33 Years After Campus Violence Forced a Ban, Maharashtra Moves to Bring Back Student Union Elections

The timing of the state government’s move is significant. Over the past few months, a large section of students have appeared to be restive, hitting the streets to hold protests over alleged irregularities in the education and examination system and demand accountability.

In July, thousands of students and youth participated in protests across Maharashtra over the NEET paper leak. In September, the death by suicide of 20-year-old IIT Bombay student Sahil Wakode led to days of protests on campus, with students demanding action and changes in the institute’s grievance and disciplinary mechanisms. The allegations made by Wakode’s family against faculty members have been under investigation.

How campus vote ended?

The student union polls were barred in Maharashtra after campus politics was roiled by violence in the early 1990s. In October 1989, NSUI student leader Owen D’Souza was killed outside a Mumbai college during campaigning. Subsequently, the state government passed the Maharashtra Universities Act, 1994, to ban direct, competitive student elections. The government’s justification was largely based on law and order since there were concerns about money and muscle power and the entry of external political organisations into campuses.

The ban meant that an entire generation of students grew up without electing their Student Councils. Such Councils just continued in various unelected forms, but students did not have the ballot to choose their leaders.

Advocate Amol Matele from the NCP (SP), who has written multiple letters to the state government demanding the student elections’ revival in the Maharashtra colleges and universities, has welcomed its move to resume the process.

“Most recently, I wrote to the Higher and Technical Education Minister Chandrakant Patil in August to review the state’s decision on putting the student elections on hold. Ideally, they should have just declared to start student elections since its rules and regulations in accordance with the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations have already been prepared by the government in 2018, based on which the Student Council elections were declared in 2019,” said Matele.

He noted that it is already too late for student elections to begin this academic year. “But the entire process should now be ready before the next academic year begins in June, so that in July (2027) elections can be held,” he added.

2016 revival bid

The first serious attempt to reverse the ban came in the 2010s. All-party discussions were held in 2013-14 on reviving student elections along the lines recommended by the Lyngdoh Committee.

In 2016, the then BJP-Shiv Sena government led by Fadnavis passed the Maharashtra Public Universities Act to revoke the ban on student union polls and provide for elected Student Councils in universities, colleges and departments, effectively reversing the earlier ban. It also ensured

safeguards in light of the Lyngdoh framework that sought to limit money and muscle power through eligibility requirements, attendance criteria, spending limits, campaign code, and grievance redressal mechanisms.

The state government framed detailed rules for the 2016 Act in 2018, following which the universities prepared election schedules for 2019. For the first time in over two decades, Maharashtra appeared set to return to the campus polls. Then the government stepped back again.

2019 freeze

Weeks before the scheduled elections, the Fadnavis Cabinet, in August 2019, decided to put the student union polls on hold, citing law and order concerns and their proximity to the October Assembly elections that year. It approved Section 99B of the Maharashtra Public Universities (Second Amendment) Ordinance, which gave the government power to defer the campus polls.

The Covid-19 pandemic broke out soon after, and the state’s political instability that came later pushed the issue further down the government’s agenda. The student polls were never rescheduled since. Student organisations did not have enough political heft behind their demand for it, while universities continued with the nominated Student Councils.

Why now?

The NEET protests brought thousands of youth into the streets. In Mumbai, many students were detained and some were issued police notices as protests continued. Youth and student organisations began membership drives and sought to build links with a generation that had shown it was willing to organise independently of established political structures.

The Indian Express reported in August about the students’ renewed demand for the campus elections.

Then came the IIT Bombay agitation. After Wakode’s death, students protested over the handling of the case and demanded changes in the institute’s grievance mechanisms.

Neither protest was a student election campaign. But both showed that the absence of formal student representation does not mean an absence of student politics.

Pradeep Sawant from Yuva Sena, youth wing of Shiv Sena (UBT), asked, “Is this (new) committee going to be another eyewash to calm the storm, or the government is really serious about bringing back student elections?”

What is new roadmap?

The Suhas Pednekar committee’s mandate reflects the government’s plans and concerns over the issue. The committee will examine safeguards against external political interference and commercialisation, management and audit of the Student Council funds, orientation and training of elected representatives, and the use of digital systems for nominations, scrutiny and grievance redressal.

It will also consider representation for women, students from reserved categories and those involved in the NSS, NCC, sports and cultural activities.

The panel comprises former VCs and pro-VCs, principals, university officials and a senior law officer. Mumbai University Registrar Dr Prasad Karande is its member-secretary.

Among other things, the committee will explore the digital process for the elections and keeping it free of political interference. Most student organisations have demanded that the polling should be a traditional ballet process to ensure transparency.

Santosh Gangurde, sate general secretary of the MNS’s student wing, said, “The entire decision of examining how to bring back students’ election is itself a political one. How can the process be kept free of political influence?”

He also said: “Even in the ongoing protest over an IIT Bombay student’s death by suicide, while there are students protesting inside, there are various political outfits who are protesting outside the campus. And youth wings of various political parties have also been raising voices for students’ issues. The upcoming process should be inclusive of political participation although in a restricted manner.”

Political row

The supporters of student elections argue that they give students a formal channel to highlight grievances and provide them a training ground for leadership. The critics have however held that student polls could bring party politics, money and confrontation into campuses.

Both concerns seem to be reflected in the committee’s terms of reference. For Maharashtra’s political class, there is another issue at stake. Several senior politicians have themselves emerged from student politics. The state’s current Higher Education Minister, Chandrakant Patil, is among those who were active in student politics in their younger days.