The Jawahar Lal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) elections – held after four years – are finally over and the United Left Front has won them. ‘JNU painted red again’ is what they and their supporters claim. But on every post, candidates of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad have lost by a small margin. That’s why they are calling it their victory because the leftists who had differences among themselves came together out of fear of the Right, yet the difference between them and ABVP remained very small. Their argument is that if they had contested elections separately like before, the ABVP would definitely have won.
There was huge excitement in the media around this election. On the day of counting, the media seemed to be in a hurry to declare victory for the ABVP. The thought of the fall of the red bastion of JNU is what made it mad with joy. But in the end the results disappointed them and they lost interest. The Left Front won every post. Now it was the turn of the other side to claim that the results were a total rejection of the ideology of the RSS.
But if we look at the difference of votes, it cannot be said that the students have completely rejected the ideology of RSS. Rather, it should be said that its student wing has emerged as a strong competitor and is here to stay. To say that JNU has turned red again would be a misrepresentation of facts.
People may wonder why the JNUSU elections should be national news at all. After all, this is only the student union of a university! It is true that the curiosity and excitement in the outside world regarding the JNUSU elections is extraordinary. This time it was much more. After all, these elections were being held after a long hiatus of 4 years. A lot has changed in JNU in these years. Even outside the campus, people in general, or rather a big section of Hindu society, have started viewing JNU with suspicion and hatred. It has come to be portrayed as a bastion of Muslims, leftists, seditionists and terrorists and this propaganda has influenced public opinion. Earlier, people used to feel proud in sending their children to JNU, but now I have hard stories of students fighting with their parents to come to JNU.
This change didn’t happen by itself. Since 2016, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its affiliated organisations have been carrying out a powerful propaganda campaign against JNU. Along with them, big media and even the film industry have been engaged in spreading a picture of JNU amongst the people which is not very pleasant. A propaganda war has been waged against the university. JNU teachers have become villainous characters in films and JNU itself has also become a character.
Inside the JNU campus. Photo: Jahnavi Sen
Recently a film has been made with the name JNU. The full name of this film is ‘Jahangir National University.’ From this name it is clear what kind of impression the filmmaker wants to give to audiences before they even enter the cinema hall. Jahangir was an emperor of India. But here the emphasis is not on his Indianness but on his being a Muslim.
When I read about this film, I recalled my conversation with a friend from Ahmedabad way back in 2016. He is vice chancellor of a university. One day his driver asked him about a university in Delhi called the Jinnah National University in Delhi. My friend was shocked to know that this was how JNU had started being described. Then he was told that the students of that university got food at heavily subsidized rates. For a thali which would cost Rs 180 outside, the students pay only Rs 18. We all know that in those days propaganda was unleashed against JNU students blaming them for wasting taxpayers’ money by doing politics. Not only that, they were using this money for their ‘anti-national conspiracies’.
This propaganda started after the uproar over a small meeting held in JNU on February 9, 2016. This meeting was to be held on the issue of Kashmir on the anniversary of Afzal Guru’s hanging. The ABVP opposed this and there was a clash between them and the organizers. It was alleged that the slogan ‘Bharat tere tukde honge’ was raised in the meeting.
Today’s Congress leader Kanhaiya was president of JNUSU at the time of this incident. The organisers of the meeting were students Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, Rama Naga, etc. It was alleged that all of them including Kanhaiya Kumar raised anti-India slogans. Zee TV telecast an alleged recording in a very provocative manner. One of its journalists later resigned, saying that the channel had misrepresented the video and it was not a true depiction of the incident. But other channels continued broadcasting stories of anti national elements conspiring against India from JNU.
Overnight, JNU and its student leaders became talking points across the country. The then Union home minister gave a statement that Kanhaiya and Umar have links with the terrorists of Pakistan. It was only after this incident that the media and BJP invented the term ‘tukde tukde gang’. JNU is a haven for the ‘tukde tukde gang’, we were told. And there is sexual promiscuity too. That means every kind of misconduct is done by JNU students and teachers.
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The BJP and big media attacked JNU, especially its student politics. Whoever stood with them was put in the ‘tukde tukde gang’. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi went to JNU to show support for students. He was also declared a member of ‘tukde tukde gang’.
This propaganda against JNU had its impact. JNU students had to face violence in Delhi and outside Delhi as well. Auto and taxi drivers in Delhi started refusing to take passengers to JNU.
While this was going on, a V-C was imposed on JNU who took it upon himself to destroy the university. JNU has been famous as a liberal arts university. In the name of making it relevant to society, the newly appointed V-C added institutes and centres of engineering, management, medicine etc. with a hope to corner the humanities and social sciences which breed liberal minds.
Along with this, large scale appointments to teaching posts of persons with declared affiliation to the Sangh parivar was made. If this trend continues, we will see all centres in JNU filled with people who are not only extremely right wing but also very poor academically in the next three to four years. The policy of admission of students in JNU has also been changed. It was because of its unique admission policy that students from extremely backward areas and from poor families from almost all over India came to JNU. You could hear all Indian languages on campus. Youth from villages and towns reached JNU. This admission policy is now gone and it will affect the character of the demography of JNU .
JNU has been, for a very very long time, the biggest obstacle to the RSS’s ambition of claiming intellectual supremacy in India. Therefore, destroying it or capturing it has been its old dream. And they know this can be done by controlling the entry of students or by filling the recruitment of teachers with their own people.
JNU was a campus where you could witness fierce ideological clashes but it remained free of violence. In fact you could not find a more peaceful campus In India. All this has changed in the last 10 years of BJP rule. JNU students and teachers have faced violence repeatedly. It has been alleged that ABVP members were involved in these attacks. But the police, far from taking action against them, did not even investigate the incidents properly.The JNU authorities also tolerated these acts of violence and even went on to blame the targeted students.
Students gathered in JNU to watch banned BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Photo: Special arrangement
JNU is known for its openness. Post dinner talks in hostels and impromptu discussions at the Ganga Dhaba attracted people from outside as well. All this has changed.The administration started imposing restrictions everywhere. The attempt has been to restrict student activism. Students and teachers are facing criminal cases filed by the administration against them.
The JNUSU elections this year were taking place in this context. Since JNU has now a V-C who proudly declares her loyalty for the ideology of the RSS, there was an apprehension that the authorities would find some excuse to either annul them or put obstacles in its conduct. JNUSU elections are famous for their simplicity and intellectual debate among rival student organisations. The same ABVP which spends lakhs of rupees in elections in Delhi University, has been campaigning in JNU with hand-written posters, wall writing and door to door campaign. This is the university’s political culture though an attempt was being made to change all this.
Well, the election took place, not that the administration did not try to rig it. At 2 am on the day of voting, a Left Front candidate was disqualified. This was a clear case of rigging by the administration. What is worrying is that this was effected by a retired judge of the Supreme Court. Despite this attempt to create confusion in the ranks of the students, voting took place and the results were declared. The Left Front won. The candidate of a relatively new organization Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (BAPSA) was victorious on one post. This was the same post for which the Left candidate’s candidature was cancelled. The Left Front had immediately declared its support to BAPSA for this post. ABVP stood second on all the posts by a small margin.
This victory or loss is not so important. What is important is that the elections took place. The question that the results have thrown before the students is whether leftist ideas, rightist ideas or centrist liberal ideas can co-exist or not. Mutual debate and competition of ideas has defined JNU. The victorious front has a duty to defend this culture and not deride its opponents as enemies or worse. It is urgent to regain the campus as a free safe space for discussion and debate. Let us see how the new union and the defeated organisation respond to this challenge.
