The four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) in Delhi University may be a thing of the past but the same is set to resurface during the upcoming DU Students’ Union (DUSU) elections. The two main student unions, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) have decided to use the matter as a crucial point in their campaign agenda, thus seeking credit for the rollback of FYUP.
While ABVP was involved in the movement against FYUP right from the start and even used it as a mechanism to win the previous DUSU election, NSUI also joined the campaign when it was at its peak. However, now the two are battling for who was really responsible for the rollback.
According to Rohit Chahal, National Secretary of DUSU, “We are not going to fight for credit because the students gave us due credit by simply going by our work in the last DUSU elections. We made a promise to students that under any circumstances we would ensure a rollback of FYUP and we lived up to it.”
As far as their opposition NSUI is concerned, Chahal says they weren’t even part of the movement. “We spent all our time on rolling back FYUP last year. It was our primary focus and we did a lot of work regarding it. NSUI just entered the movement barely a few weeks before the rollback. They joined it when the movement was at the peak and they knew it was going to have a positive outcome. Students know who worked for it and who didn’t.”
However, the leaders of NSUI feel that ABVP’s movement was all show and no go. Spokesperson of the union, Amrish Ranjan Pandey, said, “There was always a political agenda involved in what the ABVP did. They began protesting against FYUP from the moment it was spoken of being implemented. Their agendas are always influenced by political debacles. However, we made a very logical approach. We first gave FYUP a chance and then took feedback from children. Only after we analysed the whole situation, we decided to speak against it. That too, not in the way ABVP did. They only blocked roads and created a scene. We did strong protests and sat on hunger strike for five days after which the police forced us to break it. The impact of our protest was visible with the outcome which came a few days later.”
Amidst this battle between the two unions, NSUI has plans of targeting the BJP aligned student union by bringing in matters of national politics during campaigns. “If ABVP is saying that they lived up to the promises they made, I will question this very ability of theirs in terms of national politics. The case regarding the Union Public Service Commission’s (UPSC) Civil Services Aptitude Test is the most visible. The government promised the students of UPSC that the dates for the test will be postponed. However, they weren’t. This shows how they keep their promises. Since there are so many issues related to education in national politics, I will take them up during the campaign,” informed Amrish.
The elections are expected to take place in mid-September for the posts of President, Vice-President, Joint Secretary and Secretary.
To whose creditIJ
We are not going to fight for credit because students gave us due credit by simply going by our work last DUSU elections. We made a promise to students that we would ensure a rollback of FYUP and we lived up to it. As far as NSUI is concerned, they weren’t even part of the movement. We spent all our time in rolling back FYUP last year. It was our primary focus and we did a lot of work on it. NSUI entered the movement barely a few weeks before the rollback happened. They joined it when the movement was at its peak as they knew there was going to be a positive outcome. Students know who worked for it — and who didn’t
ABVP’s movement was all show and no-go. There was always a political agenda involved in what the ABVP did. They began protesting against FYUP from the moment it was spoken of. Their agendas are always influenced by political debacles. We first gave FYUP a chance and then took feedback from students. Only after we analysed the whole situation, did we decide to speak against it. That too, not in the way ABVP did. They only blocked roads and created a scene. We sat on hunger strike for five days after which police forced us to break it. The impact of our protest was visible with the outcome that came a few days later