When JNUSU came together/The ‘halla bol’ culture
The yellow-orange horizon was just beginning to get redder as I walked towards the parking lot of SSS1 after my viva got over. Clearly silhouetted against the sulpher red sky, I could see shadows flittering. As I moved closer, these took shape of people, the laborer’s and students.
Women sat on a mat, peeling-chopping with sickle and men, at a distance were making fire. The menu was simple- dal, bhat and aloo gobhi. Before I knew it, I was peeling lahsan and washing aloo. Someone was washing rice and someone was trying to open a oil bottle, while someone was looking for a knife someone else was carrying buckets of water. There was so much around to be done and I could see the familiar ‘active’ faces of the campus giving their best shot.
The next day, at the Administration Building, there was a protest demonstration where I heard the slogans of ‘halla bol’ culture for the first time. It was like a scene out of a 80’s movie where typically an owner of a factory, clad in a three piece suit, would come out where the worker’s would be shouting slogans, sit in his car and leave. Cut to real from reel, the VC came out if the Ivory building, sat in a luxurious car and sped off. The
‘halla bol’ was still on and could feel goose bums just on my neck.
The issue- the laborer’s on the campus were not given their ‘minimum wages’, thus the JNUSU came up with the idea to start a community kitchen where the students would come in and cook with the laborer’s, the last meal of the day. The fight for the laborer’s had begun, in unison with them.
That was in November last year.
February, this year.
It seems like a season of protests in JNU. Starts with a little fest to celebrate the culture of protests, moves to the Satluj hostel’s demands, the worker’s of the university and of course the laborer’s.
Since the talks with the Rector and others failed, the Union decided to go on with their way of posters. So one night, I walk down with a friend to give newspapers to cover the Pink Palace. We were asked to stay and help. We started sticking newspapers on the stairs of the ‘Palace’, the schools and the library. More posters were made and stuck on walls of the admin, campus walls and trees etc. The slogan read, ‘DON’T STEP OVER THE ISSUE’ and stated the demand for minimum wages for the laborers. It was some effort to be up all night and stick the newspapers around the place, paint the posters and sleep in the admin building. In the morning I left for my room, realizing that I had probably pulled every possible muscle in my leg and my back.
In the afternoon at 1, I was woken up by a friend’s message that told me that the admin tore the posters and the protest demo had begun. When I reached the scene, my friends had already gheraod the Registrar of the university. We stood around his car and there was demand for him to come out and talk. While he sat inside, there were posters put on his car and the tyre’s hawa taken out and of course the ‘Halla Bol’. I suddenly heard my own voice joining theirs. After a string of events that let to the registrar stay in his car for 6 hours, the Dean’s and faculty pressurizing students and finally the admin not apologizing for their action but asking the students to apologize for the ‘militant action’. The following day saw no talks and meetings with the admin but the suspension of 10 students, which included the elected student representatives. Without any trial the students were given suspension letters.
It seems that the semester will go without a JNUSU. Mobilization for the suspended students began as soon as the suspensions came. The democratic right of the students to put up posters on the walls of JNU walls has been challenged and it is being taken very seriously since the MCM’s case. Everywhere one can see representatives talking to others, some knocking the doors of the hostel rooms, some organizing Mess mobilizations and others giving pamphlets to others who nod with them in agreement. It is a time in JNU when the students have to unite, transcending their political sympathies and inclinations against the administration who have challenged their rights.
Amidst all this, the main cause is left somewhere far behind. There has suddenly been a shift in the immediate concerns, in the twist of events for which the admin is solely responsible. The laborer’s are still waiting for their minimum wages and the electricians for their jobs.
While the parties are getting divided on issues and expressing their concerns on ‘more important concerns’ and pulling themselves out of the strike, the drawbacks of democratic systems come to the fore.
