After the new Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) was elected recently, several student groups during a public meeting at the Arts Faculty in North Campus on Wednesday focused on the work done by the union.
‘False promises’
Besides discussing problems faced by students in the past year, the groups felt that DUSU should represent them instead of the administration.
They said after the all-consuming election campaign that tempted students with money, alcohol, pizza, lip glosses, stationery and NAMO power pepper spray, what lies ahead is a ‘flurry of false promises’.
Addressing the public meeting, Abhinash D.C. of Ramjas College said, “What we learnt from the Ramjas incident in February is how institutionally we are deprived of a place to speak.”
Discrimination alleged
Alleging discrimination, differently-abled student Anuj Goyal from the Delhi School of Economics (DSE) pointed out how DU only has 26 lifts with three people working for their maintenance.
Mr. Goyal said, “There’s a special path made of yellow tiles constructed for us, which is never cleaned. The path is not a disabled-friendly path as it has turns.”
He spoke about how a seminar the students of DSE wanted to conduct on the right to privacy was rejected by various authorities as the topic was not “economics-related or perhaps they feared another Ramjas incident” around election time. Ironically, he said, a seminar on culture was held at the same venue as the proposed privacy seminar.
‘Fest organising body’
Devika Shekhawat of Pinjara Tod said, “We have gathered here to talk about the political imagination in DU and unitisation against students’ problems because we don’t want our students’ union to be just a fest organising body.”
