Protest at India university where no students’ union vote held for 20 years 

New Delhi, India – Today is the 18th day of an indefinite hunger strike for Ebin Basil, a third-year student of law at Jamia Millia Islamia, a prominent Muslim university on the southeastern edge of the Indian capital.

Basil, 23, has been fasting since October 12 for the restoration of the university’s students’ union, which has been suspended for the past 20 years.

Surrounded by dozens of friends and supporters, he remains resolute as his frail body lies on a mat inside the university’s political science department building. “Till my last breath, I will be fighting,” he told Al Jazeera.

Basil is among five hunger strikers at the core of the protest, which has seen hundreds of Jamia students congregating in the grounds surrounding a statue of iconic Urdu-Persian poet Mirza Ghalib, near the university’s main entrance. Several other students who initially joined the hunger strike have withdrawn over health concerns.

The protest began this month with students holding night vigils and calling for the students’ union election. On October 16, the university suspended Basil for a year and banned two other hunger strikers from the campus. By the night of October 17, nearly 200 protesters had returned to the grounds, and their demonstrations continued.

On October 24, the entrance gates to the university were barricaded, classes moved online, and students in halls of residence were pressured to leave. Armed police and paramilitary forces were stationed outside the gate, and a ban on gatherings of more than four people was imposed on campus.

On Monday, the university administration announced that elections would be held within 15 days of the approval of a draft union constitution to be prepared according to the guidelines of the University Grants Commission, the body that controls India’s state universities.

Jamia has set a December 20 deadline for a committee to draft the union constitution and to hold elections within 15 days of the draft’s approval. But no deadline for approval has been set, prompting the students to reject the university’s offer as “too slow”.

“It is a very vague point,” Basil told Al Jazeera.

Two decades without elected union

Jamia Millia Islamia’s relationship with student democracy has been marked by long interruptions.

Established in 1920 – Thursday is its 106th anniversary – Jamia was granted federal university status in 1988 and had its minority status formally recognised by the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions in 2011.

The first student union election at Jamia was held in 1981. Elections were discontinued in 1997 amid campus unrest and resumed in 2005. But that union was dissolved the following year, with the university administration blaming an alleged attack on the vice-chancellor.

Since then, several attempts have been made to revive the union, including a high court petition in 2011 and a student hunger strike in 2017. Meanwhile, to ease the pressure, the university allowed elected department-level student bodies that did not have influence over the whole campus.

As the current protest drags on, Basil’s health continues to deteriorate. He has lost 7kg and can barely walk unaided. Blood tests show his sodium and glucose levels are low.

“My condition is very bad. I am not even able to walk on my own right now,” he said, adding that his mental health was also suffering.

Around him, the campus has turned into a fortress, with hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel guarding its gates. Classes and exams have been moved online and the university has been closed until January 13, with students in university accommodation asked to vacate their rooms.

“They have closed the university gates completely and built a wall in front of them,” Basil said.

Jamia students say an elected union would give them a collective voice to raise concerns over conditions in halls of residence, canteens, fee increases, and restrictions imposed by the university administration on joining the youth-led antigovernment protests being held across the country.

“If a union comes, the students will have power, and the administration will not have the arbitrary power it has now,” Basil said.

M K Nausheen Farook, a second-year master’s student in disaster management, agrees.

“We are continuing this protest because we have not got a proper election date. We do not trust the Jamia administration,” said the 23-year-old student from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, accusing the authorities of acting at the behest of the federal government controlled by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is known for its anti-Muslim policies.

Farook also alleged that women residents in university accommodation were being pressured to leave after classes went online.

Mantasha Irfan, a master’s student of peace and conflict studies and member of the left-wing All India Students’ Association (AISA), said the protesters are facing immediate difficulties due to the administration’s crackdown.

“They have cut off our basic supplies. There is just one functioning toilet for hundreds of student protesters. There is no water or electricity,” she told Al Jazeera. “Even women students who are menstruating do not have access to sanitary pads, and they are not allowing people to bring them in.”

Irfan, 23, said the demand for a union must also be understood through Jamia’s history of political mobilisation around issues affecting the Muslim community.

“Whenever something has happened to Muslims, Jamia and AMU have been at the forefront of the struggle and important centres of resistance,” she said.

AMU refers to Aligarh Muslim University, India’s largest minority institution, located about 120km (74 miles) away in Uttar Pradesh state.

Larger pattern of denial of student rights

The situation at AMU is no different.

After weeks of similar protests, which included a 19-day hunger strike by a number of students, authorities at AMU announced this month that students’ union elections would be held on November 5.

The AMU election would come eight years after the last students’ union was formed there, forcing many to question why Muslim institutions continue to be denied a representative body, while other prominent universities known for student activism, such as Jawaharlal Nehru University and Delhi University, continue to elect student bodies every year.

Apoorvanand, professor of Hindi at Delhi University, who goes by a single name, told Al Jazeera that Jamia and AMU occupy a distinct position because of their Muslim minority character.

“The government and university administrations are unwilling to encourage independent thinking among Muslim students or the emergence of Muslim leaders,” he said.

Apoorvanand said students across India are feeling increasingly suffocated by the “erosion of democratic spaces” on the campuses. “They are now prepared to go to any extent to ensure that democratic spaces are restored, including at Jamia Millia Islamia,” he said.

Jamia authorities say they are trying to end the standoff.

Spokeswoman Saima Saeed told Al Jazeera that their administration is “the first in 20 years” to accept the students’ demand for a union. She said the proposed constitution requires careful examination of court orders, government recommendations and the university’s statutes, adding that Jamia’s “bona fide students and employees are its primary and genuine stakeholders”.

Meanwhile, many students find themselves caught in the ongoing standoff, as they hope to return to in-person classes.

Hera Sarfaraz, a first-year master’s student in business administration, told Al Jazeera that ordinary students are suffering. They want the university administration and the protesters to resolve the issue amicably and allow academic life to resume.

“We want our regular classes back and do not want to miss out on in-person learning by being confined to online classes. This limits our exposure to university life,” she said.