JNU’s prominent Left leaders have moved to Congress — is it a trend? Student outfits weigh in

For decades, JNU has been a showcase for Left politics on campus, the slogans of which were sharpened into party manifestos and whose student leaders often took up larger party political roles.

In recent decades though, a different transition has been visible — several prominent faces from the Left student movement in JNU have crossed over to the Congress after leaving the campus.

From Syed Naseer Hussain, JNUSU’s SFI president in 1999-2000 who is now a Congress Rajya Sabha member, to Kanhaiya Kumar of AISF, JNUSU president in 2015-16 who is now the AICC incharge for NSUI, several of JNU’s most recognisable student leaders have shifted allegiance.

Prasenjit Bose, Hussain’s contemporary in the JNU SFI and for long a prominent strategist of the CPI(M)’s student wing, joined the Congress last month.

The trend began with D P Tripathi, the SFI president of JNUSU in 1975-76, who switched to the Congress and ultimately to the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Five others, besides Hussain and Kanhaiya, followed – Shakeel Ahmad Khan (SFI, 1992-93), Battilal Bairwa (SFI, 1996-98), Sandeep Singh (AISA, 2007-08), Akbar Chaudhary (AISA, 2013-14), and Mohit Pandey (AISA, 2016-17).

While the Congress has traditionally had space for a left wing, and the decline of the Left in India has led to a shrinking of political opportunities, several student leaders in JNU reacted with skepticism to the idea that the Congress could be becoming a natural destination for Leftist youth.

“The DSF has never believed that campus politics should be a platform for future careerism,” Danish Tako, a member of the Democratic Students’ Federation (DSF) Secretariat, said. “We do not endorse the shifts of Left student leaders into the Congress.”

The DSF emerged in 2012-13 from what Tako called a “larger ideological rift within the student Left movement” after the CPI(M) decided to support Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee’s candidature for President of India in 2012.

“The debates around Singur and Nandigram had already shaken the [Left] movement,” Tako said. “The presidential election was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

The acquisition of farmland by West Bengal’s then Left Front government for industry had provoked criticism within, and ultimately paved the way for the victory of the Trinamool Congress in the state.

V Lenin Kumar of the DSF became JNUSU president for 2012-13. Last year, the DSF won the central panel posts of general secretary and vice president. “Given the context of the campus, Left unity is essential to defeat the ABVP… There has never been any discussion about collaborating with the NSUI,” Tako said.

Unlike in Delhi University, NSUI has never had a strong presence in JNU. With the Congress-led UPA in power, the NSUI had positioned itself as a centrist alternative on campus between 2012 and 2014. But after 2014, the polarisation between the Left and Right pushed the NSUI to the margins.

“Most students who are anti-ABVP trust the Left Unity more than us to stop the ABVP,” an NSUI leader said. “We are working to rebuild that trust, but JNU’s politics is deeply ideological — it rewards consistency, not opportunism.”

Ravi Pandey, chairman of NSUI’s media department, said the NSUI’s campaign for the JNU central panel election will focus on the “core issues facing JNU and the nation — academic freedom, crumbling infrastructure, increased fellowships and scholarships, opposition to education fund cuts, and resistance to RSS influence in recruitments”.

“We are also fighting to protect the Constitution and restore student welfare policies,” Pandey said.

On the movement of Left leaders to the Congress, he said: “Our ideology is deeply rooted in democracy, secularism, equality, and social justice.The Congress is the principal force fighting against the BJP-RSS to protect the idea of India. Anyone who believes in these values and wants to pursue constructive and progressive politics naturally finds the Congress the best fit.”

Avijit Ghosh, Delhi State Committee member of the SFI, said the ideological divide between the two sides was difficult to bridge. “There has never been any alliance between the Left and NSUI,” Ghosh said. “There are clear ideological differences. The Left-progressive unity has successfully resisted ABVP on this campus (JNU) for decades.”

Leaders such as Prasenjit Bose had made “individual choices”, Ghosh said; they should not be seen as evidence of a trend.“Yes, there are leaders from various campuses who later chose to go to the Congress, that’s their personal political decision,” he said. “They’ve chosen their path, but to say this reflects the future of Left politics in India is inaccurate.”

Former JNUSU president N Sai Balaji of AISA, made the point that most of the 200-odd JNUSU office bearers of the past 50 years have been from the Left, and “only a handful have moved to the Congress”.