Kolkata: It was a tsunami of people yesterday in Kolkata at the call of the Students Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), red and white flag bearers today took virtual control of all thoroughfares in the heart of Kolkata metropolis at Esplanade east.

People from all walks of life especially young people flocked to Kolkata on the account of the Insaaf rally wearing masks of Anis khan (the student leader who was thrown from the roof of his house allegedly by the police on 18th February at midnight). They also sought Insaaf (justice) for the others dead like Barun Biswas of  Sutia, Student leader Sudipta Gupta, DYFI activist  Bidyut  Mondal and others.

Police as usual had dilly-dallied with giving permission for the rally before the Victoria house at Kolkata in the junction of the city’s heart. Ultimately, they gave permission for the rally to be held at Y channel where a stage was constructed. However when the rally started the Y channel was crammed with people, and DYFI leaders announced that the rally will shift to Victoria House despite prohibitory orders by the police in this regard.

The entire crossing of Jawaharlal Nehru road (chowringee) was then thronged with common people carrying red flags or dressed in red attire. Three huge rallies each from Sealdah,  Howrah and from Kolkata south came to the rally venue filling the venue to the brim.

They carried placards seeking freedom from the kingdom of thieves as they said and greeted the SFI-DYFI leadership with constant slogans like Pishi chor Bhaipo chor, Trinamool er sobai chor ( Aunt thief- nephew thief, Trinamools’ are thieves ) in an apparent reference to the number of scams which were unearthed in Bengal implicating Mamata Banerjee and many of their  immediate family in them.

Present in the rally was injured Salman Khan- Anis Khan’s brother who was recently attacked by miscreants as he is a major witness in Anis Khan’s murder. His father Salem Khan, the late Bidyut Mondal’s mother, and Barun Biswas’s sister were also present at the rally.

In his speech, Anis Khan’s father Salem Khan highlighted that one Anis Khan has gone but has given birth to thousands of Anis Khan. He spoke of the police oppression still looming over his family members and requested that they be served justice.

Present at the rally was All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) leader Fullora Mondal who was imprisoned for 2976 days in jail with frivolous charges and has become an icon in the state. She caught a train at 3 am in the wee hours of Tuesday morning to attend the rally today.

NewsClick spoke with  Runu Banerjee, 45, a teacher with Douglas Memorial School of Barrackpore who had come to the venue. She spoke of oppressive conditions that exist in the state. To Sayeed Gurfan Ali of Howrah, a silk screen printer, it is a matter of prestige for the state of West Bengal. 

For Tamal Sil, a daily wage earner who works on a construction site as a mason, today’s rally is an eye opener that so many people want Insaaf together in a disciplined manner. 

Piru Sheikh from ward number 134 of Kolkata corporation area. He, a left activist has been tortured much, in the last 10 years as his son’s shop was attacked as he is a Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M) supporter. To him, “Insaaf means the end of this torturous reign of thieves,” he told NewsClick.  

‘Mamata has surrendered to Modi’

Speaking at the rally CPI(M) State secretary MD Salim who is also the Former General secretary of DYFI said that Mamata is not any soldier against the BJP Government rather she has surrendered to Modi. 

In reference to Mamata’s recent comment in the assembly that she does not believe that Modi is at all bad, he said that Mamata recently has also said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not bad. 

However, the common people won’t allow the  RSS to rise from the water and they will have a water-borne death in the state.  “How can the next gen of Nathuram Godse  (Gandhi’s killer ) evaluate the next generation of Martyr Khudiram bose?”  he said. “Mamata is now finding good in Modi who is wreaking havoc in the country by giving freedom to the rapists of Bilkis Bano, and taking bulldozer policy throughout the country in the BJP ruled states. RSS has done a BPO through the TMC in the state,” he quipped in the rally.

The rally was presided over by DYFI state President Dhrubojyoti Saha and by Abhas Roychoudhury former secretary of the DYFI state committee who the state Government wrongly imprisoned for taking part in a law violation programme in Burdwan city recently. 

He also saluted the unarmed people of Burdwan that day who fought like war horses that day against the oppressive police with empty hands for over one and half hours in a true valiant manner.

Speaking at the rally  DYFI state President Meenakshi Mukherjee highlighted that the government in the state is a rotten one and in the new Bengal that is going to come the cow smugglers and coal smugglers won’t have any place to live.

Courtesy: Newsclick

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Kolkata /Agartala:  As part of the countrywide campaign to ‘Save Constitution, Save India, Save Education’ by holding jathas (marches), rallies and seminars, hundreds of students from began a march from Agartala on Sunday. The march included many tribal students, as it was jointly called by the Students Federation of India (SFI) and the Tribal Students federation (TSU).

“SFI and TSU won’t stop, till the Constitution, its values and the education sector is saved from the clutches of the BJP and its New Education Policy (NEP)”, said many activists who gathered at Agartala.

Hundreds of students and youth had gathered despite the weather being hot sultry, carrying flags and shouting slogans in Bengali and Kokborok language.

