There are many lower orders in the Hindu society whose economic, political and social needs are the same as those of majority of Muslims and they would be far more ready to make a common cause with the Muslims for achieving common ends than they would with the high caste hindus who have denied and deprived them of ordinary human rights for centuries.
— Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar – Writings and Speeches Vol 8. P. 359
Students Union Election of Central University of Hyderabad is a textbook case of how the higher educational institutions of India are becoming the laboratories for the production and consumption of Hindutva ideology as well as jingoistic nationalism. The established right wing and their so called left counterparts in the campus are divided but only to sell the hiduthwa project. Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Students Federation of India (SFI), two major stakeholders in the political spectrum of HCU with relatively clearly defined mass base have been luring the voters by putting candidates with clear body politics and savarna etiquettes. Unfortunately both the parties have miserably failed to understand the changing wind in the campus, the rise of a conscious community who has proved to be capable of overcoming the dirty dangerous politics exercised by both the parties.
Central University of Hyderabad
There is huge controversy around two candidates who represent the so called secular liberal and progressive panel of SFI for contesting the election. Denouncing the ideological maturity, work rate and experience in the organization, the neo-Marxists in HCU have fielded two candidates who would later be exposed as perfect fits for anti-minority and anti-Dalit, pro-Hindutva symbols. The general secretary candidate was recently introduced to the SFI camp from a particular department. His virtual profile puts forward an interesting hypothesis that he is imported from Uttar Pradesh to Hyderabad to give Hindutva a deeper appeal among the caste Hindus and middle class liberals in the University campus. Apart from a striking work record in the Sangh parivar organizations he is hardly having any connection with the left ideology and lineage.
He was the national convener of the National Anti-Reservation Front, a member of Akhil Bharatiya Kshatriya Mahasabha, UP and the town president of Bajrang Dal. Rather than putting a wishy-washy Facebook status, till the moment he hasn’t given a satisfactory clarification towards the allegations against him and he didn’t deny his active involvements in the above mentioned Sangh organizations. The Vice President candidate in the panel follows the suit of former in passing violent anti-reservation comments. Ironically the SFI panel’s declared claim is to defeat communal fascism and neoliberal onslaught on education. May be it is the neoclassical dialectic materialism!
Shockingly the comrades defend these candidates with their teeth and nails and put them as their saviours. It clearly shows that the border line between the right and left is almost vanishing at least from this university campus. It was amusing to see how the last year’s Sukoon organised by the SFI-ABVP led students’ union became normalized for typical Hindutva ultra- nationalist frenzy. In the inaugural session the Hindu Karma Shasthras as “karma, artha, paramathma” were sanctified through a clear casteist Manusmriti framework of the Hindu mythology. While on the second day its nationalistic face came up through “Vande Mataram, Bharat Mata ki jay” and the songs which put “India first” making an apparent link with the first day.
The influence of casteist and Hindutva ideologies are deep rooted in the communal ABVP and the liberal SFI from the very selection of the panel to the campaigning furies. More than boasting and patronising the historically marginalised sections in the campus both ABVP and SFI are not at all concerned about their plights – who are routinely discriminated against and subjected to overt-covert violence of many forms.
It is quite apparent to see how this particular threat reflects the emerging strength of deliberately silenced communities subverting the fascist hegemony over their pain and experience and claiming their own agencies and roles diminishing the saintly Messiahs who appropriate their subjectivities. In this juncture the emergence of UDA in the general election of HCU is crucial for the menace it raises towards the right wing Hindutva forces and the secular disguised Hindu SFI in the campus in terms of resistance and assertions of similar historical and political causes the alliance echoes together.
(Ayoob Rahman is a PhD candidate in Translation Studies at the University of Hyderabad.)