The battle lines for this year's JNU Student Union elections were drawn on Wednesday, when the election committee announced the candidates' names
For Shashank Singh, a first-year MA student at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the present political environment is nothing even close to what he had expected to witness on the "liberal" campus. The 22-year-old Political Science student was surprised to see that instead of political ideologies and agendas, students have been talking in terms of "caste".
The battle lines for this year's JNU Student Union (JNUSU) elections were drawn on Wednesday, when the election committee announced the candidates' names. This time, however, the narrative was completely different. Giving the traditional Left-Right political rhetoric a miss, the student leaders were found engaging in caste and identity politics.
"I did not expect that student leaders will engage in petty caste and identity politics on one of the most liberal campuses in the country. I thought that student politics here was about ideas and struggle for legitimate causes," Singh rued.
He is not alone. Several hundreds of students are confused as the three Left groups — All India Students Association (AISA), Students Federation of India (SFI), and Democratic Students Federation (DSF) — which had joined hands to beat the RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) are instead engaging in spats with Ambedkarite organisation Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (BAPSA).
The polls in the university are scheduled for Friday.
BAPSA, which had emerged as a contender just last year, has been slamming the former AISA-SFI-led student union, stating that its members were "Savarnas" (upper caste), who were "suppressing" the real "anti-brahminical" struggle on the campus.
BAPSA's Presidential candidate Shabana Ali said: "How can one differentiate identity from politics when it is responsible for the discrimination against and oppression of those coming from the marginalised sections of the society? It is important for the oppressed to raise their issues themselves rather than letting the privileged students speak for them."
Calling it "petty" politics, however, former JNUSU Joint Secretary Tabrez Hasan said: "The BAPSA members have been ridiculing the union members for having surnames such as 'Pandey' and 'Chakraborty'. They called former JNUSU leaders Kanhaiya Kumar and Shehla Rashid privileged. The kind of identity politics that they are now doing on the campus is highly condemnable."
Earlier, BAPSA members were at loggerheads with the JNUSU during the movement for missing student Najeeb Ahmed. "We were betrayed by the JNUSU during Najeeb movement as they had nothing concrete to bring him justice," Ali said.
Meanwhile, many students are of the opinion that the leaders should let these issues be and think about more pressing matters related to the campus.
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