Carry Forward the Struggle to Restore the JNUSU Constitution!

Over the past few days, a “joint front” comprising a handful of political organizations has been campaigning towards a referendum asking the students to reject the Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations (LCR) in toto. While the objective of rejecting LCR is laudable, the campaign leaves several questions unanswered. But before getting into those questions, let us briefly review the history of the struggle against LCR.

Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations – A look-back

The Lyngdoh recommendations had its genesis in the Sojan Francis case, born out of the attempt by college managements to trample upon the democratic rights of students. The Kerala High Court which heard the case filed by Sojan Francis, an SFI activist who had been debarred from sitting for his examination due to his political activism in St. Thomas College, Pala (Kottayam, Kerala), had given a verdict which effectively allowed the college managements to prohibit political activism in campuses. This draconian order was challenged in the Supreme Court by the Kerala University and the Kerala University Students’ Union led by SFI, and the Supreme Court issued an order on 12 December 2005 directing the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to constitute a committee to “frame guidelines on students’ union elections in colleges/universities”. The committee thus set up, with J M Lyngdoh as Chair, submitted its report on 23 May 2006. Notwithstanding the recommendations of the committee, which upheld the need for students’ union elections in all colleges and universities in the country, including private colleges and universities, and its praise for JNU and HCU as “models”, the ultimate effect of the LCR has been that these very unions which were held up as models were targeted because the students’ movement in such places have challenged the unbridled march of neoliberal policies in education and in other spheres.

The objective of the Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations (LCR), contrary to all pious statements, is to weaken the students’ movement so as to pave the way for fee hikes, commercialisation, privatisation and centralisation of higher education — a process that is already underway. LCR has put in place restrictions that are fundamentally undemocratic and exclusionary (particularly adversely affecting students from deprived sections). For instance, the clause that stipulates an age barrier of 22 years for BA students, 25 years for PG students and 28 years for M.Phil./Ph.D. students (30 years for JNU as per the relaxation granted), militates against students from deprived backgrounds who are often forced to enter higher education at a later age. The clause that prevents candidates from contesting more than once in the central panel and twice for councillor posts defies logic even as it serves to constrain the development of a mature leadership for the union. The eligibility criteria which prevents students who have been “tried/convicted” for any criminal offence and those who have been “subjected to any disciplinary action by the University authorities” only aids the college/university administrations to victimise student activists who have participated or led any kind of protests against unjust measures by the authorities. In short, the overarching framework of Lyngdoh curtails students’ rights and has been damaging to our fight against anti-student college and university administrations and the neoliberal policies of the ruling classes.

LCR and JNU

The students of JNU, having recognised the perils of the LCR, rejected LCR at the very outset, and held elections for two years (in 2006 and 2007) as per the JNUSU constitution without accepting LCR. But in 2008, the Supreme Court stayed the very JNUSU elections which Lyngdoh had held up as a “model”, thus exposing the real intentions underlying LCR. The students of JNU, however, rejected the LCR and chose to battle it out in the Supreme Court by constituting a Joint Struggle Committee for the purpose. But the Supreme Court referred the case to a constitution bench on 11 November 2009, and the said constitution bench has not been formed till date. When it became clear that the formation of the constitution bench and the final settlement of the case will take several years, the SFI in 2010 took the position that we should go ahead with the JNUSU elections as per the JNUSU constitution. If the election process is challenged in the SC or if it takes suo motu cognizance, the JNU students would be asked to explain their stand. We argued that it is likely that the SC, given the fact that it is deliberating on the constitutional validity of the Lyngdoh recommendations itself, would agree with the position of the JNU students and restore the JNUSU constitution, at least till the final verdict on Lyngdoh Committee is delivered. It might of course disagree with the JNU students and issue specific directives on JNUSU elections, and the question of any “contempt of court” would arise only if the JNU students wilfully defy those specific directives. Many other progressive organisations in the campus agreed with the SFI position and supported holding the elections as per the JNUSU constitution. But the AISA went on a scare-mongering campaign arguing that there would be a crackdown on the JNU student movement if we went ahead with our elections as per JNUSU constitution. Ultimately the UGBM did not accept the proposal to hold elections immediately as per JNUSU constitution, and SFI and the JNU student movement, respecting the verdict of the UGBM, went ahead with other initiatives to take our struggle forward. Negotiations were held with the SC-appointed Amicus Curiae and the students, in a UGBM in 2012, decided to restore JNUSU elections, the election process being governed by a modified LCR. It was agreed that the modified LCR was being accepted as an interim arrangement pending the judgement of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court. It was also decided that the newly elected JNUSU would be mandated to carry forward the legal and political struggle to restore JNUSU elections as per the JNUSU constitution.

