Why was the ruling party upset by the election results at the most important Indian university?

Student Union President Dhanan Ghai (left) celebrates winning the new position (Harshit Singh Chauhan)

New Delhi -

The results of the Student Union elections at Jawaharlal Nehru University, known by its initials (JNU), in the capital, New Delhi, which were announced last Sunday evening, were a shock to the ruling People’s Party in India. Students representing the left and center movements won, while none of the candidates succeeded. All India Students Federation (ABVP), affiliated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party.

All the positions in these student elections were won by the candidates of the Left and the Students’ Union affiliated with the Congress Party, including the president, vice-president, secretary-general, and assistant secretary of the union. What is even more important is that the winner of the presidency of the union, Dhanan Jay, is one of the “untouchables,” which is the first time that a member of this sect has won the elections. Students at this university for 27 years.

These elections are considered the first to be held to choose the student union at the university after a break of 4 years, under the pretext of the lack of appropriate conditions after the Corona pandemic. 73% of the students participated in it, which is a high voting percentage that shows the students’ interest in changing the situation. These results came despite the attempts of an official. Elections cancel the candidacy of some candidates under one pretext or another.

Students listen to the presidential debate at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi (Sunny Dhiman)

A stronghold of leftist thought

Jawaharlal Nehru University - which was established in 1969 in the capital - is considered the most important university in India. It attracts students from all over the country and from abroad. Since its inception, it has been considered a stronghold of leftist thought and opposition to the ideas of Hindu extremism. It has 20 scientific research centers in addition to... The usual colleges, according to 2021 statistics, had 8,847 students and 631 teachers.

Distinguished figures have studied at this university, such as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019, Abhijit Banerjee, the former Prime Minister of Libya, Ali Zeidan, and the former Prime Minister of Nepal, Babu Ram Bhattarai, and many prominent Indian leaders have also studied there, such as the current head of the Communist Party, Sitaram Yachuri, External Affairs Minister Jay Shankar and Treasury Secretary Nirmala Sitharaman.

After coming to power in 2014, the Modi government tried to change the character of this university. It chose its directors to be those who adhered to the extremist Hindu ideology, and it also tried to appoint professors who adhered to this ideology.

Modi's party leaders continued to attack and defame this university, and considered it a "center for those who want to divide India again." It came to the point that students belonging to the All Students Union of the ruling party launched a bloody attack on their colleagues and professors affiliated with the left, on January 5, 2020.

Despite the presence of video recordings and the identification of some of the participants in this attack, to date the attackers have not been held accountable, arrested, or brought to trial, while others who commit the simplest violations are immediately arrested, and in April 2022, violence renewed on campus due to the authorities’ attempt to ban meat in university restaurants.

A number of university students, such as Omar Khaled and Sharjeel Imam, are in prison on charges that are said to be fabricated, and the courts have not released them on bail for years, even though release is the usual policy here, and is even required according to the teachings of the Supreme Court.

The Hindu movement promotes with a film the narrative that the university represents a den for leftists who hate India (Al Jazeera)

Defamation and demonization campaigns

Since the emergence of the government's efforts to change the character of the university, its student union began to oppose government plans to change the curriculum and introduce Hindu subjects into the study. Since then, many cases have been filed against university students because of these activities.

More than 500 academics from several countries announced their support for the students in their struggle to prevent “Hindukization,” and 130 academic and international figures issued a statement in which they supported the students of this university, including Noam Chomsky and Orhan Pamuk.

In continuation of the steps to attack the university’s tendencies, a film about Jawaharlal Nehru University is scheduled to be shown next week, showing from the point of view of the extremist Hindu movement that this university is “a den for leftists who hate India and are trying to tear it apart.” Therefore, its intellectual foundations must be changed, and some extremists have reached this point. The Hindus demanded its closure because it is a “den of India’s enemies,” according to their claim.

For his part, the new president of the university students’ union announced that he would fight the demonization of his university and the ongoing defamation campaign launched by the Hindu extreme right for 10 years. Jay said that he would be concerned with providing security for female students on campus, would oppose reducing the university’s budget, and would work to raise scholarships and improve infrastructure.

Political observers believe that the results of these elections are evidence of the government’s failure to change the character of this university, and are an indication of what may happen in the general elections that will be held in the country, starting next April 19, as students traditionally represent and influence society, and student leaders have continued to emerge. In the following years, they served as party leaders, serving in Parliament and holding high-ranking positions.

Source: Al Jazeera