JNUSU Elections 2004: A Fractured Verdict

Prasenjit Bose

THE verdict of this year’s JNUSU elections, which was held on November 4, has been a fractured one. While the Left alliance of the SFI-AISF lost the president post to AISA by a margin of 137 votes, the SFI-AISF candidates have won in the posts of vice-president, general secretary and joint secretary. The SFI-AISF has also won 3 out of the 5 councillor posts in SSS and SLL&CS each and 2 out of 5 in SIS (where AISA, NSUI and ABVP have won one post each), thus retaining the convenorship in the three major schools of JNU. Moreover, 1 candidate each in School of Life Sciences, School of Physical Sciences and School of Arts and Aesthetics, who were supported by the SFI-AISF, has won in the councillor posts. Including the office-bearers, the SFI-AISF has an overall strength of 14 in the 32 member council, while the AISA has 4, NSUI 2, ABVP 8 and independents 4.

This year’s elections were marked by a fierce ideological, political and organisational battle between the SFI-AISF on the one hand and a gang-up of the entire spectrum of opposition ranging from the ultra-Left to the RSS and Congress on the other. The convergence of the vituperative anti-Left campaign carried out by the ultra-Left AISA, the RSS backed ABVP and the Congress backed NSUI --- be it on the question of the role played by the Left at the national level or the policies followed by the Left Front government in West Bengal --- created a sharp polarization between the Left and the anti-Left forces in the campus. In this backdrop, despite the fractured nature of the verdict, it is clear that a large section of JNU students have voted in favour of the positive agenda that the SFI-AISF had placed during the elections, appreciated the struggles and achievements of the outgoing SFI-AISF led JNUSU and endorsed the ideological-political position of the Left as well as the role played by the Left at the national level.

Interestingly, while the AISA won the post of president, their candidates finished fourth in the posts of Vice-president, general secretary and joint secretary. Following their victory in the president’s post, the AISA has claimed in a pamphlet that it is a verdict against the “surrender of the CPI-CPI(M) to the ruling class policies of the Congress led UPA government”. If it is indeed so, then either the candidates of the AISA in the vice-president, general secretary and joint secretary’s posts were more pro-CPI-CPI(M) than the SFI-AISF candidates or the students of JNU have taken different class positions while voting in different posts! The absurd claims made by the AISA are nothing but desperate attempts to conceal their abandoning of a credible ideological-political platform in favour of crass electoral opportunism; riding piggyback upon an essentially anti-Left political mobilisation.

The NSUI too is faced with a similar predicament; they are at a loss to provide a coherent explanation for the erratic pattern of votes received by their candidates. While NSUI’s general secretary candidate came second behind the SFI-AISF by polling 879 votes, their presidential candidate got only 291 votes in the President’s post, which is the lowest received by any central panel candidate from the major student organisations. The election results of this year have clearly exposed the collusion between the AISA and the NSUI in their project to deideologise JNU politics for the sake of short-term electoral gains. This can only be to the detriment of student politics in JNU in the long run, which is still widely regarded as a model for ideology based student politics. In this context, the role of the national president of the NSUI, who is a JNU student, is worth mentioning. Ever since he has been made the president of NSUI, he has not only taken the initiative in uniting all anti-Left forces in JNU, including the RSS-ABVP, but has also actively promoted the culture of doling out cash, distributing liquor during elections and promising jobs to different sections of students, which were alien to JNU till a few years back.

The most disturbing feature of these elections, however, is the increase in the number of councillors from the ABVP, which has also managed to increase its vote share significantly. ABVP finished second in the posts of vice president and general secretary and close third in the posts of president and general secretary. The AISA and the NSUI, which has been underplaying the threat posed by the ABVP ever since last year’s elections that had witnessed a sharp fall in ABVP’s votes due to internal squabbles, have consistently campaigned that communalism has ceased to be a threat to the campus. ABVP’s improved performance has been brought about by unity within their ranks on the one hand and the AISA and the NSUI’s vicious anti-Left propaganda and their silence on the question of communalism on the other. In the context of the defeat of the BJP led NDA in the Lok Sabha elections and the subsequent Maharashtra assembly elections, when the national mood is decidedly against the communal forces, the regaining of political space and organisational strength by the ABVP in JNU is no doubt an unfortunate development. While the SFI-AISF had made the RSS-ABVP the main target of attack during the election campaign realising their renewed communal offensive, the AISA and the NSUI completely failed in countering their communal propaganda, since they were busy spreading canards against the Left, often on the same lines as the ABVP.

