Strength of RSS cadres in BHU being challenged by left-leaning JNU student leaders in Varanasi campaign

VARANASI: Early on in the campaign for the soul of Varanasi, Arvind Kejriwal had invoked the name of Madan Mohan Malaviya and remembered how the legendary freedom fighter had never allowed policemen and politicians to set foot in his beloved Banaras Hindu University.
Those words have now come to haunt the AAP leader and his young volunteers who have poured in from across the country, as the institution, set to celebrate its centenary in two years, finds itself in an ugly battle that stars mostly cops and politicians.

BHU, a saffron stronghold, has its historic campus dominated by hundreds of RSS cadres, and according to critics, is the fountainhead of the recent spate of violence against AAP volunteers. That strength is now being directly challenged by a posse of leftleaning student leaders who have descended from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

And whenever the teams meet, the infernal heat of Varanasi summer goes up by a few degrees. In fact, BHU’s head of political science department himself is out on bail, facing charges of assaulting AAP’s controversial leader Somnath Bharti.

Some Tense Situations

Professor Kushal Kishore Mishra makes no bones of the fact that he is a card-carrying member of BJP, but tells ET he had no role in the attack on Bharti. “I am on a 15-day leave and this is a part of research work of my students regarding VVIPs’ election campaign in Varanasi, so it cannot only be seen as a political activity,” Mishra tells ET.

Dean of the faculty of social sciences, RR Jha, doesn’t rule out any action against Mishra, but says he doesn’t have full facts of the issue. And besides that, it is up to the Registrar and Vice-Chancellor of the BHU to decide, he says. And in the lively campus, Mishra’s party and varsity colleagues narrate with relish the strength of the saffron brigade inside.

According to Alok Ranjan of the ABVP, nearly 250 members of the parishad, who are also students of the BHU, are working in the two rural constituencies of Varanasi. ABVP’s BHU unit president Shyam Nandan says there are at least 40 students working full time to reach all the 5,000-odd voters inside the campus.

“Initially, we were not naming Modiji while canvassing with voters, but as we meet them again to request them to vote, the name of Modi gets prominent. We aren’t leaving anything to chance during the last phase,” say both the ABVP office bearers.

But this week has also seen students from the JNUSU fan out in different areas of the constituency, distributing pamphlets and engaging with locals in conversations trying to canvass against Modi. This is in addition to young volunteers – many of them students – of the AAP who have come from several parts of the country to canvass for Kejriwal.

Akbar Chowdhary, JNUSU president, says the union’s key plank is an “ideological one.” “We are clear that Modi is the face of fascism in India and we are here to debate the shrinking space in Banaras for discussion about this. We want to ask, why can’t we campaign here peacefully?” asks Chowdhury as Jean-Thomas Martelli, a French student currently based in JNU who is researching on campus politics in India, nods on. Chowdhary is pointing to the attacks on and intimidation of JNUSU and AAP student volunteers during the past week allegedly by those backing Modi.

The premises of BHU have also been host to some tense situations. AAP volunteers and JNUSU students claim they have been barred from campaigning inside the BHU campus, but the faculty and ABVP dismiss it as a politically motivated claim. Prof Guru Prasad Singh, in charge of coordinating the BJP campaign within BHU, says the party campaign inside the campus is in full steam.

“We campaign among small groups of 8-10 people and aim to target each voter at least four times before campaigning ends. So far, we have managed to do this exercise once and, by May 10, four rounds of campaigning will have been completed,” he tells ET. Established in 1916, the BHU has about 35,000 students and 20,000 staff.

However, only a little over 5,000 are voters. Of this, nearly 2,200 are students and non-teaching staff while 700-800 comprise teaching staff. A fatal police firing incident during the 1997 student elections effectively put an end to union politics of all sorts within campus, which has barred any political activity and thus, legal recognition for unions.

However, various student unions of political agendas across the spectrum continue to exist among students. The campus has tended to vote poorly — not more than 20-30% polling during past elections — but this time, the Sangh Parivar has put all its might behind ensuring that maximum polling happens.

This is being done by ensuring that, for practically every voter in all of the 14 colonies in the university, the organisation’s activists visit at least four times by co-ordinating the paperwork with EC and ensuring names of all voters are reflected on rolls. The percentage of polling could shoot up beyond 50-60% due to these efforts, estimate activists working on this within the campus. If that happens, the current spate of intimidation of his nascent volunteers could be the least of Kejriwal’s problems.