Campus Chaos

Once a stronghold of dissent, universities across India are now facing a suffocating environment of penalisation, surveillance and censorship, leading to a decline in campus politics. However, a few unions and organisations are allowed to thrive

- Apeksha Priyadarshini

HUES of saffron flooded the nooks of Delhi University last month, as three out of four central panel posts in the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) were won by members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). A scion of a noted business family—that owns a leading brand of alcohol—led the student affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to its massive victory.

Aryan Maan, who won the post of the DUSU President, stated to the press that, “The students’ participation in DUSU polls showed that claims of Gen-Z being disinterested in campus politics were misplaced.” Maan’s statement, hopeful on the surface, appears steeped in irony, when seen in the light of the recent First Information Report (FIR) lodged by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) administration against 10 of their own students in Mumbai. The allegation against them is organising a ‘get-together’ to commemorate Dr G.N. Saibaba’s first death anniversary. Some participants have alleged that it was students from a right-affiliated organisation that drew the attention of the police and administration to their gathering.

The questions then arise: Are students genuinely losing interest in campus politics today? Or are they exiting the playfield due to the penalisation that follows? Will only a certain shade of student politics find footing in India’s universities henceforth?

A tree beside a library, a desk underneath its shade, and a banner that humbly asked: “May I help you?” This is how Ashutosh Kumar Upadhyay was introduced to his calling at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University back in 2016. “We were fresh out of school. Bohot zyada social interaction nahin tha. I saw a group of people helping the new students with arranging their documents for admission. That’s when I first came to know ABVP,” he says.

Upadhyay is starry-eyed when he recalls the first