At 18, one is considered responsible enough to elect the country’s Prime Minister. But administrators of colleges and universities in Tamil Nadu appear to think that the students are incapable of electing their representatives.
A majority of campuses have shied away from conducting elections to student union councils. This despite the fact that in 2006, the Supreme Court directed all higher educational institutions to conduct elections on the basis of the Lyngdoh Committee Report.
In 2005, the Human Resource Development Ministry, on a direction from the Apex Court, constituted a committee headed by former Chief Election Commissioner J M Lyngdoh to submit recommendations on conducting the student union elections. The following year, the court accepted the recommendations and directed that it be implemented. One of the main recommendations was that institutions must ordinarily conduct elections for student councils.
However, Students Federation of India (SFI) vice president K S Kanagaraj says currently no State-run university conducts elections due to which there is no democratic forum to resolve students’ grievances.
Unlike the eighties and nineties when any student could contest elections, many colleges have brought in restrictions. For instance, at the Pachaiyappa’s College in Chennai, only postgraduate students can contest for the post of student union chairman and the secretary is elected from among the undergraduates.
In colleges like the PSG College of Arts and Science in Coimbatore, the post of chairman is reserved for third year students; that of the secretary for second year students and joint secretary for first year students. At the Coimbatore Government Arts College, elections were stopped 15 years ago.
Tamil Nadu Government College Teachers Association president S Tamilmani said, “Even though as an office-bearer of an association I welcome student’s union election, personally I feel these elections create division among students, due to the influence of political parties... These elections have also led to several incidents of violence in the past.” According to him, after the election was stopped, students of Government Arts College have not gone on strike other than for common national or local issues. Earlier, students used to boycott classes two–three days in every week.
Countering sharply, Kanagaraj said, “Violence even marred the general elections and local body elections. Why should student union election alone be stopped in the name of violence? The authorities should take steps to prevent such violence.”