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Will ABVP tear into red JNU and spill saffron?

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Waseem Akbar
Waseem AkbarSep 16, 2015 | 16:53

Will ABVP tear into red JNU and spill saffron?

This Sunday, September 13, we saw the yearly democratic festival of the country's politically most vibrant campus - Jawaharlal Nehru University's Student's Union Elections 2015 - come to conclusion. The results put up a fractured mandate. While the three of the four central panel posts went to Left parties, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party's student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) claimed one.

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This is significant given that the campus is better known as the bastion of left-wing politics. Though the ABVP had been wining school-level councilor seats in different strengths all along, the party remained politically insignificant for close to a one-and-half decade in the campus. (The last time any of their candidates won a central panel seat was in 2001 when Sambit Patra, the current BJP national spokesperson, was elected president).

If some of the people are surprised by the verdict as to how the ABVP performed so well in Left-dominated university polls, well they shouldn't be.

ABVP's performance in this election is a manifestation of the wider political poll strategy being practised by ABVP's parent party the BJP on the national level. Remember, the BJP managed to get the majority on its own in 2014 parliamentary elections even though their vote share was just touching 31 per cent?

The rule is simple: Consolidate your vote and help divide the opponents. Here, nevertheless, they needed to not put in major efforts to the division of opponents vote share since the political Left has remained too disintegrated with no less than four parties from ultra left to centrist left to simple left in the fray. Moreover, the Right has been able to open its account in the unknown territory of School of International Studies, thereby, signifying not only a consolidation of its own share but a broadening of the same.  One of the main reasons behind the rise of ABVP in the campus is attributed to its success in bringing down the politics of ideologies to the politics of amenities.

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This whole subject of change in the issues for the electioneering is direct result of Lyngdoh Committee recommendations that call for the de-politicisation of the student politics.

Chitra, a student of School of Social Sciences, tells me: "Earlier, the main issues of debate during the campaigning would be those cutting across the borders (of issues of international significance) but now all has been replaced by the issues like water, electricity and hostels." She feels the win for ABVP at central panel level is the peak of depoliticsed campus.  

What Chitra is referring to has incidentally found more resonance in some sections of the students, especially those who don't get hostels on time and therefore, shift their support to ABVP, accepts an ABVP sympathiser.

But for some of the Left sympathisers, the rise of Right is the direct result of All India Students Association's (AISA was leading the university union since last two years) "political smugness" manifested during the hostel crisis, which didn't yield any substantial results.

Some see it as a general manifestation of what is transpiring outside the gates of JNU across the country.

The gains made by ABVP are a subject of debate across. Even though many of the Left sympathisers don't accept it publicly. However, some of them tell me, the rise of ABVP is certainly a cause of worry.

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After the victory march organised by the ABVP (they dubbed it the "end of their 14-year-old political banwas"), the political Left organised a "unity march" which many construed as manifestation of their edginess.

The larger student community somehow fears the vigilante brand of politics that ABVP is known to practise in campuses like Delhi University. Consequently, the space of political dissent, many tell me, might disappear if the same politics parishad starts practising in JNU.

So amidst the victory marches and sweets distribution by the Right and unity marches and songs of defiance by the Left, what lies in store for JNU remains to be seen. Will Right's saffron consolidate its position and make further inroads squeezing the Left space? Or will the Left-laced redness of JNU stand firm and reclaim the little but significant loss?

Last updated: September 16, 2015 | 16:53
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