate unfolds in Chandigarh adds irony. Le Corbusier's city was designed on a grid of perfect order, the promise that geometry could civilise chaos. Yet institutions, like cities, need a measure of disorder to stay alive. For decades, PU has embodied that balance. Its open lawns and low-slung corridors welcomed first-generation learners, poets in waiting, and future administrators alike. The affidavit circulated earlier this year, asking students to pledge not to protest without permission, struck a jarring note. It seemed to turn civic space into controlled space. But this is not a simple story of youth versus authority. Administrators face real constraints such as limited funding, politicised unions and the challenge of maintaining continuity. The protests are not rebellion for its own sake; they are a plea for conversation. What is unfolding at PU is less a standoff and more a stress test of India's democratic design. Governance structures need reform, but process matters as much as intent. Universities, after all, are rehearsal spaces for democracy, where dissent teaches as much as discussion. If nominated bodies replace elected ones, decisions may become faster but trust slower to build. And legitimacy, unlike order, cannot be enforced; it must be earned. As evening falls and students linger around the Arts Block steps, the chants soften into conversation. It is a reminder that democracy does not disappear when it is loud. It disappears when it falls silent. Much like Chandigarh itself, the challenge before Panjab University is one of proportion: to find a design that allows both structure and voice to coexist without one overpowering the other....