Mayawati’s decision to ban students union elections in universities and colleges in UP to improve the academic environment and lessen the drain on the law and order machinery, must initiate a new debate on the form and substance of democratic politics in educational institutions. Her predecessor Mulayam Singh Yadav had made it compulsory for universities and colleges to hold annual elections to students unions, failing which their annual financial grants would stop.

The Mayawati government’s order coincided with strong observations by the Supreme Court, where the honourable justices observed that the country needs good students, not those who indulge in goondagiri and dadagiri. Mayawati seeks to impose the ban, notwithstanding the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations that approved of elections with certain riders. Interestingly, those recommendations had been earlier accepted by the SC. Recently, the UGC chairman observed that there was not even a single state university of excellence in UP.

Is the government totally against representation to students? Or does it mean that the government is visualising some alternative form of democratic representation to students that may synchronise with academic excellence?

In their present form, elections in educational institutions harm students the most. Due to deterioration in the academic environment, students are ill-equipped to compete with the best outside the university. In states like Maharashtra, a State University Act 1994 vide section 40(1) provides the setting up of university students councils, but bars elections.

The question then is: should educational institutions be the sole training grounds for democratic activities? Is there a dearth of alternative political avenues? The question also is: have universities and colleges motivated good students, barring a few exceptions, to take to politics during the last 60 years? What about the commitment of society and government to develop institutions of higher education as benchmarks of excellence?

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