The jatha, which began from Paradise Chowmohoni in Agartala, is part of the North Eastern Jatha.

The SFI has called for organising walkathons or jathas in August-September across the country.

In West Bengal, two jathas will arrive– one of which has begun from Tripura and will cross Manipur and Assam and enter Cooch Behar district on August 19. Another jatha will start from Bihar and after crossing parts of Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand, it will enter the West Bengal on August 20.

These walkathons are demanding rejection of the NEP as well as the divisive politics of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Terming the NEP as tantamount to a disaster in the education sector, the SFI has called for a massive students’ rally, “the largest of its kind in Eastern India”, on September 2 in College Street, Kolkata.

The Tripura jatha, which would have entered Manipur by now, was inaugurated by Manik Sarkar former  national vice president of SFI and also former chief minister of Tripura last Friday. 

In his speech, Sarkar called for uniting all students and youths and launch intense movements in the coming months against the BJP regime at the Centre and in Tripura. “Students should be torchbearers in the cause of waking up the people from slumber against the despotic rulers of the country and the state,” he had said.

Courtesy: Newsclick

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In elections held days before, a panel of candidates belonging to various left-affiliated organisations are  predicted to have won, results withheld due to Delhi HC order

Image Courtesy: The Quint

The Student Federation of India (SFI) has called upon the students to “reject completely” the notices sent out to all Election Committee members by the Dean of Students (DoS) office in which it has threatened action on purportedly breaking Lyngdoh Committee Rules.

The left leaning students’ body alleged, “Since the starting of the Election Process, the DoS Umesh Kadam has sought to overreach beyond the defined role of the GRC. In the name of the Grievance Redressal Cell, he has sought to illegally issue circulars. The sole objective has been to create obstacles and hindrances in the electoral process.”

The students of JNU have been given safeguards by the Supreme Court of India, in that it mandates that there should be a student led Election Committee chosen by students through the democratic process enshrined in the JNUSU constitution.

The statement said, “This is exactly what is unpalatable to the Sanghi administration because in spite of their dirty tactics year after year, the student community has comprehensively rejected the ABVP. Hence, since last year when Mr. Kadam did not notify the JNUSU on spurious grounds to this year, the aim bas been to destroy the institution of JNUSU.”

The Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ Union elections held on September 6, 2019 saw an overwhelming presence of students. A total number of 5762 votes were cast, which comprises a whopping 67.9 percent of the students’ body. After several disruptions in the counting process, it was completed merely a few hours back but the Delhi High Court has ordered a stay on the announcement of results. The petitions were filed by JNU students Anshuman Dubey and Amit Kumar Dwivedi and one of their grievances raised by a petitioner is that the election commission of the university has reduced the number of councillor seats from 55 to 46.

However, the students had alleged that there were efforts to “subvert the mandate of students.” Reportedly the election process was stalled “keeping in mind the safety of the ballot boxes that carry the mandate of students.” Students say that the administration tried to interfere in the counting process by trying to intervene through GRC. They have also alleged that there has been a considerable time lapse of more than nine hours in the commencement of the counting process.

Though the results have been withheld because of the HC order, the initial trends have indicated as weeping victory for the left alliance. The EC handed over the complete result in a sealed envelope to the Dean of Students following the court’s notification over the “deadlock situation” during the counting process. A decision will be taken after September 17, following the hearing of a few petitions accusing the JNU EC of violating the Lyngdoh Committee rules. The turnout rate was recorded at 68%.

The trends so far show that the Left Unity, who fielded Aishe Ghosh, has swept all four posts.

The electionsthis year were watched for the tough fight between candidates from different students groups. In a key development for this year’s alliance, all the four left leaning students’ groups active on the campus, had formed a pre-poll alliance.. Left Leaning Students Groups i.e. Students Federation of India (SFI), Democratic Students’ Federation (DSF), All India Students Association (AISA) and All India Students’ Federation (AISF) joined hands to contest the elections. Their key opponent in elections is RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

This year’s presidential debates saw some key issues being raised by the candidates. Some of these are abrogation of Article 370, the constitutional provision granting the state of Jammu and Kashmir a special status, the Amazon fires, NRC high fees charged for professional courses like MBA and engineering programmes, freedom of speech on campus and attacks on minorities. The names of the students’ candidates were announced on August 28, 2019 by the JNU Students’ Union Election Committee. The SFI unit president was also allegedly attacked by ABVP members.

The biggest assault on the election process came after polling day. The stay on the election results as clearly on its operationalization and the notification of the JNUSU, not on the counting. However, the JNU admin through the GRC threatened and coerced the EC to try and make the counting process non transparent and tried to send in partisan Sanghi faculty as ‘GRC observer’s to the Counting area. This was a blatant ploy to rig the election. The move was defeated after students mobilised and gave confidence to the EC to have counting in the normal way. Since the trends indicate a comprehensive rejection of the ABVP, back channel illegalities are being used to coerce the EC and the students mandate.

