AMU: Why Student Unions must engage with the national discourse

The last one year has been extremely eventful in terms of students’ politics. It might be argued that its after Jay Prakash Narayan’s Sampoorna Kranti Movement, there has been such a massive engagement of students in the affairs of the nation. It started off with the massive strike at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) followed by the nationwide Occupy UGC Movement which coincided with the casteist hounding of four Dalit students at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) which ultimately lead to the tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula and finally the fracas at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Students spanning across colleges and universities and regions have spilled out onto the streets voicing their anger against Government policies and highhanded decisions or as in the case of the continuing Pinjra Tod Movement in the colleges of Delhi, against discriminatory administrative decisions.

As the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), one of India’s oldest University elects its union, it has its work cut out, not only in terms of the issues concerning India’s largest minority population, but also about how it responds and engages with the current state of affairs.

Ever since the ascension of the Narendra Modi led BJP Government, attacks on minorities have been on a rise coupled with hate speeches and religious polarisation. Its quite obvious that the Union and the University students at large given the history of AMU. would (and have) protest on issues such as these. But keeping itself limited to that would be politically naive and inconsequential in terms of alleviating the crises in which we find ourselves today.

For the union to make any meaningful contribution it must engage itself with the politics of solidarity. Along with Muslims, attacks on Dalits in India have also been on a rise, and the politics revolving around the holiness of cows have also been thrust upon them. It would be essential to stand in solidarity with movements such as those being led by Jignesh Mevani in Gujarat. For a state like Gujarat which has seen a stronghold of upper castes in its affairs, and whose politics has revolved around brazen Hindutva, its incredible the kind of Dalit assertion we are seeing. Most importantly, the current Dalit movement in Gujarat does not confine itself to the question of caste or look at it in isolation, but speaks of intersectionalities of various forms of institutionalised injustices in terms of gender, class, land ownership and communalism. Mevani has also repeatedly asserted (through various interviews of his) on the importance of solidarity stating that he would welcome anybody who would join the movement. The AMU Students’ Union (AMUSU) would actually make a meaningful contribution especially in terms of an unified struggle of various oppressed groups.

The other extremely important thing for the AMUSU would be to speak out against the politics of terror. Terrorism is certainly a global problem and every thousands of innocent lives are lost because of it across the world, including in India. However, coupled with it is also the fact that hundreds of innocent young people are framed in false charges, the consequences of which are immeasurable. This is only one among the hundreds of such cases concerning young, innocent citizens of the country, and it is essential to ensure that we fight terror and its perpetrators do not go unpunished, and at the same time we must avoid such massive injustice to our nation’s fellow citizens. It should be the union’s responsibility to work in coordination with various civil rights groups that provide legal help as well as help in rehabilitating victims following their acquital. The previous AMUSU did make certain important interventions in this regard and it would be important for the current union which is to be elected on the 8 to carry this forward.

Finally for a students’ union whose roots lie in a debating club, (the Siddons’ Debating Club had grown into the AMUSU as we know today) it would be essential for it to promote the culture of informed debate and the rights of speech and expression, upon which we have seen some unprecedented attack in recent times. It is worth noting that the first debate organised by the Siddons’ Debating Club was on the question of access of women to education, which was one of the boldest issues to discuss and debate upon in those times.

Keeping those traditions alive the AMUSU must engage with the current problems of the day and look for meaningful political alternatives. Of course it would be politically naive to presume that a University students’ union has the power to set right everything that’s wrong with our country today, but of course with the huge student body that the AMUSU represents, it certainly has the potential to make important interventions that could be built upon in our future course of action.

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