Right on the coattails of the clash between Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Left groups at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) ahead of the university’s student union polls, another such clash between ABVP and Left groups took place at The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) in Hyderabad last Friday, February 9 and yesterday, February 12.
The clash on Friday happened at the General Body Meeting at the university, which was called to discuss the student union elections.
Speaking to EdexLive, Abhishek, a member of ABVP says that they objected to how the election procedure was not adhering to the due process, and they were not informed that the GBM was to form the election commission.
“We were under the impression that it would be a general meeting, but they were already forming the election commission. We objected to it because it was undemocratic,” he added.
When ABVP assembled on the campus to protest against this, Abhishek claimed, students from the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and the Fraternity Movement raised slogans such as “ABVP go back” and “Sangh Parivar Murdabaad”. “These groups also singled out and beat up a first-year student of ABVP so badly, that he had to be hospitalised,” he added.
However, statements released by progressive student groups suggest that ABVP was the aggressor in both conflicts.
A statement released by various progressive and Leftist groups of EFLU including SFI, the Fraternity Movement, the EFLU Queer Collective, and the EFLU Women’s Collective under the aegis of the EFLU Student Body alleges that ABVP started shouting and misbehaving with the administration representatives at the GBM on Friday, causing them to exit.
The Student Body also accuses ABVP of attempting to verbally abuse and physically provoke the larger student body, demanding that the election be postponed and even cancelled.
Further, when the student community assembled to protest against ABVP’s “hooliganism” by forming a human chain near EFLU’s Mahlaq Bai Chanda Hostel and the health centre on the campus yesterday, February 12, ABVP tried to provoke the students and disrupt the demonstration, the statement by the Student Body alleges.
According to a student who requested to be anonymous, the demonstrating students vacated the place following police intervention, while ABVP did not. They add that the ABVP even attacked two students from the Fraternity Movement when they tried to photograph their gathering.
They add that when students who were a part of the demonstration alerted that they were being attacked by ABVP in the general WhatsApp group, students from ABVP tried to counter their alerts by claiming that a “PwD student from ABVP is being attacked by Leftists”.
In addition, the University Health Centre did not provide a medical reference to the injured students of the Fraternity Movement, while ABVP was able to obtain the university ambulance and seek external treatment by “cooking a false narrative of being the victims themselves, as is their usual practice”, as the statement claims.
“Despite the notice for the GBM being public, despite following the due procedure to constitute the Election Commission, ABVP had still derailed the process for us,” the student says.
“On top of that, they push out false narratives that we attacked a student with disabilities. This was the same playbook they followed in JNU recently. They are so used to having power and influence over campuses, that they are afraid that the mandate would be against them,” they add.
“We must assert the larger unity of democratic, justice-loving students against this small section of divisive politics. Today stood a testament to this unity, which shall stand unwavering against any attack on our rights,” the statement read.
Disha, another students’ organisation in Hyderabad, released a statement condemning ABVP which reads, “We are seeing every day that ABVP and the Sangh Parivar are making every attempt to take away whatever democratic rights of the students, and trying to rule by muscle-money power in the campuses across the country. They will employ all their cheap tactics in destroying the unity of the students and citizens.”
According to the student, the EFLU administration has not called for a GBM yet, nor was any disciplinary action taken against ABVP members who disrupted the previous GBM on Friday, February 9.