We warn the DoS to not overreach and misuse his authority. The notice is the last ditch desperate effort of an admin whose tactics have failed.
 

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As JNU Students’ Union Elections for this year approach closer, AkhilBharatiyaVidyarthiParishad (ABVP), the youth wing of the RashtriyaSwayamsevaksangh (RSS)has reportedly started indulging in its predictable intimidatory tacticsof perpetuating fear and violence on their political opponents.

The SFI JNU Unit Vice President VenkateshPosagallawas reportedly attacked by ABVP goons during the presidential debate that took place on September 4, 2019. Pictures emerged showing Posagalla bleeding profusely from the head. (More details awaited)

The elections are being watched as a tough fight betweencandidatesfrom different students groups. The elections have been scheduled for September 6, 2019 and are seeing excited debates around recent political developments. Some of these are abrogation of Article 370, the constitutional provision granting the state of Jammu and Kashmir a special status, high fees charged for professional courses like MBA and engineering programmes, freedom of speech on campus and attacks on minorities. The names of the students’ candidates were announced on August 28, 2019 by the JNU Students’ Union Election Committee.

On September 2, the United Left took out a huge procession called the MashaalJulus (Torchlight procession) saw a massive turnout of students and hundreds of students came out to support the left candidates.

In a key development for this year’s alliance, all the four left leaning students’ groups active on the campus, have formed a pre-poll alliance.  Left Leaning Students Groups i.e. Students Federation of India (SFI), Democratic Students’ Federation (DSF), All India Students Association (AISA) and All India Students’ Federation (AISF) have joined hands to contest the elections. Their key opponent in elections is RSS-affiliated AkhilBharatiyaVidyarthiParishad (ABVP). The United Left has nominated the following members for different posts in the students’ union.
 

Left candidates have vowed to focus on issues such as attacks on Dalits and Minorities udner the government as well as privatization of education sector, especially government universities and colleges as primary issues of concern. They will also seek revision in the high free structure imposed by government for professional programmes such as MBA and Engineering.

ABVP also has fielded candidates for all posts. Reportedly, the group claims that it has ensured that Rs. 91 crore from the DONER Ministry was allocated for the Placement Cell. Apparently, the group is demanding for sports quota in admission, access to libraries and new hostel for students. The groups is also focussing on a new campus for engineering and management students on campus.
 

 
On the other hand, the Congress affiliated NSUI (National Students Union of India), which saw its vote share dwindle in the recent union polls, has fielded a single candidate for the Presidential post. NSUI’s Presidential candidate Prashant Kumar said that NSUI is aligned with the larger issues faced by the students on campus and therefore it has decided to only field candidate for President’s post while backing candidates from other like-minded groups (BAPSA and the CRJD) for other posts. Among the key issues highlighted by him, he cited academic autonomy and freedom of speech as the primary issues for NSUI in this year’s election.

Priyanka Bharti of the Chhatra RJD will be contesting for President’s post while RishipalYadav, who is visually challenged, will be contesting for the post of Vice President for the students group. BirsaAmbedkarPhule Students’ Association (BAPSA) —has fielded two candidates for the posts of the president and the general secretary.

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The sense of triumph that many CPM cyber warriors displayed vulgarly was such that they even claimed to have been right about the Hadiya case too: that the CPM’s planned indifference to the plight of Hadiya detained forcefully by her father who cited the High Court’s order was morally defensible because it was the PFI which supported her; and therefore that the CPM’s implicit support for Hindutva positions on ‘love jihad’ in the Hadiya case are justified. Those of us who took her side and defended her right to choice of faith and partner were pilloried as irresponsible intellectuals who feed extremists in the name of fighting Islamophobia. Some leftist cyberwarriors even said that we were probably paid to do so, a claim that the Sangh has never stopped making.

I refrained from responding immediately to these. First, I no longer consider these elements to be leftist for the most. There are still individuals in the CPM who try to forge alliances against crony capital at the national level, but sadly enough, the larger share of the regional leadership does not display such commitment. Their commitment to democracy was never strong and now it has weakened even more. Indeed, in Kerala, the war is between Sanghis and Pracchanna Sanghis, and the latter is the smarter and the more powerful. I find it pointless to respond to either, since they share the common end, ultimately, of pleasing the majority and disciplining minorities. The CPM now fights on the cultural terrain laid out by the Sangh — and so now organizes Ramayana seminars during the month of Karkatakam, when high- and many middle-caste Hindus used to read the Ramayana. Secularizing the Ramayana can hardly address the range of critiques of it raised by non-Brahmin, Dalit, and women’s perspectives, and the CPM will inevitably be caught in the contradictions of celebrating the Ramayana month with critical discussions on the Ramayana. Besides, the cultural poverty of the CPM which cannot produce an alternate discourse of family, community, love, and loyalty that could challenge the exclusions and silences of the Ramayana is too apparent. And it appears that the CPM has no discourse at all to address the educated upper caste Hindu middle-class except a B-team version of Hindutva and Moditva’s cultivation of infinite growth-anticipation.

