JNUSU Elections 2006, math, "pre-math" and aftermath

Yours truly was a keen participant in the “Dance of Democracy”, the JNUSU Election Festival for the past two years in 2004 and 2005. While both the years saw victories at the President’s Post by AISA’s Mona Das, this year saw the SFI retaining the President’s Post after a gap of 2 years, with Dhananjay Tripathi winning the coveted post defeating the AISA’s candidate, Awadhesh Tripathi.

The 2005 Election was a victory of sorts for the SFI-AISF combine. Even though they had lost the President’s post, data revealed that this happened primarily because nearly 142 votes from the extreme Right JPF were transferred to Mona Das, a consequence of the hatred of the JPF toward the SFI-AISF and its problems with its organization that it broke off from, the ABVP.

SFI-AISF, however instead of being complacent despite winning 3 CP seats and 16 councillors overall/29, realized that this defeat at the Presidential post was clearly more due to a lack of solid agitations for pressing issues, that were part of their erstwhile glorious legacy established in the campus.

What followed therefore was focus on several relevant issues and emphasis on student mobilization for the same. Be it mobilizing students to protest imperialist policies pursued by George Bush during his visit to India, opposing the entry of the ship Clemenceau into Indian waters, articulating the rights of farmers who were committing suicide in hundreds across the country, all these were also some of the main tasks well accomplished by the SFI.

Yet, its primary task was to identify the level of problems faced by common students studying in the university while undertaking higher post graduate education and research. Palpably, many realized that there were quite a few students dropping out, quite a few having been forced to take up jobs even while having to continue with research etc, all owing to financial pressure. What was needed was a clear scientific survey which could determine how many such people were there in the campus and what were their aspirations with regard to necessary support that they needed to pursue unhindered academic study and research in the campus.

What followed was a dedicated questionnaire campaign by the SFI-led JNUSU which ascertained clearly the necessities of a large chunk of students who were facing financial troubles in the campus. Subsequently efforts were made to pursue the administration to substantially increase the width as well as the scope of the existing financial scholarships that they are providing to students.

All was hunky-dory till now, upto April 2006. What came as a bombshell onto the campus was the announcement by the Government to implement 27% reservation for OBCs in higher education (as mandated constitutionally in the aftermath of the Mandal Commission recommendations’ implementation in the early 1990s). The entire focus of the campus changed from issues such as financial assistance, anti-imperialism and solidarity with peasant/worker movements across the country toward this controversial announcement by the Government.

On the face of it, what the Govt had announced wasn’t anything new. Ever since the Mandal Commission recommendations were accepted for jobs, it was inevitable that such a ruling was to be implemented in the sphere of education too. The Govt also willed itself to not disturb the existing number of seats available in the open category and promised only to increase the seats substantially (54%) to incorporate the reserved sections.

What followed was a major resentment among a section of students representing primarily upper casteist elements which protested this move; with ample media coverage. The spill over of this motley group of protests led by doctors primarily was the formation of number of groups within an overarching umbrella organization called “Youth for Equality”. In JNU, too, YFE, mainly consisted of sections from Science Schools, took up the issue of protest and went ahead with several campaigns (ostensibly inspired by the movie Rang De Basanti), which ultimately culminated in a month long fast with vague demands. The Fast acted as a trigger to mobilize large chunks of apolitical sections of the campus, into one amorphous unit of anti-reservationists.

AISA, on its part, went on a counter fast (against the YFE’s fast…fast rendering the idea of fasts as fatuous) and tried to mobilize opinion among pro-reservationists in the campus. The SFI on its part, thankfully didn’t take up the route of a fast to generate opinion on the necessity of reservation. It had already released the first response supporting the move for 27% reservation, while necessitating the caveat of a Creamy Layer and appropriate increase of facilities to accommodate the subsequent increase of seats to 54%.

The problem however was that by June 2006, the reservation plank had so much occupied the arena of political contestation, that all other important issues, particularly the financial assistance agitation in the offing were not on the radar of the students at large. Despite this predicament, the SFI-led JNUSU went ahead with the agitation starting from August and into September and valiantly achieved the demands it had strove to achieve. Clearly, if not for the reservation issue being such a campus-mood-clincher, the SFI-led JNUSU’s achievement would have earned it enough brownie points to do better than their 2005 performance.

However, come election time, the entry of the so called apolitical YFE into the fray and further noise pitched in by organizations solely focussed on reservation such as the Bahujan Students Front, made the election almost a referendum for reservations.

