The Aryavarth Express
Agency (New Delhi): AISA’s Dhananjay, the first dalit student leader getting elected as president of the JNU Students Union after 27 years, certainly merits exultation by the left anti-rightist forces. But more than this, it is also a matter of circumspection for the traditional left parties and their leaders for abdicating their responsibility and in the process allowing the political structure to become repressive for the common people.
JNU has been known as the Left bastion. But after Narendra Modi becoming the prime minister in 2014, the RSS has left no stone unturned to uproot the left from the institution and oust left-leaning faculty from every department. Almost all the top leaders of RSS and BJP and even Modi took leads in claiming JNU as an “anti-national” hub. A number of left student leaders were jailed for treason. JNU’s student leader and scholar Umar Khalid is still in jail for protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
People, especially the students, are yet to forget the nasty jibes inflicted on JNU the institution by prominent BJP leaders. Along with pliant sections of the national Media, the saffron ecosystem alleged that JNU harbours the “tukde tukde” gang owing allegiance to Pakistan. Almost all the student leaders were framed under draconian sedition laws. The university administration, appointed by Modi government, weakened quality standards and processes for appointments to stock the faculty with ideologically-aligned substandard members.
What was most shocking was the nonchalant attitude of the leaders of the Indian left parties. Besides some isolated and stray moves, no concerted effort was made to oppose the authoritarian move of Modi and the saffron ecosystem to colonise JNU. The senior communist leaders had left the student leaders to fend for themselves in fighting the saffron onslaught in the universities, especially JNU. Kanhaiya Kumar, who was the president of JNUSU, was falsely implicated in hate campaign and charged with sedition.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that AISA of CPI(ML) Liberation was the only left party which took the initiative and brought all the leftist students together to fight the rightist forces en bloc. Just have a relook at the 2019 JNU Students Union election. The United-Left alliance which included a coalition of All India Students’ Association (AISA), Student Federation of India (SFI), Democratic Students’ Federation (DSF), and All India Students’ Federation (AISF) led by Aishe Ghosh had won the election. This was the time when RSS and Modi had fired the nationalist imagination of the youths and students, the first generation of voters to support the politics of Hindutva and vote for BJP.
Unfortunately, the left political parties, as well as other democratic and secular forces, were mauled in their own bastions by the saffron ecosystem. This year’s election which was held just after five years in a sense is more important than the 2019 election. Though Left winning in JNU is not a new thing, it has been winning for many years, the most important thing this time has been to face the challenge of rightwing onslaught and counter its move to change the basic character of the JNU, both ideologically and demographically. Like any other institution, JNU was facing an existential crisis.
Open attempts were made by the saffron ecosystem to use the name and image of Modi for polarising the students at the university, thus demonstrating a microcosm of the national politics. The JNU Students Union election has “an impact on the national vote” is thus hardly an “exaggeration”.
The JNUSU election held barely sixty days ahead of the Lok Sabha polls has acquired more significance reflecting the mood of the nation, especially the youths and students. The election result nevertheless sent a strong message that the students and youths are not too cozy with Modi or look at him as the redeemer. The BJP regime does not look confident despite being in power for a decade. The fact is the JNUSU has historically been one of India’s most powerful and influential student bodies. Yet another aspect which ought to be taken seriously is that the election saw 73% voter turnout — the highest in 12 years. JNU witnessed 67.9 per cent voter turnout in 2019, 67.8 per cent in 2018, 59 per cent in 2016-17, 55 per cent in 2015, 55 per cent in 2013-14 and 60 per cent in 2012.
This highest turnout ought to be analysed in proper perspective, especially by the big brothers of the India’s left. By neglecting this development they would be inviting their own peril. Dhananjay, the dalit student from Gaya, the bastion of the CPI(ML) peasant struggle for more than thirty years, clearly said the JNUSU “election was a referendum against the right wing”.
The left student leaders have achieved a significant gain. While the traditional left continues to nurse confusion about fusing caste questions with Marxism, the forward-thinking students have coined the slogan “Jai Bhim, Lal Salam”. No doubt for quite some time the dalit and Muslim leaders have been raising this slogan during some stray events, this was for the first time it became the main slogan in JNU.
Priyanshi Arya, the first Dalit to be elected the JNUSU general secretary, belongs to the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Student Association (BAPSA), which derives its names from Bhaimrao Ambedkar, the country’s first law minister and the chief architect of its secular constitution. The first win for the Ambedkarite movement after 10 years of BAPSA’s inception, has aroused hope amongst the dalit students.
Sweeping victory of the students of Left-Ambedkarite alliance panel for all the four posts — of president, vice president, general secretary and joint secretary —by decisively defeating all candidates of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) affiliated to RSS clearly underlines that situation is changing fast and the left leaders must strive to consolidate the gains.
It may look like an imprudent inference, the consolidation of the dalit, EBCs and Muslim youth and student forces owes primarily to Rahul Gandhi’s thrust on their deprivation and denial of space. Out of the four elected Left candidates, Dhananjaya and Priyanshi Arya, hail from Dalit community. Mohammad Sajid is from minority category. It is also quite significant that while left parties have been extending simply moral support to the farmers’ agitation, Dhananjay, on getting elected, openly attributed the victory of students of Left alliance to the struggle of farmers. He also credited the victory of all left candidates to Ambedkar’s “to reclaim human personality”. He also underscored that the 2024 general elections gave an opportunity to change the regime which “has done enough damage to education and hurt India as a whole.” (IPA Service)
By Arun Srivastava