But watching the discussion on issues raised by this truly shocking murder from a distance, there are questions that I believe no one is asking — or no one wants to ask.  The shrieking tone of the CPM participants probably disorients others or worse, creates some sort of psychological urgency to join the shrieking chorus, blend in, so to say. That is another reason why one may want to keep a distance, of course.  I was watching a very specific conversation, between some of Kerala’s most prominent public intellectuals and activists, about the editorial of the journal Patabhedam, This is a group least likely to bow to the pressure to blend in and stop thinking, but what I saw, especially in the responses of CPM- supporters in it, looks especially worrying to me.

First, I am forced to raise a question I have been raising since the Hadiya Case overtook us in 2017: it may be true that the PFI is religiously and socially conservative — but where is the concrete evidence for all the claims that are being brandished in its face? Of association with the ISIS, of planning terrorist attacks and violently disrupting Hindu-Muslim marriages? I cannot see how many of the intellectuals in the aforementioned groups who normally call for  evidence-based policy formulation, do not demand solid evidence for this? I am yet to read theological justifications of violent dissociation with others in the PFI’s writing and public statements. During the Hadiya Case when Brinda Karat, a person I deeply respect, made the allegation that the PFI was disrupting Hindu-Muslim unions in Malabar, I publicly demanded information on such cases — say, police complaints, at least the name of the police station, details of people who have been harassed thus etc.  In these times in which the demonisation of young Muslim men has reached its crescendo, it is surely easy to file a complaint. Brinda Karat’s office apparently responded to the PFI’s own request that they were collecting information and that she would be writing about it soon. Till date, I have seen no such article. If we are all for rational thinking, surely we ought to condemn or condone organizations based on evidence? It galls me why the concern about the ISIS links of the PFI have not been thoroughly investigated by now by responsible authorities or the all-powerful CPM itself? Discussions published in their newspaper merely repeats a series of allegations and provides no proof that will stand in a court of law. And even more importantly, why does the CPM pause this hunt periodically and wait till the next round of CPM-SDPI conflict? If the latter is the greatest threat to Kerala, should it not be exposed thoroughly and pursued consistently?

Secondly, why do so many of us who otherwise are firmly on the side of rigorous scientific methodology in coming to conclusions about most matters of vital significance to society, ditch that attitude when it comes to dealing with so-called ‘ Islamic extremists’? If you take the data of violent conflicts between student organizations on college and university campuses (such conflict may be relatively rare on campuses where one organization dominates, and such domination is usually held through brutal means — that indicates not ‘peace’ as some claim, but a permanent, normalized, state of conflict), it is quite likely that the fights are much more over bids to control space and influence on campus, and less over theological and religious  differences. There is further evidence for this if one considers the fact that the SFI and Campus Front have entered into opportunistic alliances during elections in colleges and it is common for students to move between the SFI and the Campus Front and ABVP as well. In the Abhimanyu murder case, the conflict was sparked by a dispute about mounting posters on the college walls. The high frequency of violent incidents between student organizations over space and resources on campuses should lead us to think that the incident at Maharaja’s was also most probably one such — and not about theological differences. In that case, it would fall into the history of the irresponsible and shoddy conduct of democracy on our campuses, and not be singled out as the eruption of religious fanaticism on a college campus.  Yet many CPM commentators, themselves intellectuals with social science credentials do not place this incident within the data on student conflicts but connect it with the infamous hand-chopping case, in which religious fanatics attacked a professor in a Kerala college for blasphemy. I am sure that we do not connect the violence that the SFI inflicts on its political rivals in college campuses, however chilling it may be, with. say, the truly gruesome Jayakrishnan Master murder case in which a BJP leader was hacked to death mercilessly by CPM supporters in front of a class full of sixth standard students. Also, however similar the CPM’s violence may be, we rarely connect it to, say, the terrible forms of torture practiced under the Soviet regime or in China. Nor do we connect the moral policing that many SFI units routinely practice on their campuses (especially on women, their clothes) with control exercised by the Stalinist regime over women’s bodies in the Soviet Union.

Thirdly, I cannot fathom why so many of us who swear by class analysis as the ultimate tool for making sense of social change and political possibility, refuse to deploy it when it comes to the Muslims and the PFI.  Secular Muslim intellectuals on the left, particularly, are often blind to their own histories and more commonly, to their middle and upper-class status. They seem to imagine the Muslim community as untouched by class differentiation, not to mention social hierarchies. Surely, one of the most apparent social processes in Kerala during the past three decades has been the intense social differentiation within the Muslim community which has left a large number of people outside the gains garnered through the Gulf migration.  The young male activists of the PFI and Campus Front, like Abhimanyu himself, mostly hail from the disadvantaged social and economic circumstances. It is these young people who do not see any future for themselves in Hindutva India who are most likely to turn to desperate measures. Projecting them as merely lumpen is a way of rendering invisible their working-class status.  To say that secular Muslims are in danger because of the so-called radicalized Muslims, then, in class terms, means the educated Muslim middle class is endangered because the working-class, socially disempowered Muslim poor are trying to obtain a voice in whichever way they can. Why is it that the CPM is unable to gain the trust of the Muslim poor? And instead of acknowledging this failure and acting on it, why are CPM intellectuals pushing them further towards the brink where they may actually get radicalized?

