The chronicle of a compromise foretold! Defeat the conspiracy of abject defeat & surrender to Lyngdoh!!

The 2008 stay order on JNUSU elections with regard to ‘violation’ of the draconian Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations (LCR) marked the desperate attempt of the ruling class and the state to ring the death knell for any assertive militant students’ movement in campus. It came as an attempt to depoliticize the students’ union elections with the hope to erase our painstakingly built history of a vibrant democratic culture. It came to render the students’ union into a toothless pliant body that would remain at the mercy of a vastly emboldened administration with sweeping powers. This effort of the ruling class of course was in compliance with the Birla Ambani Report that had (rightly) identified students’ politics as the single largest obstacle to the forces of LPG, the merit-market and privatization of higher education. But alongside, the 2008 stay order was also marked by the unprecedented unanimity of an entire student community which in a historic UGBM sent an open challenge that echoed in the corridors of power. Thousands of students took to streets, underwent detention and participated in massive demonstrations. The message was loud and clear: Lyngdoh must be rejected in toto. And it is this uncompromising politico-legal battle that successfully challenged the LCR and deemed its interference with students’ union election unwarranted.  A Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and AK Ganguly said, “We don’t agree with the appointment of the Lyngdoh Committee. Can the court do anything it likes? There are certain principles of exercise of writ jurisdiction. We don’t feel in everything the SC should interfere.” Castigating the apex bench headed by then Justice Arijit Pasayat for interfering with the student body elections, Justice Katju said, “No writ lies against a private body except the writ of habeas corpus. A student union is not a statutory body….how does writ petition lie in connection with its election?” This didn’t merely call into question the stay order on JNUSU elections, but also challenged the very constitutional validity of LCR. And as such it was an immense achievement of our struggle, us being still the only case against Lyngdoh being heard in the country and being referred to the constitutional bench.

But from hereafter, instead of building on the gains, the revisionists started showing their real colours and began the long saga of what they do best – compromise. Instead of pitching the battle against Lyngdoh at a higher level so as to carry on a nation-wide uncompromising struggle, the revisionists – AISA/SFI/AISF – were characteristically terrified to see an opportunity for a militant movement. This gang of stooges and bootlickers, who had already accepted Lyngdoh elsewhere, were obviously in the hunt for an alibi to find an exit route in the face of a genuine and militant students’ struggle. And hence the motley alliance of convenience amongst the revisionist ‘left’ and the reactionary right that we see today.

The long labyrinth of compromises and the impressive display of trickery, gimmicks and ill-propaganda that has been weaved ever since by these lackeys has had several twists and turns. All of course to one end – find a convenient compromise formula, betray the students and open the gates for Lyngdoh at any cost. The possibility of defying the court order was opposed through a fine display of fear-mongering thereby creating a frenzy and hysteria of ‘sine-die’. Then came the ‘negotiations’ with our direct adversary the Amicus Curie to extract certain ‘relaxations’. Instead of upholding the non-negotiability of our constitution and politicizing the students regarding the very anti-student idea behind the LCR in its entirety, the drama of certain ‘benchmarks’ was created. And in the process a whole year was lost in these ‘negotiations’ that finally failed in July 2011. Hence unfolded an even more naked advocacy of Lyngdoh. Perceiving the die-hard anti-Lyngdoh spirit among the students they ran from the floor of an UGBM to resume the failed negotiations and in their undaunted urge to compromise accepted each and every draconian clause of LCR with certain bogus ‘relaxations’ that were inadequate even for a feeble attempt at face-saving. With even the so called ‘benchmarks’ being shamelessly cast away, they began their naked dance of celebrating the sham of their ‘glorious fight for relaxations’. Today, after all these trickery, even these so called ‘relaxations’ have been rejected by the Supreme Court in its judgment on 8^th December. With the one farce of a relaxation on age-limit (two years for only research scholars) and photocopy (granted with conditions), the rest of the LCR comprising the most dangerous Grievance Redressal Cell remains intact. And of course our revisionist friends with their grand rainbow coalition of opportunism are not only still ready to accept it, but also consider this blatant sell out as a ‘great victory’.

Involved in their various stages of posturing, shadow-boxing, camouflaging and underhand dealings with the Y4E and administration, they naturally wished to scuttle what they feared most – debates, discussions, arguments, questions. During the execution of this entire grand compromise formulae, faced as they were with an overwhelming anti-Lyngdoh sentiment amongst the student community, the bootlickers themselves took up the mantle of depoliticization. Things needed to be shrouded in rampant misinformation campaigns, withholding of facts and of course haste. Hence the unabashed scuttling of debates and the unprecedented haste in which the school GBMs were wrapped up last semester. And today while they are at their naked best, it is therefore no surprise that they wish the least audience while they intend to celebrate their abject surrender to and brazen compromise with the forces of Lyngdoh. Therefore the hurriedly called UGBM scheduled on the 6^th of January - when even the registration for the new semester will not be over;- when  the students who had gone home last semester before the judgment came, won’t even be aware of the issue.  

Rather than conducting elections as per LCR, we must hold elections to the JSC as an interim measure and intensify our struggle against Lyngdoh. DSU calls upon the entire student community to once again rise up to the need of the hour and stand guard against these agents of Lyngdoh and put an end to this chronicle of compromise being written by them. Four years back it was the historic responsibility of the students to close the doors to Lyngdoh in this campus which they did by rejecting it in toto. Today, we must stall this hurried conspiracy of surrender and defeat, demand an immediate postponement of the UGBM for a more informed debate and finally carry forward our struggle against LCR that is sin-qua-non with our larger fight against the forces of privatization that thwarts the very fabric our hard-earned political existence.