Reclaim the Supremacy of the Joint Struggle Committee of JNU

Reclaim the Supremacy of the Joint Struggle Committee

The current Solicitor General for India has given a puzzle to the JNU student community to solve. One must appreciate and acknowledge that so far our Joint Struggle Committee has shown earth shaking patience and wisdom in dealing with the poser from Government of India through him. What Solicitor General for India has failed to achieve is to make JNU students perfect conformists. As JNU student community we are at times so self critical that we fail to discern how we have put the legal acumen of the apex court and government of India under rigorous scrutiny.
Be the witness of these historic moments but do not let impatience of any sort nullify our combined achievements. It is good to be argumentative but beware of the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious and the unsocial. Do recollect what Marcus Aurelius (105 BC) says in Meditations, "Constantly bring to thy recollection those who have complained greatly about anything, those who have been most conspicuous by the greatest fame or misfortunes or enmities or fortunes of any kind: then think where are they all now? Smoke and ash and a tale, or not even a tale."

We must take constant cognizance of the Joint Struggle Committee which has been constituted by the students of JNU through a University General Body Meeting on 25th October 2008. The Resolution of this UGBM reads:

This UGBM expresses its distress at the Supreme Court order to stay the JNUSU election process for non-conformity to the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations. This UGBM resolves to defend the JNUSU Constitution and our unique election process. To carry forward this struggle in a united manner, this UGBM convenes a joint struggle committee: The Committee should be convened by the existing JNUSU Council, and should comprise of the existing JNUSU Council, two representatives from each student organization and concerned individuals…All future decisions and endeavours to defend the JNUSU Constitution and our unique election process, must be taken by this Committee. The decisions taken by this Committee will be final. No unilateralism should be shown at this juncture from any quarter…This UGBM empowers the Committee to decide on all appropriate actions in the future course of struggle.

The relevant prayers (ad verbatim) of the Joint Struggle Committee in the Supreme Court is as under:

PRAYER
That in view of the above, this Hon’ble Court may be pleased to :

(i) Accept the submissions/suggestions of the Joint Struggle Committee of which JNUSU is a part and vacate the stay order passed on 24.10.2008.

(ii)Accept the apology for not bringing the suggestions/views of JNUSU on the Lyngdoh Committee for consideration of this Hon’ble Court earlier.

What is missing from the debate is the audit of the work done by the Joint Struggle Committee of students of JNU which consists of JNUSU and student organizations i.e. AIDSO, AISA, AISF, ABVP, DSU, PSU, NSUI and SFI. What merits attention is to ensure that no miscreant succeeds in diluting and undermining the mandate of the Joint Struggle Committee. Under the extraordinary circumstances with which the JNU student community is faced with what today’s UGBM must do among other things is to empower the Joint Struggle Committee so that its supremacy over JNUSU and other student organisations remains intact. Do "Remember the arguments by which it has been proved that the world is a kind of political community, and be quiet at last", says Marcus Aurelius. As a student community we are one and we are faced with the whims and fancies of the nation- states and non-nation states, we must use our intellectual capital and the social capital to safeguard JNU as a place to cherish for generations to come. In literature we note that in crisis a character evolves, in the current crisis too JNU student community would evolve to inject motion in stagnant entities. We must salute the work done by the Joint Struggle Committee and tell them in the words of a poet ,

"If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;....

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools",

JNU student community would have gained the trust (amidst the flood of ulterior motives of political outfits) in themselves to take on the might of both the states and non-states and still remain resilient to be ready for the next struggle. Attempts to prove the student community incompetent must be defeated under the leadership of the Joint Struggle Committee, to solve the riddle and to bring back the normal democratic process that has the historical legacy of giving befitting reply to the lethal designs.

----- Gopal Krishna, Prakash K Ray, Shashank Y

Drafted on 4 December, 2010