Fifthly, why are we not asking the question why the Campus Front is acting the way it should? If radicalization and the spread of conservative social ideologies are all that the PFI and Campus Front aim at, all they need to do is lie totally low, stay away from campus politics, aim for small prayer groups, and so on. Right now, if this is indeed their goal, they are playing the wrong strategy. There are many other religious student organizations on campus that actually choose to lie really low because their goals are truly long-term, since what they aim for is conservative social transformation outside the sphere of public politics.  If radicalization of Muslim students is indeed the aim of the Campus Front, why are they exposing themselves to the public and the arms of the state so frequently?

Finally — and for me, this is the most troubling question of all — how is it that we, as a society, have become incapable of recognizing the insights that can emerge only from tragedy and mourning? Death — irrespective of whether it is physical death (in Abhimanyu’s case) or social death (in Hadiya’s case) — and mourning are occasions in which we turn back into our own selves, reflect on our lives, with a certain distance, detachment, and we see the ugliness we have allowed to grow till then. In the distance that allows us to set aside our vested interests, we are often able to discern what the world and life are truly all about. That did not happen  in the Hadiya case, nor is it happening in the present tragedy. In each, the effort rather has been to project the CPM-SDPI difference as the core of the conflict with the CPM’s position upheld as the right, moral, secular response. In the Hadiya case, some of us did not let that succeed. Despite heavy attacks on our characters, professional competences, commitment to democracy, integrity, and threats of many sorts, we insisted that the core issue was not this but that of the destruction of a young woman’s citizenship, her social death.  And despite the best combined efforts of the CPM’s cyber warriors, official CPM feminists, and the CPM-‘manned’  State Women’s Commission, as well as the Hindutva chorus, we prevailed when the Supreme Court agreed with us. Indeed, the Hadiya case has continued to reverberate, contributing to the progressive expansion of social democracy in the daunting darkness of our present: since then, several cases to do with young people’s rights to live with chosen partners, and the present hearing on Section 377 have cited it. The credit for that does not go to the CPM’s cyber brigade which claims the monopoly of progressive thinking in Kerala but to those who insisted that the core issue is not what the CPM made it out to be.

In the present incident too, if we were truly capable of mourning and perceiving loss, we would have seen that the core issue is not the CPM-SDPI conflict and the CPM’s moral superiority; rather it is about the ways in which young men are being used by various political and social organizations in Kerala at present.  A participant in this debate reminded me that Abhimanyu was a very progressive young tribal man with an interest in protecting the environment and committed to the inclusion of the transgender community. Yes, I agree, but cannot help noticing that while such young men build ground support for the CPM on campuses, the senior leaders in power systematically break down environmental safeguards, disempower local governments, and continue to hang on to gender and sexual conservatisms of the worst sort – in other words, they use these young men while keeping them largely powerless. As for the PFI, it is clear that giving back to the SFI in the same coin is actually intensifying their younger activists’ experience of adversity, something that may well be expected in a situation in which both Hindutva and non-Hindutva political forces are essentially committed to the religious majority and the middle classes. That the leadership seems unable to  plan a strategy that would empower this youth without exposing them to terrible risks even as more and more young activists pay a terrible price (and data on past conflicts confirms this), seems unforgivable to me.  If what happened at Maharaja’s was an accident or self-defense,  then those who were involved should have come out, whatever the consequences, and admitted guilt. Only that way would they have affirmed their moral superiority. By playing the dominant game of violent student politics on the terms of the dominant, these young people only stand to lose and it is unconscionable that the leadership should assert the difference between cadre and supporter and claim that the Campus Front was not under the SDPI, and so on. If we are to address the core issue that surfaces in this murder, then we must refuse to treat it as mainly a CPM-SDPI confrontation and insist on ending the unpardonable instrumentalization of young men by these forces in student politics.

But I am no longer sure that I am addressing even the Malayali public anymore.  Since morning I have been sitting at my desk petrified by a piece of information given to me by an honest and concerned education activist: in the past one year, sixty teenagers, students of Classes Eleven and Twelve in Kerala’s schools, have committed suicide  mostly unable to suffer the moral policing and torture by teachers at school. Even more devastating was the fact that not a single case was registered in any of these deaths. I cannot see these deaths as suicides, they are murders, and that too, prompted by teachers and other authorities, even parents in some cases, who should have been their protectors and refuge,. They are every bit as searing as that of the murder of Abhimanyu. In a society in which young people are pushed over the brink by fanatic adherents of Victorian prudery and these murders are considered normal and swept under the carpet, the murder of a youngster by other youngsters alone evokes horror and shrill screaming. especially when it looks like a great chance to entrench the vested interests of the dominant left!! I do not know whether to cry or laugh.

