Is DUSU President Uncivil or Is He Contesting the Incivility of the University?

Videos of the president of the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) tearing apart the hoardings and posters put up on the Chhatra Marg of the varsity campus have gone viral. He and other members of his team are seen hitting the hoardings with sticks and tearing them.

The police approach him and try to stop him. He cites a Delhi high court order against defacement of public property and asks: how is it that the university authorities can do what the students are prohibited from doing?

These posters were related to a marathon organised by the university authorities to propagate the idea of ‘One Nation, One Election’ (ONOE). It is a proposal being pushed by the Union government of India led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. The opposition parties of India are against it. There are many views regarding this move by the BJP-led union government.

The DUSU president made another video asking the authorities how they could impose this idea on the university. He says that it was never discussed in the university community before giving a platform to the ruling party to propagate its views on this issue. He rejects the idea and challenges the VC to argue it and convince him, adding that he can very well show why the idea is bad.

Even people like me who would be slightly embarrassed by the ways of the DUSU president are inclined to agree with him. I also wondered while looking at the hoardings if the universities could conduct a propaganda run for the government. Can the university use its resources to work for a political project of the BJP? Can it be an official view of the university? 

Can universities have one view as the official view which all faculty members and students are then obliged to adhere to? What happens if I hold a view contrary to it? How can the university speak on my behalf?  

Also read: Academic Censorship Has Become the Norm in Indian Universities

Universities could have been the best place to discuss the idea, as the DUSU president was suggesting. Discussion means all views regarding the issue involved being invited. The university could have, in fact, enriched the discourse by getting experts, who are not spokespersons or leaders of the political parties, to debate the proposal in a dispassionate manner. It would have helped the people understand the issue better. Based on the insights given by these discussions, they would be in a much better position to form their own opinion.

If DU authorities thought that ONOE was such a crucial issue for the nation, they could have organised discussion on it. But they did not do that. They did not allow the critics to air their views anywhere. They invited only the BJP functionaries to give speeches. In many colleges, events featuring BJP speakers were held hailing the idea of simultaneous elections. 

Universities are not government mouth organs; this is not how they ought to function. Their duty, very much like that of the media, is to make available to the students and the society at large, different arguments, different ways of looking at a problem. Their job is to examine every idea critically. What goes without saying that all this would be done in the frame of the constitutional values – it cannot be partisan either to the government or any other political party.

Delhi University authorities have, since 2014 chosen to be propagandists, not only of the government but of the BJP or its parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The university authorities openly support and propagate the idea of Hindu nationalism. They share dais with the RSS functionaries, who are responsible for the anti-Muslim hatred and violence in India. I have often wondered if they have ever thought that the teaching and student body of the university consists of Muslims and Christians who have every reason to feel insecure in the presence of an RSS functionary. It is like Jewish teachers and students being forced to be part of a meeting of Nazis.

To be fair to the present authorities of the DU, it did not start with them. Dinesh Singh, who was VC when the BJP came to power, started it. He made Swachchta Abhiyan, an official event, forcing teachers to be present to participate in the drama of cleanliness drive on October 2 and then asking students and teachers to participate in Yoga day and other such events. But this administration has certainly intensified it and tried to make the Hindutva version of nationalism the official policy of the university. 

They even go to the extent of attacking the critics of this ideology. They are very much part of the university. Is it very difficult to understand what consequences it could have for them? 

The university however was not sure if it would look good while doing it. So, it tried to justify it by saying that this event was to promote athletics in the university. A very noble intention but why should it be linked to ONOE? 

The DUSU president even questioned this claim of the authorities in another video. He said that this demonstration of the university's love for athletics or sports was phony as it had invested very little in improving the sports facilities. He talked about the dysfunctional gyms, sports grounds, etc and said that the authorities were taking the cover of athletics to legitimise their propaganda for the regime.

We would not accept but we also cannot disagree with the DUSU president even if we find his ways rude and aggressive. He went to a college and applied cow dung on the walls of the office of the principal of a college who was painting classroom walls with cow dung. He broke the locks put on the gate of Jawahar Vatika and asked why access to this part of the campus was denied to teachers and students. 

One can say that his approach is not civil but did the university authorities not break the rules of civility by brazenly turning the university into a propaganda machine of the BJP regime?

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