Something unprecedented is happening in Delhi University. Never before has the court intervened and put the announcement of the results of the Delhi University Students Union election on hold on account of defacement of public property.
The students’ union poll campaign was never as bad as it was this year. The whole scenario was captured in the High Court’s observation, which said, “There are cars without number plates in DU area, (people) campaign in Rolls-Royce and other luxury cars, but police and university are doing nothing. Do you even have a vice-chancellor? We are saying it mildly that he needs to be proactive, else we will pass orders. It is very surprising. You have to do something.These candidates study in your colleges, and you have full powers.”
The HC bench had gone onto observe, “How can you permit students to do hooliganism on highways? It is not a very happy situation. It is an administrative failure by DU that led to such an unpleasant situation. Remedial steps should be taken.” The High Court can be rest assured that the present Vice Chancellor of Delhi University would not act in the matter.
The mess on the campus has largely been his and his proctorial teams doing. There are allegations that the students who did not qualify to contest polls for ‘shortage’ of attendance, were allowed to do so condoning their absence from the classrooms at the behest of the university administration.
The direct elections to the students’ body started in the 1970s, sometime before the Emergency, and have largely witnessed keen contest between Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) and the RSS-sponsored Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).A close study of the poll trends of the past few years would show that the polling percentage has not moved beyond 45 percent. This trend is reflective of the lack of participation by the more serious students in the poll process.
The transformation of DUSU elections from being a contest between ideologies to a grappling of caste combinations is the butterfly effect of the admission quota introduced in Delhi University for applicants from the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) during the UPA-I regime by then HRD minister Arjun Singh.
Though Arjun Singh’s formula managed to retain the existing number of seats for the General category students, it did so by providing for extra seats to accommodate the increased number of OBC students. While doing his bit for the ‘benefit’ of the student community from all castes, little did Arjun Singh realise that he was going to create fault lines inside every classroom.
Today, while students with 90% marks from the General category finds it difficult to get a toehold in a respectable course of a reasonable college of the university, those with a much lesser percentage get through. What has worsened the situation is the failure of the Delhi University administration in implementing the creamy layer criterion for the OBC students with any rigour.
This has created a situation where ‘poorer’ candidates from the OBC categories have been denied admission under the quota as the moneyed have grabbed the seats. Ironically, Delhi’s applicants from economically healthy urban villages belonging to the Gujjar and Jat communities have been getting easy entry, whereas students from weaker castes and economically weaker homes have not got the benefit.
These candidates from the creamy layer communities use their admissions tickets first to contest Delhi University polls and then flaunt their success in students’ politics for political positions at a higher level. No wonder, as the High Court observed, they campaign in Rolls without number plates and care a damn for the damage they cause to the public property.The university for them is not a centre for gaining knowledge but just a step under their feet in their journey for a bigger innings in electoral politics.
The high court, during the hearing, is right in observing that these students have the wherewithal to pay for cleaning the public property but not to forget that Delhi University administration which allowed a demonic dance in the name of democracy should also be hauled up.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice