People's Democracy

  SFI To Mobilise Public Opinion Against

Rajasthan HC Judgement

Following statement was issued by the central executive committee of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) on May 9

THE central executive committee of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) is disappointed with the recent judgement of the Rajasthan high court on the student union elections. It is a highly deplorable judgement and is against the basic rights sanctioned by the Constitution of our country under Article 19. We demand the governments to bring in necessary legislations to protect the constitutionally provided rights of the students as citizens of this country.

The high court has stated that the primary objective of the students in an education institute is to study, on which nobody can have any second opinion. To curtail democratic rights in the name of protecting academic atmosphere is looking at these two things as mutually contradictory. This is far from true, as curtailing democratic rights cannot ensure healthy academic atmosphere. It is only in a democratic environment that excellence in academics and all round growth of an individual can be ensured. Moreover, students who are studying in colleges and universities will be facing a moral dilemma as they have the right to decide the future of the country by electing its rulers but this judgement deprives them of this very right in the campuses.

The high court ruled that since student union elections are marred with violence, it is better to do away with them. This idea unfortunately tries to generalise the happenings in a few campuses and also fails to identify the real reason for this violence. Even more, it is like burning a house because of the menace of rats instead of killing the rats. The logical conclusions derived from this argument would be doing away with elections in the society at large because of the violence associated with elections these days. Any democratic minded individual will certainly scoff at such a suggestion and rightly so. Thus to spell these sort of arguments against student union elections is completely irrational and unjustified. Practical experience of student union elections, held regularly in many reputed universities and institutes, shows that violence is totally absent in those institutes where real democracy exists.

The Constitution of our country guarantees all the citizens the right to associate and also the right to express dissent. So any judgement that tries to do away with student unions and students’ right to organise and protest is anti-Constitution. Unfortunately under the influence of neo-liberal economic policies the democratic space is getting constrained day-by-day. Courts that were once looked upon as custodians of citizens’ rights and justice are also influenced by these policies and are thus delivering judgements that are clipping the democratic rights of our people.

The CEC of SFI has decided to organise round table meetings involving all the democratic minded people in the judiciary, legal profession, academicians, intellectuals, former and present student leaders and leaders of political parties to mobilise public opinion for the democratic rights of the students. Immediately after the commencement of the next academic year SFI will mobilise students in big numbers and organise demonstrations for the protection of democratic rights. SFI will also appeal to all speakers of the legislatures to legislate for the protection of students’ democratic rights.

The CEC also demanded the union government to stand by its promise for the enactment of a central legislation for the control of unaided professional colleges. If the government fails to keep up its promise it will have to face the anger of the students in a much bigger way. We have decided to remind the government of its promise by sending more than 10 lakh post cards to the HRD minister. This will be followed by intense struggles. So the government will have none other than itself to blame if the situation gets out of hand.