Opinion: Karnataka campuses need political discussions and elected student unions

From anti-British struggles to the Naxalbari uprising, from anti-Emergency movements to the fight for justice for Rohith Vemula, from the anti-NRC-CAA movement to the ongoing anti-SIR struggles, students and youth of India have always changed the trajectory of history. 

The stepping stone for all these movements has been the political milieu fostered around student unions in the public universities of India. This primary political engagement of people coming of age has had a lasting impact on Indian polity. 

In Karnataka, this stepping stone was snatched away from under students’ feet long ago. With some hope of student elections making a comeback, one must try to understand the past, present, and future of it.

Karnataka banned student union elections in 1989, citing instances of bloody clashes among different groups on campuses. This was done under the Congress chief minister Veerendra Patil as a temporary measure. The ban continued for the next 37 years, as elected student unions were gradually replaced with nominated student councils that have, at most, an advisory role to play in the everyday running of a university. Student councils in private colleges currently function as bodies that provide unpaid labour for college fest management. Most importantly, political apathy has become the normalised sentiment among students through years of propagated aversion against student politics. 

Simultaneously, government colleges and universities have been steadily eroded away and replaced by private ones in Karnataka. The state has played a massive role in the privatisation of education and the mushrooming of technical courses in private colleges. It was also the first state to start a common entrance test for engineering admission, which later paved the way for the coaching industry to flourish. Simultaneously, State spending on education decreased progressively. 

Privatisation did not translate into better quality education or higher placements despite more and more families pumping in money to get their wards a college degree. The managements also act in the most authoritarian manner imposing spurious fees, replicating discrimination on caste and communal lines, continuing moral policing using dress codes, and creating a stifling environment. The demand for an elected student union still could not become mainstream.

The promise and the anti-climax

The Karnataka budget published in March this year had two promises from former chief minister Siddaramaiah: the enactment of the Rohith Vemula Act and reintroduction of student union elections in Karnataka. According to reports, this long overdue announcement came at the behest of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who sees this as a pipeline for producing future leaders for the party. This is perhaps a reductive explanation that omits the demand that Left-Ambedkarite-minority student groups have been making since long to bring back student union elections in the state. Not surprisingly, it is the BJP-RSS’ student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) that has constantly opposed this demand. 

What followed the budget announcement was a joint meeting in April between the state govt and various student groups including All India Students' Association (AISA), All India Democratic Students' Organisation (AIDSO), National Students' Union of India (NSUI), and ABVP. It was announced in the meeting that student union elections would be conducted in Karnataka from the 2026-27 onwards. It was also announced that the elections would be organised as per the Lyngdoh committee recommendations (LCR). 

The meeting was chaired by former Higher Education minister MC Sudhakar and Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil. While most student groups urged the government to conduct swift, free, and fair elections, it was the ABVP who asked for restrictions on candidature on the basis of attendance, backlogs, and past FIRs. 

None of this can be a suitable basis to exclude candidates. Given that students may miss classes or have backlogs due to medical or other reasons with no bearing on their leadership acumen, such restrictions are uncalled for. Moreover, for students that are part of organisations that express dissent against the ruling powers, FIRs are quite common. 

The ABVP’s stance reeks of irony, given their history that involves vandalising Azim Premji University, threatening students at National Law School of India University for screening a documentary on Umar Khalid, or injuring students in Jawaharlal Nehru University and Dr Hari Singh Gour University in Madhya Pradesh. In fact, 30% of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs in the previous government had serious criminal charges against them, according to a report by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). 

After a wait of five more months, on September 9, the Karnataka cabinet finally approved the reintroduction of campus elections. However, it came with a caveat – unions with political affiliations will be barred from campus. In other words, students cannot contest elections under the banner of any political organisation. 

A few weeks before this, Minister Sharan Prakash Patil went so far as to declare that students will not even be allowed to discuss any ideology or political thought as part of election campaigns. He mandated for students to speak only on academic issues. Since further details regarding the modalities and logistics of the elections are yet to be declared, the exact stance of the Congress government is not clear.

Limits on campus democracy

If the Karnataka student elections are to follow Lyngdoh’s 2006 recommendations, it is important to understand past experiences and what it entails. These recommendations came as a reaction to the money and muscle shows rampant in Delhi University Student Union (DUSU) elections, which were then dominated by the Congress' NSUI and the BJP’s ABVP. 

