We don’t need no revolution…

In Delhi Universtiy, pretty faces, especially the ‘female factor’, fetch more votes while good candidates get knocked out

Nasrin Sultana Delhi

Great ideology that rocks the nation and turns into a revolution? Commitment that transcends ambition and self? Glamour that will face-lift a political career? The arrogant power it guarantees? Enthusiasm or the struggle for students’ welfare? What is it that drives students into college and university politics?

There is a fear gnawing that somewhere in the whirlwind of students’ politics, the importance of being a student is rapidly being lost. The youthful, eclectic, spontaneous, anti-establishment rebellion is getting trapped in a predictable future shock — a money minting machine or the rat-traps of power. In current times, the nation has witnessed a bizarre mix of restless anger and mob politics.

The anti-reservation movement, the murder of a teacher in Ujjain by ABVP leaders, protests in the MCMDAV Girls College in Chandigarh against the ban on mobile phones in the campus, the violent reaction of girls in Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, where they broke pots and glasspanes of the Proctor’s office, bloody fights between students at Mansarovar Hostel in Delhi University (DU), the student agitation against the admission process in Jamia Millia Islamia in the backdrop of the Proctor’s brazen use of violence and force.

During the Chandigarh protests, filmmaker Satish Kaushik found Yamini Sharma, and her family and the media went berserk. So how did she transform overnight from a radical firebrand fighting for the ‘right to use mobiles in the campus’ to a wannabe Bollywood starlet?

“Politics is a cerebral and idealistic activity. It is healthy if it means awareness, consciousness and goals. Campus politics often means just ganging up and doing lip-service to the orders of politicians. This is goondaism under the name of politics; the students’ body language and attitude shows extreme disrespect. Today student politics has taken a scary turn. I am shocked to see that the media didn’t pick up the issue of the murder of Prof. Sabharwal in a serious and sensitive manner. It was a gruesome act. Even after his death, the student political groups were accusing his son of playing political games,” said Mita Bose, who teaches English at Indraprastha College For Women (IP) in Delhi University.

Shashikant Sharma, the recently elected secretary of the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU), disagrees: “I joined students’ politics because this is the way I would be serving the nation. I also want to be a civil servant for the same cause. I joined the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI – wing of the Congress) in 2003 after my admission to Delhi University.”

NSUI regained power in the recently held DUSU elections. On September 8, about 80,000 students voted in the DUSU polls. Out of the four office-bearers’ posts, NSUI captured three, including the president, secretary and joint-secretary. Their rivals ABVP won the lone post of vice-president with just about 35 votes.

So how was this brazenly lavish campaign conducted? Did it follow an iota of the Lyngdoh Committee’s stoic, and rather utopian, recommendations? So how much money did the student leaders and their mentors in the political parties blow to win this powerful union?

In pomp and power play, the DUSU elections are no less than any Lok Sabha election of a lucrative constituency. Candidates are often handpicked by party big shots. For instance, Congress MP from Jat-dominated Outer Delhi, Sajjan Kumar, had reportedly backed two DUSU candidates who got nominated. Ditto with the BJP. ABVP’s Vikas Dahiya, who won the vice-president’s post, was a Jat candidate. Interestingly, DU is no more a Punjabi or Delhi-centric university only: thousands of students from Bihar (mostly UPSC aspirants), and Jat students have changed the caste/community profile of the university and its 52 affiliated big and fringe colleges.

In the DUSU elections, the smiling faces of the candidates adorn the Capital’s nook and corner, and cynical insiders complain that since pretty faces, especially the ‘female factor’, fetch more votes while good candidates get knocked out. This is an expensive mela indulged by those with fat wallets. Few walls or public transport buses are lucky to be spared in this huge metropolis, particularly in the north and south campuses, and in the colleges. Paper is obviously not used for taking down notes in a public debate on national and international issues (there is no public debate in DU, unlike in JNU). Paper, even glossy paper, is used for mass propaganda. Tens of thousands of posters, pamphlets, brochures, stickers, badges, cards with pictures, banners, signboards, hoardings, cars pasted with the pictures of candidates, vans, lorries and bikes loaded with students, take over the campuses and the Capital flaunting for all to see the power of muscle and money. The more the number of posters and other assorted material, the more popular is the party presumed to be. The more litter that the party can throw around, the greater is the spectacle.

Going by the theoretical DU code of conduct, posters are allowed only on the four ‘Walls of Democracy’ in the north campus where students’ are allotted space. Also, students are allowed a maximum of Rs 10,000 per candidate for campaigning. Needless to say, all norms are disdainfully flouted, and money flows with other goodies and addictions like nobody’s business.

But ask the leaders on the source of the money and they are as vague as they can be. Says Shashikant Sharma, “Sometimes even friends and relatives contribute financially and we can’t really say no to them, can we?” 

The trend is that some student leaders are eternally enrolled in this course or that, as is the trend all over the country. (No wonder you have balding middle-aged youngsters hanging out as student leaders). Sashikant says that he was a topper in BA from Ram Lal Anand College. So why is he chasing a double BA? He is now enrolled in the history under-graduation course in the College of Vocational Studies. Similarly, Amrita Dhawan of NSUI, who won the president’s post, has already done her graduation in commerce from Bharti College; but she is now again pursuing a BA in history from the same college.

Apart from the routine agenda of better canteen facilities, bus service and hostels, what do the parties offer? No academic, political or social issues. No integral linkages with the nation – floods, earthquakes, starvation deaths, communal violence, epidemics, slum demolitions, people’s movements, social justice – nothing touches students’ politics in these campuses. Indeed, the biggest achievements that NSUI-led DUSU boasts of are the 94 new U-special buses and the Rajiv Gandhi Hostel under construction. “No student politician works for social uplift. They all work for power and selfish gains, says Shikha Rana , a student of economics at Lady Shriram College (LSR) in DU.

Indeed, is the DU student ready to engage with the injustices and dreams of a fragmented, poor, unequal India? Or is it all the same old infinite trap of power politics, pelf and careerism?

(With inputs from Monika Nautiyal)