The underplaying of the threat posed by communalism by the AISA and the NSUI was aided and abetted by a section of the English language print media, which played a particularly hostile role vis-à-vis the SFI-AISF during the elections. The most biased role was played by The Hindu, which otherwise enjoys very high credibility within the academic community of JNU. Not only did The Hindu give lopsided coverage to the opposition organisations (including some of their councillor candidates who eventually lost by huge margins), but a particularly mischievous report even suggested that the SFI-AISF alliance did not materialise this year, whereas this was the eighth consecutive year that the Left was contesting the elections unitedly. That this was a deliberate mischief rather than a human error is borne out by the fact that earlier this year too there was misreporting regarding the votes received by the SFI presidential candidate during the Delhi University Students’ Union elections, which was not rectified later despite our pointing it out to the campus reporter from The Hindu. Following the declaration of the results, The Times of India also reported the newly elected vice-president of the JNUSU from SFI-AISF as belonging to the AISA.

That the tactic of the ABVP, to bring about a surprise victory in some central panel posts by taking advantage of the anti-Left mobilisation, got frustrated was because of the solid organisational performance by the SFI-AISF in the face of an aggressive and combined opposition. The ABVP vented its frustration by indulging in organized violence starting from the fag end of the polling itself, which led to the hospitalisation of an SFI activist who received serious injuries. This violence by the ABVP, which was targeted against SFI-AISF activists, was a blot on the JNU’s impeccable tradition of conducting peaceful students’ union elections. The ABVP went to the extent of disrupting the poll process after the Election Committee decided to extend the timing of the polls in view of the delay in starting the poll process. While all the student organizations stood by the decision of the Election Committee to allow the voters who had lined up in the queue by 6 p m to cast their votes, ABVP activists continued to physically prevent them from voting in the School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies, despite repeated requests by the Election Committee. In a show of unprecedented barbarism, ABVP lumpens assaulted SFI-AISF activists including girl students, as well as the presidential candidate from SFI-AISF who received minor injuries. Eventually the handful of disruptors from the ABVP was chased away by the voters from SLL&CS, who were waiting in the queue for a very long time. Following their failure in disrupting the polling process, ABVP mobilised more hoodlums and tried to launch a murderous attack on the SFI-AISF activists with lathis, chains and rods, shouting communal and abusive slogans. Major violence was avoided on polling day only because the administration had called in the police, who had to resort to minor lathicharge in order to disperse the murderous mob of the ABVP. For the first time in JNU’s history, police had to be deployed to ensure that the counting process completed peacefully.

This unprecedented display of barbarism by the ABVP on the polling day was followed by rampant lumpenism indulged in by ABVP activists across the campus after the declaration of the results. ABVP lumpens went around the campus in 15-20 motorcycles, openly displaying weapons, abusing common students and threatening to beat up communists. The JNU vice-chancellor, Professor G K Chadha, who is ever keen to brag his secular and progressive credentials, refused to take any action against the ABVP goons despite their creating a law and order situation within campus for two consecutive days. In fact, Mr Chadha has by now acquired the dubious distinction of letting all perpetrators of violence go unpunished in JNU during his tenure, under the logic that all the allegations of violence are “one-sided,” i.e. they are all against ABVP activists. He seems to be waiting for the outbreak of widespread violence in JNU whereby he can victimise some SFI-AISF activists together with the ABVP lumpens in order to prove his evenhandedness! Although the SFI-AISF activists have maintained restraint and avoided major confrontation during the elections despite severe provocation from the side of the ABVP, the lenience shown by the JNU VC towards the ABVP lumpens has already created widespread impatience within the progressive, democratic and secular students of the campus.

The fascistic activities of the ABVP were meant to prevent the SFI-AISF from taking out the customary post-election victory march and terrorise Left supporters from participating in the procession. However, on Sunday night (November 7) hundreds of students responded to the call of the SFI-AISF and participated in a massive victory procession in the campus (the strength of the SFI-AISF victory procession was more than twice that of the AISA’s victory procession brought out on the same night). Since then, the ABVP lumpens have gone underground and peace and normalcy has returned to JNU. However, combating the communal menace remains to be the major challenge before the Left in JNU in the days to come.

            JNUSU ELECTION RESULTS: 2004 CENTRAL PANEL