The resignation of Ankiv Baisoya as Delhi University’s Student Union President highlights the mess student politics in India is in
Many of India’s top politicians have emerged from the ranks of student politics. Arun Jaitley and Lalu Prasad Yadav were famously involved in anti-Emergency politics in Delhi and Patna Universities respectively, for example. But as Indian politics has moved down the path of nepotism and extreme positions, only those who have a shrill voice stand out nowadays. At the same time, what is possibly worse is that student politicians are entering the fray only to further their own political careers in the ‘senior’ league later rather than look after the concerns and problems of students they are ostensibly elected to represent. The problem has been particularly exacerbated in Delhi University where students union leaders rarely belong to campus colleges and are in the main postgraduate students in obscure departments. More often than not, they have not obtained their under-graduate degree from Delhi University, most likely because they were not good enough to get in. Some would obviously do anything to get admission in Delhi University, to pursue politics rather than academics, naturally, and faking a degree is just the tip of the iceberg. It is unlikely that Ankiv Baisoya was the first or will be the last student to forge a marksheet but this was a huge failure both for the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Delhi University. Both should have vetted the candidate’s credentials far more carefully than they did. Either that, or they were complicit in the fraud perpetuated.
Given the sheer size of Delhi University, even if one excludes the thousands of students who take correspondence courses, it might be a better idea to divide the students union into two separate entities — one for north campus colleges and for all the others under the south campus umbrella. At the same time, Delhi University as well as other universities must follow the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations to the letter albeit funding limits should be adjusted to account for contemporary times what with social media and online campaigns ruling the roost. In recent students union elections, much like in legislative elections, Whatsapp messages, Facebook and Twitter have become campaign tools but fly under the radar of university authorities. Student politics is important although much like the real thing it has become twisted and a tool for enrichment and a forum for virulence, even violence. Student leaders themselves should realise that the vast majority of the student body in most universities is disillusioned with student politics and many want to do away with the headache of student body elections altogether. This is not a good sign for democracy.