THE Students’ Union elections of the University of Hyderabad were held last week. Unlike the years before, this election held a significant importance in the national scenario. Universities and institutes across the country faced an onslaught of attacks on their autonomy through a set of policies and ineligible appointments under the present BJP-led government. Over the two years, the number of students’ movements saw a rise against the attack on autonomy and free spaces of the campus.  This was the first election after the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula and the joint movements that the campus witnessed for over six months.

University of Hyderabad students elected the alliance of United Front for Social Justice (UFSJ) by rejecting the ABVP brand of communal politics, yet again. UFSJ consists of Students’ Federation of India (SFI), Dalit Students’ Union (DSU) and Tribal Students’ Forum (TSF) with an unconditional support from Telangana Vidyarthi Vedika (TVV), an alliance that continued from last year. Bahujan Students’ Front (BSF) joined the alliance to unite against the social injustice. UFSJ emerged victorious defeating the ABVP-OBCA (Other Backward Castes Association) by a huge margin. The closest fight ABVP-OBCA alliance could put up was in presidents’ post where Ambedkar Students’ Asociation (ASA) fielded P Vijay Kumar, a student who was suspended along with Rohith Vemula.

UFSJ panel won all the six positions in the Students’ Union. Out of the 3,848 votes polled for the post of president, Kuldeep Singh Nagi (1,406) defeated the ABVP candidate by a margin of 48 votes. The other panel members, Bukya Sundar (1,701), Suman Damera (1,847), Pilli Vijay Kumar (1,557), Nakhrai Debbarma (1,823) and Ushnish Das (1,790) won the posts of vice-president, general secretary, joint secretary, cultural secretary and sports secretary respectively with significant margins. M Tushara won the GS-CASH (Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment) post from the panel. Firdous Soni won the GS-CASH post as an independent candidate supported by UFSJ. The third post for GS-CASH representative was won by ABVP’s Bishnupriya Bagh. It is noteworthy that ABVP is kept out of the major positions in the Students’ Union for the seventh consecutive year.

After more than six months of joint struggle for Justice for Rohith Vemula movement, it was inevitable that the way forward was a united one. The vice chancellor Appa Rao along with the Modi-led BJP government and the crude RSS machinery had continuously attempted to crush down the movement using police repression, arrests and cutting down the supply of food, water or internet. The role of Appa Rao, central minister Bandaru Dattatreya and the then MHRD minister Smriti Irani in the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula is unambiguous. When a union minister forces MHRD to take action against students of a university and HRD Minister’s office sends five letters addressed personally to vice chancellor propelling him to take an action, our struggle for social justice does not end at the doorstep of Appa Rao alone. When Prof Appa Rao had no second doubts in handing over the punishment, we are waging a larger struggle where, the time demands to stand hand-in-hand for social justice.

The last students’ union led by SFI spearheaded the Joint Action Committee formed after the suspension of five dalit students. Along with taking forward the movement, the last students’ union successfully resisted the proposal of fee hike. It led protests against the scraping of non-NET fellowships.  The days that followed the movements saw a series of circulars that tried to bring upon another attack on campus democracy. Certain circulars – even against the UGC guidelines – restricted protests, gatherings, discussions and debates at public places in the university. The circular was protested, opposed and disregarded. As a part of another reform, University of Hyderabad administration wanted to introduce CCTV across the campus in hostels and departments. The students’ union has put a stop to these slow encroachments upon the democracy and free space of the campus.

Hence, this election, on one hand had become a fight against an administration, which had become a puppet of a saffronised MHRD. On the other hand, electorally it was a fight against ABVP, who had all the might of the RSS machinery behind them like never before. In many of the violations of the election code, the nexus between ABVP and administration was clear. This election also marked the entrance of money flow into the student politics of UoH. The ABVP-OBCA alliance tried to emulate the DU style of campaigning, violating the Lyngdoh Committee report time and again. There were even crowd messaging to all the students of the university, just hours before the polling began. The only source for an organisation to get all these numbers is the administration. Realising the nexus between the administration and the ABVP and the need to fight the larger communal and casteist agendas of the RSS, unity was the way forward.

UFSJ approached the students’ community with the promises of striving to implement ‘Thorat Committee’ recommendations to ensure that institutional discrimination based on caste hierarchy is eradicated from the campus. The promises also include an ‘Equal Opportunity Cell’ to look into grievances of students from the marginalised sections of the society and deliberating upon the “Rohith Act” with active participation from students, teachers, legal experts, social activists and parliamentarians to frame a legislation to end the caste based discrimination in higher educational institutions.

The alliance of UFSJ is particularly significant in the times when communal riots are being engineered by right wing forces in the name of beef, when dalits are being killed, assaulted for transporting and skinning of dead cows, when many rational thinkers like Narendra Dabholkar, M M Kalburgi, Govind Pansare are being killed for raising their voice against Hindutva propaganda, when many students like Rohith Vemula are being targeted, branded as anti-nationals and institutionally murdered by the present dispensation in an attempt to stifle the voices of dissent. It is high time to put aside our ideological differences and stand united in the larger struggle against this authoritarian regime.

In this scenario, the students of UoH have voted – voted against the attack on campus democracy, voted against the killers of Rohith Vemula, voted against the MHRD interference, voted against the compromise on university autonomy, voted against the privatisation of education, voted against Modi's "Ache Din", voted against the money politics of the ABVP. The students have voted for a united struggle against Sangh Parivar atrocities, united struggle for social justice.

‘Unity and struggle’ is the need of the hour. Attacks on academic spaces and secular fabric of the country continue. The TSR Subrahmanian Committee report is a planned assault aimed at further saffronisation of education. The alliance UFSJ hopes to spread the message of unity within the campus and across the country. This historic alliance was formed between SFI and the other organisations to fight for social justice. Only the unity of the oppressed and the marginalised can resist the majoritarian fascistic tendencies. Only the close association of the Left, dalit, tribal and bahujan organisations can take the struggles for emancipation forward.