Courtesy: kafila.online
 

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The alliance won all four office-bearer posts in the Union – President, Vice-President, General Secretary and Joint Secretary – by huge margins.

The victorious United Left candidates (from Right to Left): Geeta Kumari, Simone Zoya Khan, Duggirala Srikrishna and Shubhanshu Singh. Photos credit: Newsclick
 

The United Left has won a mammoth victory in the JNU Students Union (JNUSU) elections for the year 2017-18. The alliance won all four office-bearer posts in the Union – President, Vice-President, General Secretary and Joint Secretary – by huge margins.

The United Left, an alliance of three left-wing student organisations – All India Students Association (AISA), Students’ Federation of India (SFI), and Democratic Students Federation (DSF) – also won 13 councillor seats in the Union and a majority in the JNUSU Council.

Geeta Kumari from AISA won the President post by a majority of 464 votes, while Simone Zoya Khan from AISA won as Vice-President by 848 votes. Duggirala Srikrishna from SFI was elected as General Secretary by a margin of 1107 votes, and Shubhanshu Singh from DSF won the Joint Secretary post by a majority of 835 votes. The four winning candidates polled 1506, 1876, 2082 and 1755 votes respectively.
 

 Students celebrating the election victory of the United Left in JNUSU elections.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), came second in all four office-bearer posts.

The Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (BAPSA), which had come second in the President post in last year’s elections, suffered a setback as it was relegated to the third position in all four office-bearer posts.

The All India Students’ Federation (AISF) was faced with a major disappointment as its President candidate Aparajitha Raja finished fifth, behind the United Left, ABVP, BAPSA and independent candidate Md. Farooque Alam. Aparajitha Raja polled 416 votes. AISF candidate Kanhaiya Kumar had won the JNUSU President post narrowly – by 67 votes – in 2015-16, when the left vote splintered with SFI, AISA, DSF and AISF contesting separately.

The Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) suffered serious embarrassment and a severe loss of face as all four of its office-bearer candidates finished behind NOTA. NSUI’s President candidate polled 87 votes, while there were 127 NOTA votes for the post.

Polling was held on Friday, 8 September, and counting began the same night.

The first results to come out, as is usual, were those of the school councillor posts.

Independent candidates won as councillors in many of the science schools. The ABVP claimed that two independent candidates who won in the School of Life Sciences (SLS) were supported by them, while the Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) said that one councillor in the same school was supported by them. An independent candidate was elected unopposed in the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance (CSLG), while the ABVP candidate was elected unopposed in the Centre for Sanskrit Studies (CSS). An independent candidate won the sole councillor post in the School of Arts and Aesthetics (SAA).

The United Left swept the councillor posts in the bigger schools – the School of International Studies (SIS), the School of Social Sciences (SSS), and the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies (SLL&CS).

In SIS, the United Left won four out of five councillor posts, as the alliance candidates Marie Pegu, Aishe Ghosh, Sarthak Bhatia and Shashi Kant Tripathi came out victorious. The remaining councillor post was won by independent candidate Prahlad Kumar Singh.

In SSS, the United Left won four out of five councillor posts, with the alliance candidates Aejaz Ahmad Rather, Satish Chandra Yadav, Shreyasi Biswas and Sudhanya Pal winning. Chepal Sherpa of the Bhagat Singh Ambedkar Students Organisation (BASO) won the remaining councillor post.

In SLL&CS, the alliance won all five councillor posts, as United Left candidates Aditi Chatterjee, Ghulam Qadeer, Parveen Sheikh, Raju Kumar and Swati Singh won comfortably.

Counting for the central panel (the office-bearer posts) began with the science schools and smaller schools. The ABVP has been traditionally stronger in the science schools, and polled the highest number of votes in these schools.

Counting for SIS began around the same time, and United Left candidates won large majorities in the school.

As complete results came in for the ‘combined schools’ (science schools and smaller schools) and SIS, the United Left was trailing behind ABVP by 25 votes in the President post. United Left candidates in the Vice-President and Joint Secretary had narrow overall leads of 19 and 9 each. Duggirala Srikrishna, the General Secretary candidate was, however, far ahead already with a lead of 283 votes. Srikrishna, the incumbent Convenor from SIS, and whose work in the Union in the past one year has been widely appreciated, won a whopping 483 votes out of 829 votes in his school.

As results from ‘Red Fort’ School of Social Sciences (SSS) started coming in, the United Left raced ahead. The ABVP’s President candidate managed to win only 127 out of 1270 votes in SSS, historically a stronghold of the Left. Results from the largest school SLL&CS – with 1469 polled votes – were the last to be declared, and the United Left candidates increased their majorities to finish well ahead of their opponents.

