Students of Jamia Millia Islamia carried out a protest on Thursday requesting the administration to reinstate the Students’ Union of the university and declaring the date of union elections by October 10. The students said that they had suffered immensely in the past 11 years after the scrapping of the Students’ Union in 2006.
“We have had no representation and no mechanism to ensure accountability of the decision-making bodies of the university towards the students. The students feel powerless in the face of such administrative decisions as scrapping of paper marksheets, fee hike or inefficiencies like delay and errors in declaration of examination results,” said the students in a memorandum submitted to the Vice-Chancellor.
Students have formed a Joint Action Committee (JAC) with members from various students bodies’ including the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti, All India Students’ Association and Jamia Students’ Forum to raise the demand for a Union.
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The JAC said that it would “resort to democratic means of protest” in case the varsity does not meet the deadline of announcing date for the polls.
Matter sub judice
The administration on receiving the memorandum said that the university had no objections to the formation of a students’ union but it could not give the go ahead as the matter was sub judice. The students’ union elections were banned in 2006 as the administration felt the students’ union was exercising power in areas where it had no jurisdiction.
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Students argued that being a minority institution the students needed to have a collective voice even more.
However, some students felt that a Union would only politicise the campus.