The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) Elections 2014-15 are being held at
time when a communal, far right force has come into power at the Centre
in India. We have been witness, in the recent months, to a spate of
assaults on people’s rights and livelihoods, and on the secular fabric
of our society in a number of ways, including unrelenting price rise,
increasing communal violence and efforts to communalise education. The
Union which will be elected in the upcoming elections will have to rise
up to the challenges thrown up by the new situation, especially given
the experience that the last BJP-led government had made every effort to
introduce obscurantist, communal curriculum (in the form of courses
like ‘human consciousness’) even in JNU, which was defeated by the
united resistance of students under the leadership of the SFI-led JNUSU
of 2001-02.
In the JNU campus, however, there is tremendous
discontent and anger today among the students against the previous
AISA-led Union which did nothing with regard to the most important
students’ demands on hostels and scholarships. The students of JNU have
been hit hard by the most severe shortage of hostel rooms that JNU has
experienced in the recent decades, and the Unions in the recent years,
led by DSF and AISA, have responded with callousness, inaction and false
claims. Similarly on the demand to increase Merit-Cum-Means (MCM)
scholarships for BA/MA students from Rs. 2000 to Rs. 3000, the last
Union refused to stage even a single protest. We have also seen a
tremendous setback to the gender-just ethos of JNU in the recent weeks,
with the JNUSU President and Joint Secretary (both from AISA) resigning
after they violated the rules and procedures of the Gender Sensitisation
Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) by bringing out a public
statement on a GSCASH case against themselves. The urgent task of the
Union which will be elected in the upcoming elections, therefore, would
be to revive the legacy of the JNU students’ movement, which has
historically been known for its relentless and sincere struggles to
concretely advance students’ rights and contribute to the larger
struggle for radical social transformation.
It is with this
perspective of reinvigorating the JNUSU, and foregrounding an agenda of
ensuring accommodation facilities for students (including expansion of
hostel facilities and alternative accommodation for all students until
new hostels are constructed), enhancement of scholarships, further
democratization of the admission policy by eliminating the scope for all
kinds of discrimination in the admission process and ensuring gender
justice through unyielding struggle and vigorous sensitisation, that SFI
is facing the JNUSU Elections 2014-15.
Our central panel for the election is as follows:
For President – Pindiga Ambedkar
For Vice-President - Salini LR
For General Secretary – Najeeb VR
For Joint Secretary – Dinesh Kataria.
Councillor Candidates:
School of Social Sciences – Balu Raj, Dipsita Dhar, Manish Kumar, Satarupa Chakraborty, Twinkle Siwach
School of International Studies – Amal Pullarkat, Prasanta Kumar Sahu, Sanjukta Nath, Shibin Xavier, Sudeep Kumar Jaiswal
School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies – Adarsh MV , Akshat Seth, Kumari Anjali, Md Amir Malik, Sruti Md
School of Arts and Aesthetics – Nisam Asaf K J
Centre for the Study of Law and Governance – Jeemut Pratim Das.
School of Biotechnology- Aparna C R
We appeal to the students of JNU to rally behind the SFI to revitalise
the students’ movement and to take our struggle for a more egalitarian
and just society forward.
