DUSU 2015: Elect AISA to Usher a New Vision of Student Politics

AISA warmly invites the student community of Delhi University to exercise their right to choose the student representatives of DUSU 2015. Student Union elections allow the students to raise their voice and express their opinion on not only the student related issues in the University but also to make a statement on the policies of higher education that have larger implications on the academic institutions of the country.

Listen to AISA’s Joint Secretary Candidate Anubhav Kumar (Ballot no. 1)  

DUSU under ABVP-NSUI: Disturbing Facts

Unfortunately in the last 30 years DUSU, the representative fora of the students, has been occupied by student groups like ABVP and NSUI who have systematically tarnished the character of DUSU. DUSU under the leadership of ABVP and NSUI has been transformed into the fiefdom of the high and mighty whose personal agenda and aspirations eclipse the issues of students.

Delhi University, one of the most prestigious Central Universities of the country has a very poor record if we look at student facilities. Thousands of students from different parts of the country come to Delhi University with the dream of affordable and quality education. They find their hopes severely compromised when they find:

• CBCS: a substandard UG program like the CBCS is implemented with the active support of the ABVP-led Union.
• Hostels: Hostel accommodation in colleges and the University has not been ensured in keeping with the statutes of Delhi University Act and the elected ABVP-led Union plays a mute spectator. Funds received from the UGC under the OBC expansion scheme for classrooms and hostels have been wasted on meaningless things and the ABVP-led union did not intervene at all. Let us not forget that with the BJP-led Government in the centre, the pro-BJP ABVP which held all 4 seats in DUSU (2014-15) could have demanded more hostels which they have not done.  Instead ABVP mediates between PG owners and students during the admission season. The students need to ask whether an organization that promotes PGs will ever fight for Hostel accommodation.

• Gender Sensitization: Delhi University has a poor record of ensuring gender justice and willfully violates gender equality in the name of women’s safety and protectionism. Women are asked to be well-behaved, obedient beings nodding assent to all the restrictions imposed upon them. Sexual harassment is brushed under the carpet in this system where patriarchal protectionism which views women as responsible for inviting sexual harassment. The ABVP led union of 2014 has shamefully reasserted this model that curbs woman’s freedom in the guise of safety. ABVP led DUSU has conducted programs against the bogey of Love Jihad which is an atrocious communal campaign that projects women as incapable of making their choice of partners and tries to impose a communal dictat on the right to love and personal freedom to choose partners. ABVP also launched a toxic campaign against live-in relationships and the Valentine’s day targeting women who exercise their freedom as women with “loose morals” antithetical to “Indian Culture.”

Also Read: Who Is Afraid of Love? Communal, Patriarchal Bogey of ‘Love Jihad’

AISA implores students to think twice while they vote in DUSU 2015 whether they are ready to allow forces like ABVP to trample their freedom to love and impose a strict regime of moral policing.

• The ABVP led union of DUSU is also infamous for starting a new Ban culture wherever they see any opposition voice in the campus. The ban on ANKUR Theatre Society of Khalsa College, the merciless violence on AISA activists protesting against CBCS in North Campus,

   and the stopping of the Screening of “Mujaffarnagar Baqi Hai” in Kirori Mal college only shows the looming threat on freedom of expression in Delhi University.

• Money-Muscle Politics: Common students have witnessed how ABVP-NSUI and the new entrant CYSS have transformed DUSU into a den of anti-social elements and money muscle politics. The election campaign of the ABVP-NSUI-CYSS reveals that the show is managed by the non-student anti-social elements and political leaders of parties. The ugly show of money-muscle is rampant in every college where issues of students are eclipsed by the show of power by candidates.

AISA in DUSU: A New Vision  

AISA has emerged as the voice of the common students in the last two DUSU elections. It has polled 8000 and 13000 votes in the last two elections which shows the growing popularity of AISA among students tired with issueless charade of politics championed by ABVP-NSUI.

• AISA has been the rallying point of students against gender injustice and harassment. It was AISA and the student of JNU, DU and Jamia that launched the massive protest Demonstration after the 16 December Movement. AISA made the crucial intervention in making the struggle a progressive one when the patriarchal forces were trying to sharpen the patriarchal model of protectionism in the garb of Women’s safety. On several occasions AISA as consistently fought against the Hostel timings of Women hostels, Victim Blaming and for active gender cells. AISA mobilized hundreds of students against the Honour Killing of Bhawna a student of Sri Venkateswara College. AISA also raised its voice in favour of LGBTQ movements , #PadsAgainstSexism and #Kiss of Love protests.
• AISA is the only student organization in DU which is consistently struggling against the equally substandard CBCS program in DU. The ABVP-NSUI and the new entrant CYSS has supported this program that has wreaked havoc in DU from its very inception.
• AISA led a massive struggle against FYUP and the mass outrage of students that it voiced forced the government to repeal the FYUP saving thousands of students from the clutches of the disastrous program.
• AISA launched counter movements against ABVP’s attempts to communalize and curb gender Justice by mobilizing public opinion against the Bogey of Love Jehad and Anti-Live-in relationships and different forms of moral policing.

AISA has been in the fore front of all struggle that have tried to defend the space for freedom of expression and dissent.

AISA presents a holistic vision of student politics that on the one hand defends the affordable, high-quality, publicly funded education system of Delhi University to ensure social equity and inclusiveness on the other hand addresses the day to day issues of students like hostels and transport. It is this model of politics that we want the students to uphold in DUSU 2015.

AISA requests the entire student community of DU to give a resurgent mandate to AISA in order to carry forward the struggle and end the ignominious culture of Money-Muscle-communal politics of ABVP-NSUI in Delhi University.

Elect AISA DUSU PANEL

Sheetal Bhopal (President) – B.no:7
Sudhanshu Shekhar (V.President) – B.no:8
Ravi Kumar (Secretary) – B.no:9
Abhinav Kumar (Jt.Secretary) – B.no:1