JNUSU election: Insecurity, internal differences surge as Left targets common adversary in ABVP

On the campus of a university named after him, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru seems to be hiding behind his death inside a big bronze statue, a mere 100 metres away from the administrative block. Up until February 2016’s sedition row, over anti-national slogans being raised on campus, this was a space for students to register their resistance. Today, it has been fitted with grills and decorated with flower pots. The moral clashes have since spread out to other sites on campus and outside as well, turning JNU into a symbol of resistance for some and a source of anarchic disruption for others. Ideologies too have gone beyond the binary of loving and hating Nehru. Ahead of the JNU Students’ Union Election on 8 September, Firstpost explore_s_ how on the University’s political canvas, multiple shades of ‘laal’ find their presence between the ‘bhagwa’ and ‘hara’. Left Unity a symbol of anger and uncertainty The alliance comprising AISA-SFI-DSF (All India Students’ Association, Student Federation of India, and Democratic Students’ Federation) is the unified Left force that is rallying against the rise of fascist powers on campus. The Left forces point to the massive seat cut. They list out in their agenda that the BJP-appointed vice-chancellor first slashed the University’s M.Phil/PhD seats from 970 in 2016 to 139 this year and that admission has been offered for only 73 out of these 139 seats. [caption id=“attachment_4019305” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Posters and wall art put up in JNU ahead of student body elections. Firstpost/ Pallavi Rebbapragada[/caption] This has, in their opinion, interfered with the inclusive admission policies. The V-C has removed JNU’s iconic deprivation points and made the viva weightage 100 percent in M.Phil/PhD admissions, trampling upon the hard-won recommendations of the Professor Nafey Committee, to reduce viva weightage to 15 percent to check arbitrariness in admissions. They add, ‘because of the massive seat-cut, constitutionally mandated reservations for SC/ST/OBC/PWD students stand decimated in MPhil/PhD admissions’. Presidential candidate of the Left unity, Geeta Kumari, spoke to Firstpost about the unified agenda: “The only opposition in this country is that of students and JNU, especially since the last one-and-a-half years, it has emerged as a symbolic response. One of our students, Najeeb Ahmad, disappeared following a public assault by an ABVP mob.” In 2015, the ABVP won the JNUSU elections after 14 years, despite being democratically isolated by others. The party has, ever since, made its presence felt in JNU’s student politics. “Last year, it was AISA and SFI and this time, the DSF, too, has joined. This just shows that the Left is conscious of the growing power of BJP’s student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in the campus. The so-called Leftists that claim to fight for gender and social justice have repeatedly ignored SCs, STs and OBCs,” says ABVP leader Saurabh Sharma. He cites the example of Akbar Chowdhary, former JNUSU president and Sarfaraz Hamid, former JNUSU joint secretary, and calls out their alleged sexual offences. Targeting the opposition over this issue, the ABVP manifesto states: ‘Communists have brought the evil culture of harassing and exploiting women in the name of liberty and revolution. Cuban revolutionary leader has slept with 35,000 women in his life, according to an upcoming documentary." While the one-page agenda pamphlet of the ABVP – titled ‘A refresher to the weakening memories of old, ageing and outgoing comrades’ – focusses essentially on sexual offences that have defamed JNU, Sharma tells Firstpost that ensuring hostel accommodation, WiFi and placements are on the party’s agenda as well. He said that the way in which ghehra, halka & gaadha laal (deep, light and thick red) have united against his party depicts how insecure the Left really is. Nidhi Tripathi, who is contesting for the post of president from ABVP, told Firstpost that JNU cannot be considered the pocket borough of the Left anymore “because of the way the Left is uniting and using all its strength to ensure that a nationalist party like ours that respects the Indian army doesn’t come to power.” She pledges to end the dormitory culture which favours the boys. Complicating the dynamic is the other threat to the Left forces, the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association (BAPSA). Its presidential candidate Shabana Ali told _Firstpost: “_The Left claims it is united against the ABVP but what has it done to curb the menace created by the ABVP inside and outside the campus. The Left has failed to lead the UGC Gazette movement and hasn’t been able to find Najeeb.” Kanhaiya Kumar’s absence could weaken Left