HVK Archives: Lax Ledt let ABVP grow in JNU
Lax Ledt let ABVP grow in JNU - The Pioneer
Prabal Pratap Singh
()
21 October 1996
Title : Lax Left let ABVP grow in JNU
Author : Prabal Pratap Singh
Publication : The Pioneer
Date : October 21, 1996
The overwhelming success of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad (ABVP) in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Stud-
ents Union (JNUSU) elections held last week can be at-
tributed to the complacency of the Left, disillusionment
of students with it and the splitting of the Leftist
vote.
The ABVP had bagged the posts of vice-president, general
secretary and joint secretary. It lost the post of
president to the Student Federation of India by a margin
of just four votes. The ABVP also managed to win 13 out
of 24 councillors' seats.
The Left has only itself to blame for its ignominous
defeat. Firstly, the presence of five such organisations
contesting separately led to a considerable splitting of
Leftist votes.
The All India Students Association (AISA), Students
Federation of India (SFI), All India Students Federation
(AISF), Progressive Democratic Students Union (PDSU) and
the Democratic Students Union (DSU) were the five par-
ties.
Another vital contributor to the Left's disastrous per-
formance was the breaking of the alliance between SFI and
AISF which, in 26 years of JNUSU election history, has
contested elections on more than 20 occasions and has a
strong following in the campus.
The alliance was broken due to uncompromising stands on
the president post by both parties.
Though the SFI managed to save face by winning the presi-
dent's post, its candidates stood third on the other
three posts, while the AISF failed to achieve even that.
The formation of the PDSU last year and their decision to
contest elections for the first time further disintegrat-
ed the Left vote. The party contested the vice-president
and general secretary posts.
Its followers are former loyalists of the SFI and the
AISF. Even its general secretary candidate was a follow-
er of the AISF until two years go.
This election's biggest upset came for the AISA, which
was nearly wiped out. It was able to win only one coun-
cillor's post.
A party that opened its JNU unit just six years ago, the
AISA managed to win the president's post in 1993 and
maintained its winning streak until its current debacle.
The pace with which the ultra Left AISA succeeded in
creating a support base on the campus, already dominated
by the SFI and the AISF, probably caused complacency
among its cadres and subsequently led to its defeat.
The major charge against the AISA over the past three
years had been that of using the Union as the party
office of the CPI(ML), throwing all democratic norms of
running the Union to the winds.
Precisely for these reasons, a group of committed cadres
broke away from the AISA about four months ago to form
the Co-ordination Committee of Revolutionary Democracy
(CCRD).
This group had also contested the election, with the main
objective of defeating the AISA.
The lack of unity among Leftist parties also led to a
general disillusionment among students, which helped the
scales tilt in favour of the ABVP.
This is not the first time the ABVP has managed to win an
office bearer's seat. In 1991, Badrika Mahapatra was
elected joint secretary.
Scrapping of the old admission policy and the stand of
Left organisations on the Mandal issue helped the ABVP
establish its foothold on the campus.
The admission policy prior to 1983 had sufficient quota
for students from the backward regions of Orissa, Bihar
and northeastern states.
These students had a natural leaning towards Leftist
ideology, which went a long way in helping the SFI and
the AISF create a mass support base.
With the scrapping of this policy in 1983, the student
profile began changing as more students from Delhi and
other metropolises joined the University.
Before the ABVP's advent, the only organisation that
could challenge the Left was Free Thinkers, a campus-
based organisation.
The Free Thinkers were an amorphous group providing
shelter to the entire gamut of opinions -- from ultra-
Left to extreme right.
However, after 1983 the fortunes of the organisation
started dwindling because its rightist component started
asserting for a separate identity.
The decision of the V P Singh Government to implement the
Mandal Commission report in 1990 and the support of Left
organisations to the report gave the first major boost to
the ABVP, which emerged at the forefront.
Student opposition to the report was so strong that the
then Union president Amit Sen Gupta, who was elected by a
sizeable margin, was forced to resign for supporting the
report.
Besides, the Leftist stance on the Mandal issue also
confused a large section of its supporters, who were
disillusioned.
This disillusionment was best reflected in the 1990 Union
elections when the pro-Congress National Students Union
of India candidate Tanvir was elected president despite
the fact that the NSUI had no support on the campus.
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