Elected Unions Cannot Run Away from Their Responsibility

But the unions which were elected subsequently (two AISA-led, AISA-majority unions and one DSF-led, AISA-majority union) have done precious little in carrying forward this struggle. It is indeed ironic that the DSF, which did nothing to intensify the struggle when it led the Union is now part of the “joint front”. It is also to be noted that the DSF holds the position that the association of student political groups with political parties is the biggest impediment to the student movement in the country (something that the Lyngdoh Committee would gladly endorse).

The restoration of the JNUSU elections as per the modified LCR was definitely not the first choice of the JNU student community, but something that was forced upon it by objective conditions. The student community took this difficult decision recognising the fact that not having an elected Union in JNU was doing immense damage to the student movement, causing depoliticisation among students and making it extremely difficult to wage powerful and united struggles against an emboldened, anti-student administration. In doing so, the students rejected farcical arguments like those put forward by DSU, which essentially holds that almost nothing can be done to advance the student movement when Lyngdoh is in place. It was plain for the students to see that the DSU’s argument against having an elected union at a time when the administration is on a rampage trampling upon hard-won students’ rights was, in the ultimate analysis, a brazenly pro-administration argument — after all, not having an elected union would simply mean handing the decisive upper hand on a platter to the anti-student administration.

Incidentally, the “joint front” has been arguing that episodes like the militant student struggle by the SFI-led JNUSU of 1998-99 when 63 students were arrested and 14 students were sent to the Tihar jail are no longer possible now. We would like to remind them that seven SFI comrades, including two JNU students – Com. Rahul N and Com. Nitheesh Narayanan – were sent to Tihar jail in July 2013 for protesting against the corrupt Congress government of Kerala, and both of them contested as candidates to the JNUSU elections later in September 2013. In spite of Lyngdoh, SFI in the recent past has successfully waged a number of struggles in different parts of the country against fee hikes, for student amenities, for increasing seats in colleges, for restoring union elections in several places where they had been scrapped and so on. Therefore while it is true that the Lyngdoh clampdown is a significant setback for the student movement, it cannot be the case that the LCR, which governs the election process, is the factor that conclusively determines the character of the entire gamut of the student movement. We have seen in the recent past forces like the DSF trying to wash their hands off their failures in the Union by blaming LCR, and we will have to remain guarded against such opportunism. Nothing can justify the unwillingness of recent Unions, whether led by DSF or AISA, to take up and fight for core student demands.

The SFI restates its commitment and resolve to carry forward the struggle to restore the JNUSU constitution and to uproot Lyngdoh from the campus. A democratically elected JNUSU should lead this struggle rather than ad-hoc “fronts” which are not accountable to the larger student community. Further, the struggle against LCR and for campus democracy essentially has to be an all-India struggle. The JNU student movement and the JNUSU have important roles to play in this struggle – what is required is concrete study and sincere struggles that would in all probability be protracted, not opportunist alliances devoid of any politics.

Sd/-

Srabani, Secretary, SFI JNU Unit       

Viswanathan V, President, SFI JNU Unit