Left-wing organisations including AISA have repeatedly pointed out the limits LCR imposes on the freedom exercised by student unions. Following are a few of the restrictive aspects of the recommendations:

• Clause 6.3 bars non-students and political party links, particularly disallowing any non-student from partaking in the political discourse around the elections on campus. 

• A campaign time limit of 10 days is set by clause 6.4, reducing the possibility of reaching out to all students within the allotted time.

• Clause 6.5 imposes age limits (22 for undergraduate students, 25 for masters students, 28 for MPhil/doctoral scholars) and one-term restriction, and bars candidates with criminal or disciplinary records. For students from marginalised sections with a history of academic interruptions, this is patently exclusionary.

• Clause 6.8 gives administrations the power to override student bodies and even dissolve an elected union through a grievance redressal mechanism.

The conditions put forth by the Karnataka government visibly echo the philosophy of the LCR. In fact, it went a step further to completely bar contesting students from having any political affiliations. 

Upon this cabinet decision being made public, AISA along with other Left student groups unequivocally condemned it. This is a clear bid to keep campuses free from any discourse that points to the systemic nature of the crisis in education. The problems faced by students everyday will not come closer to any solution in an ideological vacuum. It is interesting to note that ABVP has welcomed this move.

Despite the LCR, DUSU elections continue to be exuberant shows with crores of rupees pumped in by the two principal ruling class parties, much above the Rs 5,000 cap. 

On the other hand, Left-Ambedkarite-minority student groups on campuses like Jadavpur University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hyderabad Central University, Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Milia Islamia, etc., continue to be in a state of constant tussle with the administration to maintain some sovereignty of the unions. 

This exposes a bias in terms of enforceability of the guidelines, depending on which group would be pliant to the establishment. There is a strong chance of a similar situation unfolding in Karnataka.

The counterview

Even within progressive circles, there is an opinion that the re-starting of student union elections will lead to a complete takeover of campus spaces by right-wing forces. However, the takeover is already a reality and most institutions are shaped by rightwing ideologies. 

An elected student union or the dialogue that progressive groups engage in during election season, can be a mechanism to highlight the dire situation students are facing and challenge the status quo. Out of 440 government first grade colleges in Karnataka, 428 colleges are running without a principal, according to the Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayareddy. One can imagine the quality of education that is imparted from such institutions. 

In this context, the lack of a platform to raise student issues can in the bare minimum be addressed through the election of representatives.

Way forward

A hundred years ago, when Bhagat Singh was writing for the workers’ magazine Kirti, he discussed the need for students to have an academic life not shorn of commitment to the greater demands of society. He cited a circular enforced by the British government on students and teachers of Punjab preventing them from participating in politics. This has now become a regular feature in most private colleges in Karnataka. Merely organising study circles can attract the immediate ire of the administration. Recently, an AISA member from Azim Premji University was suspended for a period of two years for organising a discussion on the Kunan-Poshpora mass-rape.

This crackdown is part of the post-90s neoliberal policies to curb all forms of dissent against the injustices of the State and privately-owned institutions. Private colleges have replaced public institutes and teaching staff has been contractualised. Fees have been steadily hiked even in government institutes, pushing students towards a loan model rather than regular funding. Historically, student unions have been the first line of defence against these undemocratic efforts, which is why ruling classes have worked hard to dismantle them. If bloody clashes and deaths were the real reason to stop student elections, parliamentary elections would have long since been banned. 

But now, the times are a-changin' in real time. Despite a hundred restrictions, students in private and public institutes are spontaneously rising in protest against student suicides, academic harassment, sexual assault, privatisation, lack of stipends, and other issues. The Gen-Z struggle that led to the resignation of former Union Education minister Dharmendra Pradhan has awakened many from the stupor of apolitical existence. The time could not have been more ripe for restarting a discourse on campus democracy through union elections. 

Defying the benchmark set by Minister Sharan Prakash Patil, the limits of unions must be pushed to build resistance against the overall model of privatisation, saffronisation, and centralisation of education. The push for a democratic gender sensitisation committee against sexual harassment and Rohith Vemula Act implementation must be transformed into mainstream demands. Moreover, ideologically advanced students should take up the task of dedicating their futures to a revolutionary transformation of the society.

Aratrika is a Bengaluru-based student activist from AISA and the editor of Spark magazine, a student-youth based initiative.

Views expressed are the author’s own.