Page 54 - EW-January-2026

Cover Story

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY, DELHI

LEFT IDEOLOGIES ALIVE IN INDIA'S MOST

REPUTED LIBERAL ARTS UNIVERSITY

Over a decade after the BJP swept to power in Delhi and put
all its weight behind its student wing — ABVP — Left Unity,
an alliance of several leftist students unions affiliated with Left
national parties including CPI-M, won a sweeping victory in the
latest JNUSU election

Kaveree Bamzai

E VER SINCE THE BJP-LED NDA jugger- Mishra interpreted the Left Unity alliance’s thumping win

as a wider mandate. She had no hesitation in beginning
naut led by former three-term Guja-
rat chief minister Narendra Modi was
her speech with the ‘Lal Salaam’ (Red Salute) and castigat-
ing the incumbent BJP/NDA government for propagating
swept to power in New Delhi in Gen-
eral Election 2014, reducing the num-
communalism, religious division with toxic rhetoric against
ber of seats in the Lok Sabha held by
“The victory of the Left Unity alliance in India’s most re-
the Congress to 44 from the 206 it won
in General Election 2009, all political Muslims and practising crony capitalism.
spected liberal arts postgraduate university is a rejection of
parties and media pundits have been predicting the end of the patriarchy and hierarchy norms that ABVP activists are
Left students unions that have dominated the showpiece attempting to introduce in JNU to replace the egalitarian
postgraduate Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) estab- and mutually respectful faculty-student interaction. And
lished in 1969 on a 1,019-acre campus in the heart of Delhi. outside JNU, I am hopeful that public opinion is beginning
However, in the latest JNUSU (Jawaharlal Nehru Uni- to turn against the communal and divisive propaganda of
versity Students’ Union) elections, held on November 4 — the BJP and RSS which is weakening the country. BJP’s
over a decade after the right-wing revivalist BJP swept to huge majority in Parliament was reduced considerably in
power and put all its weight behind its students wing, the General Election 2024. I am hopeful that public opinion is
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) — Left Unity, turning against BJP/RSS policies of inequality, insecurity,
an alliance of several leftist students unions including AISA, precarity and monopoly capitalism. I believe the victory of
SFI and DSF affiliated with Left national parties including Left Unity in JNU is the first sign of the turning tide,” says
CPI-M (Communist Party of India-Marxist), won a sweep- Mishra.
ing victory bagging the offices of President, Vice President, Dr. Nivedita Menon, who recently retired after a long
General Secretary and Joint Secretary. 17-year innings as professor at JNU’s Centre for Compara-
In her victory speech, JNUSU’s new President Aditi tive Politics and Political Theory, School of International

54 EDUCATIONWORLD JANUARY 2026