The ABVP has won a majority in the JNUSU only once – in 1996-97, when it won the Vice-President, General Secretary and Joint Secretary posts and a large number of councillor seats. It has won the President post only once, in 2000-01, when the ABVP candidate won by just one vote. The very next year, however, the SFI-AISF alliance swept the polls, with the ABVP being trounced in all seats by huge majorities (the SFI-AISF’s President candidate won by 589 votes, then a record).

Ever since then, the ABVP has managed to win a JNUSU office-bearer post only once, in 2015-16. But the ABVP has been on a back foot since then, having angered the students with its #ShutDownJNU campaign in February 2016 using doctored videos. The ABVP has also been left without answers to the questions raised by students this year, as the JNU administration – widely acknowledged to be backed by the RSS – cut nearly 1000 seats in the research programmes of the University.

Geeta Kumari is the fifth woman to become the President of the JNUSU.

Rashmi Doraiswami from SFI, elected in 1983-84, was the first woman President of the Union. Albeena Shakil, also from SFI, became the second woman President in 2001-02. Mona Das from AISA, who won two times in 2004-05 and 2005-06, and Sucheta De from AISA who won in 2011-12, were the third and fourth women Presidents of the JNUSU.

The 35-member JNUSU council consists of the Union office-bearers elected by all students in JNU, and 31 school councillors elected by students of the various schools in JNU.

The number of votes cast in the JNUSU elections came down from 5138 last year to 4620 this year due to the seat cuts that have been imposed on the University.

Republished from Newsclick with permission.

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Interview with Vikram Singh
Interviewed by P. Ambedkar, Produced by Newsclick Team

There is a clear policy of the ruling establishment to restrict Higher Education to the affluent sections of the society. The 20 million jobs that were promised to the youth have only been an election “Jumla”.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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Continuing the crackdown on Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU), the administration has issued a letter barring JNUSU office bearers, President Mohit Pandey, General Secretary Satarupa Chakraborty and Joint Secretary Tabrez Hasan, from participating in all meeting of the Statutory Bodies and Committees of the University.

On May 16th, the second round of 143rd Academic Council (AC) had witnessed high-handedness of the university administration. This was a continuation of 143rd AC which had been adjourned on May 9. The meeting was held to discuss the issues around JNU admission policy and MPhil-PhD seat cut. During the meeting, VC, Prof. Jagdish Kumar, did not allow any sound of dissent. He and his brigade imposed their decisions on students and teachers.

Referring the suspension letter, JNUSU General Secretary Satarupa Chakraborty remarked: “This is nothing but a planned attack against us where, first we  were not allowed to voice our dissent, then we had to undergo harassments by few faculty members in AC, followed by a severe politically motivated act by the JNU administration to restrict us from participating in important decision making bodies“. Satarupa Chakraborty also added that JNUSU hasn’t received any letter regarding the Standing Committee meeting which is scheduled on Friday.

Condemning the undemocratic actions of the university administration, JNUSU has released a press statement.

Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU)

Press Release

22.06.2017

In an extremely shameful manner, the JNU administration continuing its history of targeting the JNUSU office bearers and the students’ activists, issued an extremely abhorrent notice to the JNUSU President and Joint Secretary on late evening of 21st June 2017. The notice shockingly mentions “Mr. Mohit Pandey/Tabrez Hasan is here by suspended from participating in all Statutory Bodies and Committees of the University with immediate effect until the final outcome of the Proctorial Enquiry Committee.”
The JNUSU condemns, in the strongest term possible, sheer targeting of a student representatives by the JNU administration. The manner in which a student representatives has been barred from attending important meetings that decide matters concerning students exposes the real intention of the administration. True to its dark history, the JNU administration under the leadership of Mr. M. Jagadesh Kumar yet again attempted to silence the critical voices where tough and uncomfortable questions were raised by the students’ representatives in the 143rd Academic Council meeting. Besides, it is distressful to witness how the administration is shielding the act of physical abuse and threats by a handful of its loyal faculty members by criminalising the student representatives.

Trampling Upon AC Functioning by the VC and His Cohorts-Imposing Seat-Cut Through Means Most Foul

We would like to highlight once again the sequence of events that took place in 143rd AC held on 16th June 2017. The VC opened the meeting by announcing the minutes of 142nd AC to be 'confirmed'. He not only insulted the members of AC, but also showed the audacity to announce unapproved minutes as 'confirmed'. Despite a long five hour meeting on 5th May 2017 AC which has taken a position categorically stating the forgery of 142nd AC’s minutes and thereby mandated to incorporate amendments into the minutes, the VC unilaterally declared the 'minutes' to be "passed" on 16th June 2017, without any change. While the JNUSU representatives and a vast majority of faculty collective continuously requested the Chair (the VC) to record the note of dissent, the VC and the Registrar went on reading agenda items, thereby declaring all agenda items as 'passed' without letting any member except their cohorts speak.

Let us recall the most crucial issues in the AC 'minutes' pertained to the massive seat-cut inflicted in M.Phil./Ph.D. admissions which majority members in the AC were opposed to, but the VC and his team were hell bent to show 'approval' of AC by hook or crook.

