By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
The Hyderabad Central University (HCU) goes to polls tomorrow and like JNU, it is clear that the main opposition to beat is the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), with various student organisations coming together under the name of ‘Alliance for Social Justice’ (ASJ) to ensure that BJP’s student wing is defeated. But as if often the case, the alliance of various umbrella parties is not without its own set of controversies.
The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) approached Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA) before the elections for a collective forum against ABVP. SFI and ASA together formed ASJ in which Dalit Students Union (DSU), Tribal Students Forum (TSF), Telangana Vidyarthi Vedika (TVV) took part, as they were also the part of previous year’s Left alliance. This year, the Muslim Students Federation (MSF) and Students Islamic Organization of India (SIO) also took part from the ASA led front.
Describing the motive behind the alliance, a statement of ASA said, “Three and half years into governance, sidelining the development agenda, Modi Government is busy in upholding communal, casteist and divisive agenda. In this process, University of Hyderabad witnessed an unprecedented attack on Five Dalit Research Scholars including Rohith Vemula belonging to Ambedkar Students Association by BJP, MHRD and UoH VC Podile Apparao for upholding the Politics of Self-Respect, which went to the extent of institutional murder of Rohith Vemula.”
The statement further said, “…as a continuation to the historic struggle, it had proposed the idea for a united front consisting of all democratic forces to fight against ABVP and the ‘casteist UoH administration’ that has been standing as a tool of the right-wing fascists under university VC Podile Appa Rao.”
But soon after the alliance was announced, questions were pointed towards SFI regarding why and how it joined hands with Students’ Islamic Organization of India (SIO), when there was no alliance between these two during recent students’ union election held in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). SIO is the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, one of the leading Muslim organizations in the India.
It seems that SFI could not face the questioning and erased SIO from the alliance. SFI wrote a statement over its Facebook page where it said, “Given the confusion surrounding the electoral alliance which SFI has forged for the upcoming students’ Union Elections 2017, we would like to reiterate our position once again. SFI HCU does not have any electoral understanding with SIO. SFI HCU never had any discussions with SIO during the formation of the electoral alliance for the year 2017. SFI is not seeking and never sought any electoral support from SIO. After the seat sharing agreement with ASA we have also clearly mentioned to ASA that we will not support any candidate from SIO or NSUI.”
It further said, “We would like to categorically state that the SFI HCU is not in any electoral alliance with SIO in the upcoming UoH Students Union elections 2017.”
However, SIO has shown full support to the ASJ alliance. One of the office bearers in SIO said, “We are not against the alliance. We welcome every step to stop the radical practices inside the campus.” SIO also said it will run for two councilor seats from the side of the alliance. Jaseem PP, the National Secretary of SIO was cautious while speaking with TwoCircles.net, “We are very much part of the alliance, but as the election is almost upon us now, we don’t want to say anything that could hamper the very motive of the alliance.”
ASA, meanwhile, has decided to maintain silence on the tussle between SFI and SIO. When the presidential debate was held on September 19, Charu Niveda, the SFI candidate, avoided commenting directly on the alliance between SFI and SIO by saying, “Power is a very crucial term I guess. Power gives you everything, to implement what you want to do, even if you want to bring equality, if you want to bring change, so I wouldn’t demean the term power because power is assertion, power is reclaiming freedom, and power is everything. So it’s not just an alliance for power, it’s a platform to create discussion, discourse, as you said we do have differences in ideology, but I think this is a platform to come into discussion and bring about a better society.”
The results will be declared on September 22. In last year’s elections, the SFI-led United Front for Social Justice (UFSJ) had won all posts students’ union of the University of Hyderabad for 2016-17, beating ABVP.