Author:
Publication: The Organiser
Date: December 3, 2000
The Red bastion has
fallen and students say a "political earthquake" made it. The one
vote victory of Sandeep Kumar Mahapatra at the Jawaharlal Nehru University
Students Union (JNUSU) has sent Leftist-leftovers packing. "It is
a victory of nationalist forces", said Sandeep as the results were announced.
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad (ABVP) won two of the four central panel posts. ABVP presidential
candidate Sandeep Mahapatra, a student of M. Phil of the School of
International Studies (SIS) defeated the SFI-AISF candidate Vijoo Krishnan
by a narrow margin of one vote. The ABVP also bagged the post of
Joint Secretary as Makhan Saikia defeated the nearest rival of SFI, Shiv
Shankar Mohanty by a margin of 53 votes. The ABVP candidates won
14 councillor posts from various JNU centres out of a total of 27 votes.
Two candidates who were elected as representatives in the Gender Sensitisation
Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) also had issue-based support
of the ABVP. This has been the best performance of the ABVP since
1996 when its candidates won three out of four central panel posts.
This is, however, for the first time that the ABVP has won the post of
president.
Ever since its inception,
JNU has been a Leftist stronghold. Leftist ideas dominated the 'intellectual'
environs of the campus. "The stranglehold of the Leftists was such
that any ideology outside, what we called, 'Marxian Paradigm' was seen
with contempt. Ideas like nationalism had no place among JNU intellectuals",
said a veteran ABVP supporter of SIS. This is for the first time
that nationalists have secured a widespread support from across all sections
of students. "In the victory procession students from North-East
were shouting slogans like Bharat Mata ki jai and Vande Mataram.
Girl students came out in large numbers and were putting tilak on the forehead
of winning candidates. It was something unusual for JNU students",
said Sandeep.
The ABVP had to wait
for quite long for achieving this feat. In the early 80s when the
Parishad began its activities, it enjoyed the support of a handful of students.
Meetings were held indoors and students were heckled for their non-Communist
ideas. "ABVP supporters were seen with suspicion and even their friends
maintained a safe distance from them", says a senior JNU faculty member.
Faculty was largely dominated by the Leftists and students were discriminated
on the basis of ideology. "It was basically a training ground for
Leftists to carry forward their communist objectives at the national level."
No wonder, many top ranking leaders of the CPM are former JNUSU members.
Victimisation of the
students on the basis of ideology was something not new to the campus.
Career-oriented students developed a fear psychosis against treading a
different ideology. Many a time, Ph.D. the SIS were rejected,
as they were not palatable to Leftist masters. Till recently, such
cases hogged the media limelight. "Students were living in Utopian
Marxian paradise away from the changing reality taking place in the outside
world. Non-Communist ideas were never encouraged by the faculty of
the JNU. Leftist nexus was such that students were de-contextualised
from the reality", said a research scholar of SIS. With the disintegration
of Soviet Empire and the China taking a more capitalist look, the Left
bastion started failing apart. Students clearly saw the communist
game of hijacking the intelligentsia at the campus. It was a time
when nationalist forces asserted at the national level and it had an impact
on the JNU too. "Political change at the national level did have
their impact on JNU. Students, not satisfied with the utopian Marxist
concepts -began to question the communist ideology and gradually their
numbers increased," said Prof Vasant Gadre, Head of the School of Languages.
In the early 90's, for the first time, the ABVP broke the ground and won
at the JNUSU elections. Ever since, the nationalist forces consolidated
their base.
The Leftist for long
have fought the JNUSU elections on a negative agenda. Problems of
the students were never their concern. Consequently, academic standards
at the JNU have gone down in JNU giving a serious dent to its reputation
as a premier institution in Asia. "The SFI-led JNUSU had failed miserably
and comprehensibly in ensuring more facilities to the students or in reviving
the academic atmosphere on the campus. This all round failure had
resulted in growing cynicism and apathy among the students, helped by the
SFI's blatant attempts to divide the students on caste, communal and regional
lines, for political manipulation and electoral benefits," said Sandeep.
Students have now seen through their game.
The victory of Sandeep
Mahapatra symbolises the win of nationalist thought as well as the defeat
of communist ideology. Communists have seen the red. For, the
epicentre of the "earthquake" might be at JNU, but the tremors were felt
elsewhere too.