The JNUSU representatives and some faculty members kept insisting their legitimate concerns and objections against this open trampling of AC procedures by the VC chairing the meeting.

However, the script was ready on the part of administration as some of its chosen teachers were prepared to physically charge the faculty members and JNUSU representatives when we raised our objections.

In an extremely shameful and objectionable manner when two faculty members Ashwini Mahapatra and Atul Johri physically charged JNUSU representatives (a video of which is already in the public domain) in presence of the Chair, VC and the Registrar (Secretary of AC) chose to threaten the student representatives instead of bringing an order in the house. This disruption in AC and threatening by two faculty members were not only put under the carpet by the administration, but also, measures were taken by the VC to shield them by criminalising JNUSU’s President and Joint Secretary.

Unprecedented in JNU History
Indeed, the 'adjourned' session of the 143rd AC meeting held on 16 June will go down in JNU's history as the darkest episode, where VC trampled upon all norms of democratic norms of conduct of an august body like AC, where manhandling and abusive behaviour by some teachers loyal to the VC were unleashed on teacher and student members on the floor of the AC to silence differing opinions, with the sole purpose of imposing the grossly anti-student seat-cut agenda at all cost. The meeting saw some dangerous trends – (a) VC thoroughly misused his Chair where he kept reading out his agenda as 'passed' without allowing any discussion to take place, (b) VC even refused to record the dissent of the students and teachers which have already been submitted even in writing, (c) teachers who are not official members of the AC and who were not 'invitees' even in the original part of the 143 AC meeting of 5 May, but who flaunt their political pro VC loyalties, were 'invited' during the adjourned session of the 143rd AC Meeting only to orchestrate hooliganism and intimidate members inside the AC.

We have been witnessing that the voices of dissent are curtailed across campuses and in different states protests are being silenced. With the BJP-led government enjoying its majority in the parliament, continuous attacks are being unleashed on students, activists and people from the margins. Following the trend, concerted attacks are happening on universities where attempts are being made to destroy democratic institutions and targeting of student activists.

The JNUSU categorically states that such attempts will be thoroughly resisted and we will not be cowed down with such criminalization by the administration.

The JNUSU calls for an effigy burning of BJP Govt. and its stooge JNU administration on 22 June at 5:30 pm in Sabarmati Dhaba. We assert our position that any undemocratic and authoritarian move by JNU administration and its attempt to impose anti-student policies will be resisted in all manners.

Sd/-
Mohit K. Pandey, President.
Amal P.P., Vice-President.
Satarupa Chakraborty, General Secretary.
Tabrez Hassan, Joint Secretary.
 

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Update:
A chair was flung at a teacher and classes were suspended at Delhi University's Ramjas College on Thursday amid tension a day after clashes between student activists over an invite to JNU's Umar Khalid to address a seminar at the college. A rioting case has been filed by the police against students involved in the clashes, NDTV has reported.

Delhi Police has also set up an inquiry into the conduct of its personnel.

Accusing the Delhi police for being in cahoots with the BJP-affiliated ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), in the attacks on students and teachers, the CPI (M) and its student wing SFI have strongly condemned the incident and demanded immediate penal action against the complicit police and the ABVP activists.
 
Meanwhile, the online portal Quint has reported Joint CP, Delhi, Dependra Pathak as commenting: “In north campus, few policemen’s unprofessional actions noticed. An enquiry has been launched. Strict actions will be taken. The situation being monitored. In future protest, we request students to remain peaceful”.
 
Also read: What happened in DU today is not 'ho-hum', 'another clash between Right and Left'.
 
Journalists covering Wednesday's clashes outside Ramjas College were slapped, punched and kicked by about a dozen policemen, all without nameplates, the Times of India reported.
 
TOI correspondent Sompreet Bhattacharya and photographer Anindya Chattopadhyay, Times Now reporter Priyank and cameraman Mazhar Khan and several other journalists were beaten up by these policemen who also snatched their phones and cameras and deleted photos and videos. A TOI intern shooting a video was also thrashed.

 
Quint reported that three of its reporters were assaulted both by the police and ABVP activists.
 
The CPI(M)/SFI statement on Facebook on Wednesday said SFI members participating in the protest were brutally beaten.

 
The statement adds: “Delhi State Committee of SFI condemns the hooliganism unleashed by the ABVP lumpens on a peaceful protest march organised in Delhi University. The protesters comprising of both students and teachers were raising their voice against the violence unleashed by ABVP activists in a conference which happened in Ramjas College yesterday and were marching towards Maurice Nagar police station. Stones and glass bottles were thrown at students and teachers, media persons were kicked and punched in this violent rampage of ABVP goons. Predictably, the police stood as mere spectators. However, this could not deter the spirit of the march which reached their destination; Maurice Nagar police station”.
 
“We want to remind ABVP and their masters in the government that we will never bow down to the RSS-police nexus. We are confident that our strength rooted in political conviction and courage will ensure your political defeat,” the statement added.

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