In this heightened political environment featuring parties of all hues and shades and the presence of organizations solely focusing on reservation (one anti and another pro), predicting the result of the elections became a tough affair. The fact that nearly all political parties were for reservation, clearly established that this election was going to be a personality affair. In essence, for any person, whichever personality belonging to that political outfit corresponding to his/her position on reservation, based on his personality traits and popularity, turned out to be the criteria for election rather than issue based, performance based support that shaded voter opinion and behaviour in the past.

Dhananjay, the SFI candidate for President, owing to his popularity, incumbency and voter identifiability was therefore touted as a sure winner and he did become the winner, after all. The story however was the near consolidation of votes from Science Schools by the YFE candidates. Clearly, the existing composition of Science Schools tilted toward greater upper caste representation in contrast to the far more egalitarian (gender wise, caste wise, region wise) distribution of students in say, the School of Social Sciences was a factor in determining the support to the YFE. Hence the spectacular performance of the YFE in the Science Schools, where they were able to reap 6 councillor posts and managed leads of more than 230 votes against their nearest rivals in the voting for the Central Panel votes.

As regards, the victory of the AISA in 2 Central Panel posts, the reasons were very clear. The Gen Sec candidate for AISA was a person from the School of Social Sciences (and an erstwhile Hindi student from the School of Languages(SL)) who was known pretty well across the campus for his activism (a fame/notoreity that was nurtured with his role in the Prime Minister’s visit to the campus in Nov 2005). The AISF candidate pitched against him was someone who was contesting this election after a year of non-activity in Student Union affairs and someone who belonged to the smaller School of International Studies. The factor of voter knowledge and identification therefore worked in the favor of the AISA candidate in this post.

Similar was the case with the Post of Vice President. Tyler Williams, the AISA candidate, an American, had the highest polled votes in the SL Councillor elections in 2005. His name being touted, because of his identity and nationality, in the media was an additional factor. Pitted against him was Murtaza, someone who was contesting elections for SFI after a gap of 2 years of relative inactivity in student politics in the campus. Added to this disadvantage was a malicious campaign on his personal life, which affected his prospects seriously. Again, a case of voter knowledge and identification played a role in the defeat of the SFI-AISF candidate.

In the post of Jt Secretary, Jyotsna, a two time councillor and sitting Convenor from School of Social Sciences, comfortably won against both the AISA and YFE candidates owing to the same factor again.

In essence, from my understanding, this election reaffirmed the Leftist, progressive credentials of the campus. The victory of two candidates from the Ultra-Left in the Central Panel, despite the good work by the SFI in achieving its primary targets for the year, were primarily because of the impact of the Reservations issue in the campus plus the subordination of all other issue based considerations to merely the factors of voter knowledge of the candidate and the voter’s opinion on the reservations saga predominantly.

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El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido!

The People United shall always be victorious!

Heartiest congratulations to the SFI-led JNUSU for achieving a landmark deal that seals scholarships that will benefit scores of students pursuing Graduate and Post Graduate Education. After a valiant hunger strike in the campus, which included a one day sit in at the UGC headquarters, the JNUSU along with other students were able to achieve this long standing demand.

I miss being there at both the hour of pain (the indefinite hunger strike) and the hour of pleasure (the victory).

Anand has got a valiant account to narrate.

http://mayookham.blogspot.com/2006/09/hunger-strike.html

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Udaipur — Where "Bharat Uday" is a funny sarcastic trope

A visit away from the campus was always on the cards with friends. It never came about though, for a variety of reasons. An opportunity was found at last; a class trip ostensibly on a field survey, as part of a research methodology course to Udaipur, Rajasthan. (Aside: This was the 13th state in India that I was visiting, 15 more to go). My pal, Caesar, put it more eloquently: “Srini, here we are, wanting to go out sometime, forced at last to do so, by “State Intervention””. Well, of course, the entire trip was sponsored by the university, and so Caesar was very right indeed. What followed after 4 days of bonding, travelling, investigating, noting down and analysing was a thorough dose of reality-intake; and surely I returned from the trip further wizened and introspective.

Details of the Trip:

We reached Udaipur and camped at a NGO training centre in mofussil ‘Bedla’ and after a quick briefing, packed our bags to go on a junket to a tribal enclave nearby the tehsil ‘Kotda’; our mission to research on the notion of Tribal Self Rule in these areas. Our stay in Kotda & interaction with the officials of administration, governance, legislature and the people themselves gave us a decent picture of the institutions at place at this area. What was sobering was the fact that all HDI indicators for this place were abysmal (Sample: Literacy: 20%) and we got it confirmed from the interaction we had with the tribals themselves. Their living conditions were probably among the worst in India.

People in these tribal villages were staying like animals, I say this with the utmost respect for them. Families averaging 7 per household, living on subsistence farming, forced to work as contract labour, uneducated though willing to be educated, least exposure to the changes in the world (not even electricity has touched their lives yet), the tribals paradoxically were living this life with a contented demeanour!

