The Hindu Business Line : Student unions: Time for a rethink?

Organised as formal unions or not, students helped India win Independence and now they fight for many social and community causes. Of course, one does not come across an agitation by them to improve academic standards.

WHEN one sees a newspaper headline that reads `The Left has again won', it is only natural to think that the report is about State election results. Not so, if one goes by the media reports on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Students Union elections of October.

The following extract from the JNU Web site should be a useful intro to the students union. "Perhaps Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) is the only students union in the country which has produced two politburo members of India's largest Communist Party. One student of JNU is now a minister in the Union Cabinet. Many students are politically active.

The JNU students union election is unique in many ways. It has no printed glossy leaflets, loudspeakers, only long sessions of political debate. JNUSU is the only university in Asia where the union election is conducted by students themselves."

JNUSU also has an entry in Wikipedia: "The ... Union has traditionally been the leader of the socialist students' movement in India. In recent years, the union's socialist credentials have been somewhat tarnished by a number of electoral victories for the Hindu nationalist ABVP, which captured the student union presidency by a margin of one vote in 2000 due to the rivalry between the Left and the extreme-Left. At present, the union is shared between the Leftist SFI and the extreme-Left AISA."

This year's JNUSU elections were preceded by the crucial "presidential debate" held on October 25, at the campus. Debate topics ranged from increased presence and role of the Left and trade union strikes to the Domestic Violence Bill. The elections were held on October 27.

The Hindu (October 28) reported: "Unlike in years past, the much talked about students' union elections at Jawaharlal Nehru University went off smoothly on Thursday, devoid of any `technical glitches', `demands for extra time from the Election Committee' or any other last-minute high drama normally associated with the annual battle of the ballot. Instead, the campus went to the polls with a lot of fervour and colour. Very much in place were loud bursts of slogan-shouting, distribution of pamphlets, last-minute wooing of voters and busy-bodies out to make that last-ditch effort to make the decisive friendly contact."

Announcement of the election results followed: "In a complete repeat of last year's results, All India Students' Association's Mona Das won the presidential post for the second year in a row, while the Students' Federation of India (SFI)-All India Students' Federation (AISF) alliance regained the rest of the three central panel posts." (The Hindu, October 30)

The University of Delhi (established in 1922) does not lag behind. Its Web site states: "The University of Delhi has a long history student political activity. The Delhi University Students Union is the representative body of students from many colleges and faculties. Each college has its own students union to which elections are held every year. The student elections are fought keenly and with great enthusiasm. Several office-bearers of Delhi University Students Union have gone on to hold public offices in State and Central Governments."

All this raised my curiosity about India's three oldest universities — Calcutta, Madras and Mumbai and what they had to say about their students unions. All three were founded in 1857, coinciding with the year of Indian War of Independence.

The University of Madras Web site has nothing much on its students union. The University of Mumbai (known earlier as University of Bombay) Web site has a user- friendly internal search engine, which provides search results that only give the fee details of students unions and nothing more. The University of Calcutta site has an excellent chronology of events right from its inception through the years to 2002. But there is no entry on the students union.

A few weeks ago, a bench of the Supreme Court, while hearing a special leave petition by the Kerala University challenging a High Court order in the matter of holding elections to college unions, made several observations.

First, the apex court expressed concern that college union elections were creating unrest on the campuses. "This is happening all over the country. There should be some control on eligibility for contesting the elections," it said. Second, it noted that there were several instances when students study one course after another in the same college only to contest the union elections. Third, it noted that in many cases the expenditure on college union elections were high and suggested a ceiling on expenses.

The apex court provided instances of how college unions had behaved on the campus: A Vice-Chancellor being confined in his room by the student leaders, an invigilator being manhandled by student leaders. The judges said, "... from day one after winning the elections student leaders unleash unrest in the campus. We have to curb this menace."

It appears as though they want nothing to do with academic excellence. Maybe, parents are happy with the arrangement and tax-payers are comfortable with the unique role of some universities, that of training young minds for political occupations. These, however, are untested assumptions.

Many matters are up for debate and discussion, thanks to the increasing space for articulating independent views. To the list must now be added `whither student unions?' and celebrate if the student unions were to re-incarnate as Student Associations for Academic Excellence, given that the need of the hour is to improve the international reputation of our universities.

(The author, formerly with the National University of Singapore and the World Bank, is Professor emeritus, GITAM Institute of Foreign Trade, Visakhapatnam. He can be reached at bhanoji@gmail.com)

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