Of Elections without Ideas— Neo-Liberalism and the Culture of Apathy

             Students’ Politics is conceived as an art of channelizing the energy of the youth and preparing them for the task of nation-building. It also seeks to sensitise them on the pertinent socio-political issues of the times. However, over the past few decades students’ politics has become synonymous with flagrant exercise of money and muscle power, nepotism and debauchery. In short, an ethical vacuum has resulted in the derailing of students’ politics from its purpose.

           Many fail to perceive the root of the problem - a lack ideas and a clear-eyed vision among the youth of this country. A case in point is the recently concluded Students’ Union elections of the Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union.  As of now whatever ideas you would seek among the AMUSU elections candidates the following were the ones you would get (tick the box):-

a) Please vote, support and dua                                          

b)  Tempo high hai

c)   Jeetega bhai jeetega.

          Over the past few years, this terrible drought of ideas have turned a coveted Institution like the AMU Students’ Union into a licence for running riot into the day to day activities of the campus. A pool of students’ leaders have come onto the centre stage who are oblivious of the contemporary challenges being faced by the largest minority community of this country (ironically whose interests they claim to    represent). This has led to an incessant shrinkage of AMU’s role in the task of nation-building and turned it into a thing of the yester years.  In their desperation in showing themselves to be concerned about the common students whose corollary is being antagonistic to the University administration, they have repetitively maligned the Vice- Chancellor of the University ( at times in language that crossed the levels of decency) pressed for illegal demands, and stretched out of the jurisdiction of the Students’ Union. The consequence of all the above acts has been vitiating of the peaceful atmosphere of the campus, and a pretext for the University administration to state that Students’ Union Elections leads to problems of law and order and thereby suspension of the Students ‘Union and denial of the democratic rights of the students.

         However, it would be unfair to presume that the above mentioned problems are exclusively those of the Aligarh Muslim University. A cursory look into the students’ politics of the entire country would reveal that most of the campuses (even those which are known for its academic excellence) today suffer from a leadership vacuum. The neo-liberal policies that have been ushered in this country over the past two decades have resulted in the constant need of a workforce that would feed onto the market. Thus, the Universities have turned into degree vending factories manufacturing ready-made graduates. In such a scenario it is obvious that the political status quo would be antagonistic to the idea of campus democracy and students’ mobilisation as they have repeatedly proved to be threats to the ruling class in the past. Thus, what goes on is a farce in most of the campuses in the name of students’ politics. The thinking youth is tactfully kept out of the entire political process through the middle class squeamishness “politics is bad”. What is currently going on at the Aligarh Muslim University is actually a microcosm of the situation in the entire country.

         The panacea to the above problems lays in active participation of the students in the political process. They have to rise above this culture of apathy in order to secure a better future for themselves. Coming back to AMU, it is essential that we reclaim our politics from the clutches of lobbyism that has eroded the essence of our Students’ Union. There is a need for more political sensitisation among the common students. The onus lies on each and every student who is a stake holder of the prestige of this great seat of learning. The task is difficult, but not an impossible one. With our joint and sustained efforts we can surely salvage our fading glory.

An Optimist's Analysis of AMUSU Elections 2012-13

AMU is a very unique world in itself. Just as when we start assuming that we are well versed with every aspect of this university, it offers new phenomenon to leave us baffled & in utter surprise. Aligarh Muslim University’s Students Union (AMUSU) Elections of 2012-13 is the latest event that has again proven that there are some newly seen patterns which demand in-depth reflections from all interested parties. These recently emerging patterns offer many positives which should be capitalized by those who are genuinely interested in the welfare of AMU.

                    AMUSU elections are indeed an event of national importance. With Jamia Millia Islamia’s administration banning Students’ Union in their university, AMUSU is the only students’ organization that has some legitimacy of claiming to represent the Indian Muslims in general & Indian Muslim youth in particular. Therefore, whatever happens in these elections & whoever gets elected requires a thorough analysis. This current election was pretty much different from the earlier two elections that I have witnessed. First, no printed posters were allowed to be pasted & university buildings were not defaced as the authorities maintained strict vigil & even minor violations were quickly responded with show-cause notices to the candidates. Second, the minimum 75 % attendance rule was strictly enforced leaving many candidates’ nomination papers cancelled. Third, the students were less enthusiastic this time around in comparison to the last two elections owing to multiple factors such as late holding of elections, corruption & dismal performance of last Students’ Union, relatively less number of eligible candidates, etc.

