HYDERABAD: Politically driven students of University of Hyderabad are jittery about the future of student activism on UoH campus. The reasons are two—a recently issued university circular directs student organisations to register themselves with the varsity by filling a form which seeks its aims and objectives and list of activities it plans to take up. The circular also made it mandatory that only members of these registered students group/body/forum association will be allowed to contest students union election, effectively curtailing not only the chances of independent candidates but also of those student bodies which fail to register with the varsity, to contest the election. It has given time till August 20 for Group/Associations/Forum/Body to register themselves by paying a fee of Rs 250 (for general category) and Rs 100(for SC/ST/OBC) categories.
This circular comes after university’s Executive Council(EC) deciding on June 30 to implement the revised Constitution of Students Union as developed by the committee chaired by Prof Y Sudhakar Reddy. It is due for legal opinion and not made public yet. Opposing the circular, UOH Students Union(UOHSU) president Kuldeep Singh Nagi, said, “The university cannot curtail rights of a student from contesting election independently.” According to him, the revised constitution of UOHSU should be passed by a majority in students’ General Body Meeting which has not taken place.
“The EC has decided to implement revised UOHSU constitution without the students’ knowledge of its contents. Moreover, the minutes of the EC meeting from June 30 says that the revising of constitution has been done in line with the National Education Policy-2016. How can they do it when NEP-2016 is still in just draft stage?,” questioned Nagi. The NEP-2016 has come under criticism from various quarters including for proposing ‘non-recognition to student groups that are explicitly based on caste, religion, or one political party’.