After a while, I found it increasingly futile to study the efficacy of institutions in a place where individuals were so poorly lacking in enough modern “conscience” of the necessity at all of such institutions. Ergo, I wanted to further go about yet another day of research and what followed, with the graceful consent of my accompanying professor, was a permitted visit to another tribal village with a different team of classmates who were studying Tribal Human Rights. I worked with them in the village, Morella, gleaning enough information to supplement the work of the previous day.

The second village was better off in its facilities and education levels. The issue in question here was Tribal Displacement, that was brought about due to an archaic custom of reparation in a dispute (called Moutana) followed in the tribal village. The displaced tribals were actually though driven away from their homes because of a land dispute and these people had stayed away from their village for nearly 9 years, before intervention by mainstream Naxalite groups in the form of registration of peaceful protest, help in registering voter cards, etc brought the deaf administration to bring these people back to their village.

I checked then upon the work done by the Naxal groups and what action they had in mind for the future, somehow, though I was discomfited by their reference to a more radical strategy, which I felt was going to bring further state oppression on the hapless displaced tribals.

I also had the first hand opportunity to interview an agricultural farmer while ploughing the field alongwith him. Surveys of households were also part of the job. The women were more forthcoming about problems and were more eloquent about the role of politics in their village surprisingly.

In the end, I got enough material to make a decent report of the political institutions, processes and dynamics of contestation, hierarchy in the tribal villages that I had visited. Plus these, we also got enough sobering memories of the depressing socio-economic profiles of the impoverished tribal villagers. All in all, I returned home in a rather sombre mood, mulling over the images that were etched about the conditions of my fellow countrymen in hinterlands, far removed from the brouhaha that is reported so sanguinely by the mainstream press in our country.

Next time, someone tells me that India is shining on my face, I plan to give him/ her a mouthful.

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How I saved Indo-Pak relations by finding a shoe!

The day before yesterday, we had an outrageously hilarious experience, something that I wouldn’t forget for a while to come.

We had invited two singers and a troupe from Lahore on a cultural visit to the campus, and who had come to enthrall us with some Qawallis and other classical music. We had planned this as part of a campaign to showcase third world friendship against imperialism. Funnily the entire programme was planned in a day and the singers were invited the very next day!The problem was that despite the quick arrangements, we couldnt’ get a proper auditorium in the campus booked and hence, we went in for an outdoor show in front of the Students’ Union Office.

The singers were rather upset with the arrangements when they landed, but they brushed their disappointment after glancing at the healthy crowd to listen to the performance, and after a bit of mollification that we provided them. Soon the performance started and the audience were quite enthralled. What however happened suddenly was something super-funny!

(Aside: There is a rule in our campus that says that any kind of violence against dogs is a punishable offence. This perhaps has given leeway for dogs to trespass their supposed environs. ) Coming to the story again. When the singers had embarked upon the stage, they had left their traditional expensive footwear at the base of the open audi-stage. While we were engrossed with the show, in the meantime, suddenly one of my friends sitting beside me ran frantically behind the stage chasing two slightly grown up puppies. I was surprised seeing him do it when he called for me to join him. I ran ahead, followed by another friend and when we met him, asked him what was the fuss all about? My pal tells me that one mongrel dog had picked up an expensive shoe and had ran away!.

Behind the stage, there is a wilderness full of untrammeled bushes and woods and the dogs had seemingly ventured this way. While unable to control our laughter, we went on a frantic search for the missing shoe and the bloody dog. The show was going on of course in the meantime, with the singers least aware of what was happening back stage. In a while, the entire organizing committee, myself and other student union representatives were searching the woods with flashlights for the errant dog and the missing shoe. Half the time, we were trying hard to control the laughter, while at the same time, greatly worried about the fallout of this incident. There was even no backup pair of shoes that we could have brought.

After about half an hour of futile search, I decided to apply a “scientific approach” to the process. I thought that puppies generally go along in groups and stay together. So we went off to a particular place where we had seen hordes of dog families before. As we reached that point (KC Complex), we realized that the dogs we were searching for, didn’t belong to that particular family. Off we came back through the wilderness looking for another “family”. This eventually led us to a spot where a group of dogs were resting.. Backing up a hunch that the shoe was somewhere over there, we went on searching and at last, serendipitously, found the missing shoe, just about the time the show was getting over:)

I guess, in a way, I contributed to Indo-Pak relations continuing on the Confidence Building path:), or else it could have withered away to a point reaching dog’s death! Lesson learnt: No more shows organized on “Shoe-string” budgets!