                      The election days are one of the most exciting times in the whole academic session. Every candidate was seen bent & offering salaam making an angle of almost 90 degrees. Every Tom, Dick & Harryclaimed to have at least 100 to 200 voters under his command. The sales of Cigarettes, Petrol & Tea had skyrocketed. The engines of the bikes asked for mercy due to constant noise created by the accelerators of bikes. Since, there was a ban on printed   posters the volunteers of the candidates came up with more creative posters created with sketch-pens & in some cases, even by Aerosol sprays. Candidates by-passed the directions of no-posters on University walls by pasting their hand-made posters on virtually every tree (as trees can’t be considered a wall) of the campus. Sir Syed (North) Hall was made their “office” by most of the candidates while other halls were  almost silent spectators of the elections. It was also quite common to see promises being done, of betrayals being committed by one’s own trusted “friends”, pacts done by regional lobbyists & rhetorical promises of the candidates.

                One of the positives that can be drawn from this election is the seemingly declining influence of highest- level regional seniors-cum-University mafia on the general students. The reason is attributed to the  less frequent interaction of Seniors & Juniors nowadays compared to what have been the case a decade earlier. The fresher students have their own aspirations & circles leading to a lesser influence of the senior“vultures” of their respective regions on their voting behaviour. The other positive development was the showing of more political maturity by the Aligs this time when a candidate was alleged to be sponsored by the “Communists” - a term to denote the most devilish section of the AMU by some. I personally felt pretty glad to be told by many of my friends that this was a dirty conspiracy of the opponents to discredit the candidate. Earlier, this labeling was a very easy way to delegitimize anyone & the voters were very easily swayed by this propaganda. This incident shows that most of us have learnt from our earlier mistakes & will not be deceived so easily by mere allegations.

                Being a student of engineering, I am a close witness to the generally apathetic attitude of the majority of my  college-mates regarding student politics & AMUSU elections. It is unfortunate that the students of Engineering faculty which comprises of approximately one-fourth of the total registered voters don’t take much interests in politics. Most of the engineers cast their votes without much thought either on the request of their known ones or on some other petty criteria like region, department, personal relations, etc. But, it came as a pleasant surprise that on the polling day of this elections many of my college-mates were casting votes, especially for the post of President & Vice-President for a candidate they considered to be “deserving” based upon the candidates’ past activities & achievements.

                At last, I want to say that I personally see some promising developments in the usually dirty politics of Students’ Union elections which gives me hope to actively engage ourselves in materializing on these positives to restore AMUSU’s past glory. Efforts are also required to be directed to aware our fellow students regarding the importance of students’ politics & offering opposition to counter check the corrupt-practices of student leaders once they come in power. Let’s see if we can make some constructive contributions to our beloved  institution.

Student Groups in A.M.U.

        There are many student groups in AMU which are doing their level best to bring about the revival in the status of this prestigious university, its cultural heritage, its intellectual heritage and various other glorious aspects of our beloved institution. But unfortunately, when I Googled "Student groups in AMU" I saw more links related to the clashes between different lobbies in our university. It is as if the only thing relevant with a query of student groups  are the "katta goons" out here and that make outsiders perceive that here is a dearth of student groups related to constructive activism. 

           I wrote this piece of information just to attempt to erase the blots the google search is putting on us. By clicking on this article & by recommending it further, you as a reader will be helping to get this article at the top of google search. 

You can further assist by performing these two steps.

1. Open www.google.com & type "Student Groups in AMU".

2. Out of the resulting queries only click on the link of this page which will be titled as "Aligarh Activists' Society : The "Official" Blog: Student Groups in AMU".

         While I am busy in cyber activism, I personally feel that we, as students of AMU, haven't used the full potential of Internet in conveying our voices to the world. A lot of work can be done on this front.

       In near future, I plan (if Almighty wills) to form a Cyber group of Aligarh Muslim University to promote a better image of A.M.U. and to eradicate the defaming links put up on the internet. Your views & comments are welcomed.

         I am also thinking of expanding this article and write about the different student groups like SIO, Eco-club, Helping Hands etc which are active in AMU. 

---->> As of Now this POST is ranked on 4th number (because of  many people who helped me out) with search query typed as "Student groups in AMU".

----->> I have created a page on the website of Aligarh Activists' Society on this topic, as a page is much more search engine friendly than a blog post. Click here to visit that page.

- By Ameen Ahmad

Email ID : ameenalig@gmail.com