JNUSU elections highlight widening gap between public opinion and political discourse on campus

This year’s student body elections in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), while marked by a lot of hype and news coverage, betray a stark lack of policy ideas and substantive debate among students and student groups. The idea of what a union is has also undergone a sea change. The hegemony of the Left in JNU is based more on rhetoric and social pressure than ideology. The campus is mostly liberal but lacking a liberal party. And with the ABVP far from being one, the communist groups are the sole option for liberal students.

As compared to the two-party Left Unity (AISA [All India Students Association> and SFI [Students Federation of India>) in which DSF (Democratic Students Federation) came a strong second at the Joint Secretary spot last year, the latter has been included in the Left Unity panel this year (AISA, SFI, DSF).

The largest party of the three, AISA, had only agreed to Left Unity last year once the Anmol Ratan rape case damaged its reputation extremely close to election time. In short, the Left Unity project implies a defence mechanism by AISA which can no longer win every seat with its own panel, and to fudge criticism on the issue of gender, offered to share power with other left parties.

Fear of an ABVP victory was not the occasion that led to Left Unity. Most importantly, none of the Left parties were concerned with ABVP victory in the JNUSU elections since Narendra Modi became the prime minister of India – in 2013, 2014, and 2015 JNUSU elections, the main issues were still campus based (with the exception of Kanhaiya Kumar).

A JNUSU presidential candidate needs at least one of two qualities to win on their own terms (and outside a simple partisan vote) – either they need to be articulate and charismatic, or they need to be well-known faces that have been known to be hard workers on student issues. Last year’s winner and AISA candidate Mohit Pandey was neither of the two.

The clear favourite for the presidential post in the run up to the final nominations was Geeta Kumari from AISA, representing the United Left panel – the most qualified candidates on paper (whether from AISA or any other party, in ages). She is a twice-elected councillor from two different schools (once from the School of Languages, and once from the School of Social Sciences), and served in the GSCASH for nearly three years – and has a support base beyond her party.

Her frontrunner status was confirmed when the nominations were finalised, by the fact that once Geeta was nominated, every other party fielded a female presidential candidate to cut into her potential vote share – Aparajitha Raja from AISF, Nidhi Tripathi from ABVP, Shabana Ali from BAPSA and Vrinshnika Singh from NSUI.

It would be interesting to see how the new dynamics play out in this scenario. The presidential debate is another factor that could shake up the debate though, over the years, hooting, sectarian disruption and mudslinging by rival camps have led to the desertion of the general body meetings and debates by ordinary.

BAPSA (Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association), the Ambedkarite party, is campaigning hard on the slogan “laal-bhagwa ek hai”, accusing the Left parties and the ABVP, along with the JNU administration of casteism. The United OBC Forum has extended its support publicly to BAPSA. A small section of Muslim students affiliated with SIO (Students Islamic Organisation) and YFDA (Youth Forum for Discussion and Welfare Activities) claim that the Indian and JNU Left is inherently Islamophobic and that Left candidates coming from the Muslim community are simply “token Muslims”.

While in 2016, the Left Unity panel had slandered BAPSA, this year it is BAPSA on the offensive, entering into a dispute with the primarily non-Hindi-speaking SFI on the lines of “English elitism” – a far more emotional appeal than ideological or substantive.

Umar Khalid’s party Bhagat Singh Ambedkar Students Organisation is fielding councillor level candidates for the first time, despite being a self-proclaimed anti-Lyngdoh Commission party.

Councillor candidates from most parties are campaigning on central panel and national-level issues, rather than the school and department-level issues they will have jurisdiction over. For example, most Left Unity panel councillor candidates campaigned on taking credit for the #StandWithJNU movement and defeating the ABVP. A BASO candidate campaigned on issues of “national self-determination”.

One often is made to wonder whether any of these candidates is even running for a student-level post or for the post of chief minister of a state. Campus-level issues are on the backburner for all parties – the Left is busy decrying the BJP government at the Centre and fear-mongering about an ABVP victory in JNU, while not bothering to unite in Delhi University where the urgency of the unity mission is stronger, and where everyday violence of the ABVP is a major issue.

The Right is busy decrying anti-nationalism on campus, the Ambedkarites are creating a narrative of a casteism and victimisation. However, the highest most amount of mudslinging is coming from parties that are running none or next to few candidates – SIO, YFDA and BASO. Surprisingly, at the councillor level, only ABVP seems to be campaigning on a concrete policy platform, rather than on calls of “Bharat Mata ki jai”.

Back in 2013, AISA and SFI had competed against each other, solely on the basis of student issues on campus and by comparing the achievements of their past tenures. Today, even a united Left finds itself unwilling or ideologically incapable of clubbing its achievements and argue on policy.

The main conclusion one comes to is that the divide between public opinion and expectations and the political discourse of parties in JNU is only widening.

The public in JNU and the ordinary students are mostly dissatisfied with what they see as self-righteous but hollow rhetoric from parties that cannot fail to expose their own hypocrisy in the struggle for political power.

Since 2015, campus-level issues have stopped mattering to most parties. Since February 2016, the safety of ordinary students has ceased to be a priority for most student leaders, while TV stunts and self-promotion on the national stage has defined the political culture in JNU for the past few years.

The author is a PhD research scholar in Modern and Contemporary History at Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.