People's Democracy

Continuing Dominance Of The Left In JNU

  Prasenjit Bose

THE elections to the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union which were held on October 20, once again witnessed the victory of the SFI-AISF alliance. The Left alliance won in the posts of president, vice-president and joint secretary but lost the general secretary’s post to the AISA. The Left alliance retained the convenorship in the three major schools by winning a majority of the Councillor posts in the Schools of Social Sciences, International Studies and Language, Literature and Culture Studies. Left supported councillor candidates also won in the various Science Schools ensuring an absolute majority for the SFI-AISF in the council. This is the third consecutive year that the SFI-AISF has won an absolute majority in the JNUSU.

There are three significant aspects of these elections which need to be noted. First, the fact that the SFI-AISF has received such a mandate for the third consecutive year bears testimony to the solid support enjoyed by the Left among the progressive and democratic minded students of JNU. Alongwith the presidential candidate Rohit, who was the president of the outgoing union, the SFI-AISF candidates who won in the posts of vice-president and joint secretary were also members of the outgoing union. The mandate is therefore a vote of confidence for the good work done by the SFI-AISF led JNUSU over the past one year. Among their noteworthy initiatives were the commencement of the ‘Earn while you Learn’ scheme started by the university for students from socially and economically weaker sections, the replacement of the privately run mess in Mahi-Mandavi hostel by a university managed one and ensuring punishment for a teacher who was indicted by the GSCASH for harassing a foreign student. The huge mobilisation of students under the banner of the JNUSU against the US aggression against Iraq also helped to galvanise the support of the anti-imperialist sections behind the Left. The most important achievement of the outgoing JNUSU was of course to ensure that the dubious attempt to saffronise JNU through the Tenth Plan proposals, against which the 2001-02 union had led a successful agitation, was finally rejected lock, stock and barrel. Despite these achievements, however, certain shortcomings did remain, which led to discontent among certain section of students and account for the defeat in the general secretary’s post. With the successive victories of the Left the aspirations of the student community have risen considerably. The present union has to struggle relentlessly to live up to the expectations of the students.

The second significant aspect of these elections is the total rout of the communal and reactionary ABVP. With only one councillor from the School of Languages and a few from the Science Schools, this union would have one of the leanest ABVP presence in many years. More importantly, in three out of the four central panel posts, ABVP candidates finished third. Coming after their crushing defeat in the DUSU elections held in September, this rout signifies both the waning influence of the Sangh Parivar’s communal ideology among students as well as popular anger over the Vajpayee government’s policies, especially those related to education. The ABVP unit in JNU had also witnessed an open rebellion and a split earlier this year over the question of leadership, with a section of their upper caste cadres refusing to accept a dalit student as their president. In order to placate those casteist elements, who had led the rebellion, during the elections the ABVP leadership nominated only upper caste candidates to contest in the central panel. This, however, did not succeed in consolidating their support base. Besides the overall political scenario, rabid casteism which has been overtly practised by the ABVP in JNU since long has proven to be the immediate cause for its disarray and decline. Although it would not be correct to write away the possibility of their resurgence in the near future, the fact that the NSUI has managed to literally buy over a section of the ABVP’s rebel group by doling out cash and liquor militates against their possible revival.

The third significant aspect is the increased strength of the NSUI, registered on the basis of the support it has received from those sections, which used to indulge in all the communal and lumpen activities of the ABVP only a few months back. The emergence of the NSUI as a major opposition poses a new challenge before the Left. The NSUI has thoroughly exposed its reactionary character in these elections by the brazen use of money power and using outsiders for campaigning, which were hitherto unheard of in JNU. Their campaign was totally directed against the Left, for the most part spreading canards against the Left Front government of Bengal, without for once bothering to mention the need to fight the communal forces. It went to the extent of alleging that Comrade E M S Namboodiripad had sent bricks for the VHP’s Ram temple at Ayodha! Unfortunately, the AISA, which claims to be the ‘true revolutionary’ Left, parroted similar charges against the SFI-AISF and questioned its secular credentials on the basis of alleged alliances struck by the CPI(M)/ CPI with the RSS during the formation of the Janta Party government in 1977 and the National Front government in 1989. Not only were the campaign issues of the ultra-left phrasemongers of the AISA similar to those of the NSUI, the election results wherein the AISA candidates finished fourth in three posts but won the general secretary’s post points to a deal with the NSUI as well as the rebel group of the ABVP. Desperate to defeat the SFI-AISF in at least one post, the ‘true revolutionaries’ had no hesitation to form this unprincipled mahajot, and later make the ridiculous claim that the election mandate is one in favour of the AISA.

The coming days are going to be challenging for the Left in JNU. Successive election victories of the SFI-AISF have made the opposition desperate and opened up possibilities for all kinds of unprincipled deals and alliances between them. But that is not to ignore the shortcomings on the part of the SFI-AISF, which has led to some discontent among certain sections and made them susceptible to the confusion being spread by the opportunistic opposition. The need of the hour is therefore to strengthen the Left alliance, which has been the bedrock of the resistance of the Left to the communal offensive of the ABVP over the past few years. This alliance needs to be further strengthened to combat the combined strength of the communal ABVP, the reactionary NSUI and the opportunistic AISA in the days to come. Moreover, the SFI-AISF led union has to remain vigilant against the JNU administration in the coming days, which is planning to curtail some hard won rights of the student community and heap new burdens on them. It has been the path of struggle that has seen the Left emerge as champions of student issues in the past. Adherence to that path would ensure its continuing dominance over the student movement in JNU.