UP is in a state of undeclared emergency. The Mayawati Government has banned student union elections on campuses. Students and youth who are on the streets protesting against this ban are having criminal cases slapped on them and are being sent to jail. The example of Faizabad is enough to prove Mayawati’s intention of crushing peaceful dissent. AISA activists who held a protest demonstration in Faizabad in protest against the ban were arrested. The nest day RYA activists who protested against the students’ arrest with a hunger strike were also arrested on the second day of the hunger strike. AISA and RYA activists have been charged with a host of false cases.

U-Turn: ‘Sarvajan’ Style

When popular protests forced the Mayawati government to withdraw the decisions to introduce contract farming and retail malls, the media was all praise for the ‘democratic style of Sarvajan politics.’ And now they are at a loss to explain the U-Turn of crackdown on student unions. The BSP has no student organisation and no stake in campus politics; all decisions of the Mulayam regime are being overturned and student union polls are among them; Mayawati sees student unions as hurdles in the path of privatization and commercialization of education – these are some of the explanations being discussed.

Hundred Days of BSP Rule and the Reality of ‘Law and Order’

The Mayawati regime's boasts of ‘Hundred Days of Rule’ have been undermined by the fast unraveling reality of intensification of dalit atrocities. The Mayawati Government which touted ‘Law and Order’ as its USP was beset with incidents of rape, abduction of traders for the purpose of extortion and other such incidents. Now Mayawati is attempting to retrieve her ‘Iron lady’ image by banning student union elections. For a substantial section of civil society, student politics as a whole is equated with money and muscle power in form and ruling class-patronised student leadership in content. Among this section of people, Mayawati’s draconian step is actually getting approval. This understanding of student politics was the basis for the Supreme Court’s decree making the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations compulsory for student union polls. But the Lungdoh Committee’s emphasis was on creating depoliticized, corporatised student unions in the interests of the ruling class rather than on getting rid of student unions. Mayawati has gone a step further and brought the very existence of student unions into question.

‘Shiksha Mandirs’ or Teaching Shops?

In Mayawati’s last tenure as CM, her acts of authoritarianism (among them the act of jailing participants in the Shaheed Mela at Ayodhya) were explained away as compulsions of sharing power with the BJP. This time, we can see Mayawati deploying RSS ideas and vocabulary for her own political interests. Her declaration that there can be ‘No room for politics in Shiksha Mandirs’ is a good instance of this trend. If universities are ‘Shiksha Mandirs’ (temples of education) rather than places devoted to the scientific, rational pursuit of knowledge, then there can only be room for ‘gurus’ and ‘shishyas’ there. What need for democracy and student rights?

However, the fact is that these so-called ‘temples of education’ are fast turning into teaching shops. In the last decade or so, the rapid privatization of education has put education out of reach of even middle class students. BJP-Congress regimes at the centre intensified this assault on education. In UP, BJP’s Rajnath Singh Government had promoted privatization and cracked down on student unions to do so. On the other hand, Mulayam Singh had put student unions to use as pocket organizations of power, making student politics synonymous with anarchy, and pushing policies of privatization and commercialisation.

Now Mayawati is claiming to clean campuses of anarchy by cracking down on student politics. But the fact is that violent and moneyed student politics is just one face of educational anarchy. The In many universities including Poorvanchal University and Kashi Vidyapeeth, B.Ed, Law and other vocational courses have been conducted without any AICTE approval, and students have become victims of educational and financial loot. The massive CPMT scam is the most glaring example of educational anarchy, in which VCs and Administrative officers are neck-deep in dirt. Can student politics and unions be blamed for these scams? Without internal democracy, student movements and elected student leadership, how can campuses be cleaned up; who will take on such officials mired in corruption? Criminalised student leadership too can be countered only by maximising the space for democratic rights and strengthening the political voice of common students.

It will be a serious mistake to ignore the authoritarianism in Mayawati’s actions and lend her legitimacy in the name of correcting Mulayam’s corrupt appointments and scams. Democratic movements have consistently demanded action against the scams in Mulayam’s regime. But at the same time we also demand action in the Taj Corridor corruption case which Mayawati and the Congress government at the centre are together seeking to suppress. Defending democracy and challenging the consent that Mayawati is seeking to create for her crackdown on dissent must be an even greater priority for democratic forces.

AISA and RYA are conducting a ‘Defend Democracy Campaign’, holding conventions at Allahabad, Banaras, Faizabad, Ballia and in several other districts of UP, and this campaign is getting a good response from people.