unity Kanhaiya Kumar, former president of JNUSU who was arrested on charges of sedition in 2016, isn’t actively participating in campaigning for his party, the All India Student Federation (AISF). This year, the party has fielded Aparajitha Raja, daughter of CPI leader D Raja. It is being speculated that the reason for his absence is his ideological differences with Aparajitha, which is talked about in the student circuit. It goes against the tradition of JNU politics that a senior leader of a party goes missing at a crucial time like this. Another reason doing the rounds is that Kanhaiya might be worried about losing his ‘star value’ if AISF happens to lose. Shehla Rashid, student activist who shot to fame after last year’s agitation, is busy campaigning night and day for the Left unity, and supporters are of the view that Kanhaiya’s active backing of Aparajitha would have strengthened her chances further. [caption id=“attachment_4019345” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Posters and wall art put up in JNU ahead of JNUSU elections. Firstpost/ Pallavi Rebbapragada[/caption] Firstpost asked Kanhaiya how much truth there is to such conjecture. “JNU isn’t just a campus. It represents a mindset that is pro-democracy and pro-constitution and speaks up for the atrocities faced by the marginalised communities. Moreover, the slogan ‘Shut down JNU’ is being used outside the campus. That is why it is important to go into the masses and remind them about the equality and justice that JNU stands for,” Kanhaiya said, adding that he has been participating in non-political events like the Azadi Koonch, a movement against the flogging of five Dalit men in Una; along with farmers and women’s movements around the country. Dodging our questions about a possible internal discord, he widened the discourse to a national level. “Politics has become only about elections and arithmetic calculations but (it is) about taking our ideologies to the people in the right spirit. When we failed to stop the ABVP from coming to power, it was our failure of not being able to take our ideology to the people,” Kanhaiya explained, adding that there is an ideology at work behind the 83 percent seat cut in JNU and that interferes with the fact that education is a fundamental right. “There’s a perception imposed on those who hold degrees from JNU and even after completing PhDs aren’t able to find jobs outside. This is why it’s important to create awareness about a university, which like other universities serves to dispel repressive thought processes with rational ones,” he added, justifying his absence from the political scene. When we asked Aparajitha about Kanhaiya’s absenteeism, she reasoned that “The All India Student Federation-All India Youth Federation has launched a national campaign called Save India-Change India to protest against the anti-people policies of the NDA Government at the Centre and Kanhaiya is anchoring that.” Resentment with Lyngdoh Committee takes backseat Umar Khalid, the student activist who was briefly arrested in February 2016 on charges of sedition, was one of the founders of the Bhagat Singh Ambedkar Students Organisation (BASO), which isn’t contesting from the Central Panel but has fielded its councillor candidate Chepal Sherpa from School of Social Sciences. Khalid never wanted to contest elections as he was a part of the now defunct Democratic Students Union (DSU), which doesn’t believe in Lyngdoh Committee’s recommendations, calling it undemocratic and targeting representation of marginalised sections in the university. “The committee’s report curbs student activism. For instance, one of the clauses states that if you contest once, you cannot contest again. This puts a pressure on organisations to factory-produce activists,” Umar told Firstpost. Why the change in attitude, we asked. “JNU is at a critical juncture. Najeeb is on the rolls of university… we don’t where he is. However, we do know that the goons who assaulted him and in a way are responsible for his disappearance are roaming free and in fact, one of them is contesting the elections,” he said. The reason behind BASO’s entry into the political arena, Sherpa spells out: “In the spirit of the slogan ‘Fight Back JNU’, a student union was elected with a huge mandate last year but it has been unable to resist the anti-student policies of the present administration. If we are elected, we’ll become a critical voice within the union and try to form an alternative left.” To an outsider, last year’s newsmakers Shehla, Kanhaiya and Umar might seem like they belong to the same party and stand up for the same political ideals, but the vibrancy of difference is what makes JNU what it is. Dissent isn’t only against the state, it’s against one another too and the right to assert that dissent without a disruption of peace is what JNU wants in these elections.