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Indian Express’ editorial on JNU

Shekhar Gupta is back to Left bashing and this time, his target is JNU. The editorial is a fallout of what happened in JNU on 14th November, when a few students of Naxalite persuasion, protested using black flags and slogans, when the Prime Minister of India came over to address the students of JNU. This later on created a huge furor in the National Media, considering the fact that a person of the stature and position of the Prime Minister was subjected to such treatment, ostensibly because some students were upset with policies, architect of which, they regarded was Dr. Manmohan Singh, recently referred to as the leading neoliberal intellectual of this country by Prof. Prabhat Patnaik.

The Editorial however deemed it fit to turn its ire on the entire campus for the doings of a few. Shekhar Gupta’s left phobia has taken such a toll on him, that he thought he needed to throw some of his ire on the student activists of JNU as well. As a left democratic student activist in my university, I thought it was necessary for me to rebut what Gupta says…and this blog includes my letter to Indian Express, which of course would not be published by Gupta…for sure.

To,
The Editor-in-chief,
The Indian Express

Date: 16-11-05

Sir,
Subject: Editorial on JNU titled, “Little Stalinists”
For all the satire and perverted logic that your editorial spews, the truth is that it is far away from the truth! First, it is essential to refute the factual errors that permeate your odious editorial. You make the mistake of brushing the entire student union and the entire left wing in the campus with the same colour, forgetting unfortunately that shades of opinion exist, resulting in different political outfits with different ideologies. To make things clear, on 14th November, the left groups which do not subscribe to the notion that the Indian state is semi-colonial in nature, did not protest or disrupt the PM’s speech. It was only those groups, who subscribe to that ideological understanding, which had disrupted the PM’s speech, even as they defended their action as coming under the purview of “right to protest”.

Secondly, your comparison of the US Air Force and the entire student activists of JNU is nauseating. A few sample things for you to consider: a) the student elections in this campus are entirely conducted by students alone, with a nominated body of Election Commission members who do this job purely to satisfy their “democratic spirit” unlike the US Air Force who in their endeavor to spread democracy go about pummeling thousands of Iraqis and justify the same by using inhuman “pathetic fallacies” such as “collateral damage”. b) The protests, marches, mess campaigns, public talks that feature in this university night in and night out are done with an objective purpose in mind, to keep the culture of debate and discussion alive, unlike the US who treats the UN with contempt and debates in the Security Council as a waste of time. The campus is forever kicking with sound political understanding of various shades and “bourgeois” culture of aping Western clothing, money power, expensive hoardings, etc, characteristic of other universities is absent.

It is true that a majority of the Civil Service recruits are from this campus, yet you make the mistake of including political activists as being the large chunk of these, which is patently untrue. India’s leading Left leaders, Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury were products of this campus. Your lead editor, C.Raja Mohan served both in the capacity of a student activist as well as an academic intellectual. It is also true that the faculty (excellent, by your own admission) is largely comprised of former students of this campus, who were the very same left democratic minded “agitpropists” of yesteryear that this current generation of left-bent activists wish to emulate.

Your deep-rooted left-phobia is already well known; you devote acres of column space just to prove one point: the Left is not right. This phobia is what that has driven you to go ballistic (pun-intended) on JNU’s structure itself. Hence your convoluted logic about how JNU’s low fee structure should be scrapped because a handful of protestors deemed it fit to wave black flags and shout slogans against the Prime Minister. Your idea of a civilized audience is perhaps a conformist, arm-chair intellectualist, isolationist conglomeration of individuals, least bothered about the effect of the PM’s policies on the poor and marginalized of this country, information about which shall be available for your perusal in JNU’s libraries and even in the term-papers and academic efforts of JNU’s radical student community.

Finally, I don’t consider the term, “Little Stalinists”, pejorative at all. If we could be given the name of the leader of the Red Army, which defeated Hitler’s Fascism and proved that an underdeveloped, worker-peasant nation can take on the might of imperialism and fascism, we are proud indeed. This campus has always maintained its anti-imperialist legacy, coupled with its pro-poor, pro-worker, pro-peasant notions intact. This is precisely why this campus has produced a P.Sainath, India’s leading rural affairs journalist, a Gopal Guru, India’s leading political theorist on Social Justice, and innumerable other academic, political leaders, who have taken the well known JNU adage, “What JNU thinks today, India thinks tomorrow” to the public sphere, outside the cushions of the red brick walls that dot our campus. It seems impossible for your paper, editored by a person, who seems almost an apologist for neo-liberal capitalism to understand the ethos of this campus, which “empowers” Indians from all backgrounds irrespective of the multiple crippling identities that characterize Indian society to take up lead roles in civil society, be it in the academia, the bureaucracy, the polity or even in radical opposition.

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