As the situation turned worse the demand for a UGBM had to arise. So it did. There was a need for a specific number of signatures and the party members and their friends could not fill that number. There was a huge mela sort of scene outside Teflas, a popular place on the campus. In a bizarre twist of events, the JNUSU president first announced that no UGBM would take place and then, to worsen the matters he fled the venue with the signature sheet even before the counting could have started. The result, another ‘Protest Demo’ at night. The night saw people of different political stands coming out on the streets and protesting against the suspensions, the enquiry, the act committed by the President and his fellow workers and for the laborers. The walk from Ganga Dhaba till Chandrabhaga seemed full of spirits and tireless. Then right outside Chandrabhaga, starts a small UGBM, of course minus the President and the representatives of his party.
This issue has seen many people coming together, those who are politically charged and also those who are interested in the issue and not the political culture of the place. And now it is a sad time indeed, when the JNUSU is divided, when there is a real no vote bank issue on hand.
As the winter melts into spring, the administration and its surroundings are booming with bigger and happy looking flowers and so is the state of affairs of the admin. The students are getting alienated on their issues and the sufferers are still at lost. The tale that began for the workers and laborers almost three months back, now has taken a new twist with the attack on the democratic culture of the students and then the bolt from the blue, the suspensions. The real fabric of the story has got lost. When this all ends, one will be back on ground zero to start again, everything.
The yellow-orange horizon was just beginning to get redder as I walked towards the parking lot of SSS1 after my viva got over. Clearly silhouetted against the sulpher red sky, I could see shadows flittering. As I moved closer, these took shape of people, the laborer’s and students.
Women sat on a mat, peeling-chopping with sickle and men, at a distance were making fire. The menu was simple- dal, bhat and aloo gobhi. Before I knew it, I was peeling lahsan and washing aloo. Someone was washing rice and someone was trying to open a oil bottle, while someone was looking for a knife someone else was carrying buckets of water. There was so much around to be done and I could see the familiar ‘active’ faces of the campus giving their best shot.
The next day, at the Administration Building, there was a protest demonstration where I heard the slogans of ‘halla bol’ culture for the first time. It was like a scene out of a 80’s movie where typically an owner of a factory, clad in a three piece suit, would come out where the worker’s would be shouting slogans, sit in his car and leave. Cut to real from reel, the VC came out if the Ivory building, sat in a luxurious car and sped off. The
‘halla bol’ was still on and could feel goose bums just on my neck.
The issue- the laborer’s on the campus were not given their ‘minimum wages’, thus the JNUSU came up with the idea to start a community kitchen where the students would come in and cook with the laborer’s, the last meal of the day. The fight for the laborer’s had begun, in unison with them.
That was in November last year.
February, this year.
It seems like a season of protests in JNU. Starts with a little fest to celebrate the culture of protests, moves to the Satluj hostel’s demands, the worker’s of the university and of course the laborer’s.
Since the talks with the Rector and others failed, the Union decided to go on with their way of posters. So one night, I walk down with a friend to give newspapers to cover the Pink Palace. We were asked to stay and help. We started sticking newspapers on the stairs of the ‘Palace’, the schools and the library. More posters were made and stuck on walls of the admin, campus walls and trees etc. The slogan read, ‘DON’T STEP OVER THE ISSUE’ and stated the demand for minimum wages for the laborers. It was some effort to be up all night and stick the newspapers around the place, paint the posters and sleep in the admin building. In the morning I left for my room, realizing that I had probably pulled every possible muscle in my leg and my back.
In the afternoon at 1, I was woken up by a friend’s message that told me that the admin tore the posters and the protest demo had begun. When I reached the scene, my friends had already gheraod the Registrar of the university. We stood around his car and there was demand for him to come out and talk. While he sat inside, there were posters put on his car and the tyre’s hawa taken out and of course the ‘Halla Bol’. I suddenly heard my own voice joining theirs. After a string of events that let to the registrar stay in his car for 6 hours, the Dean’s and faculty pressurizing students and finally the admin not apologizing for their action but asking the students to apologize for the ‘militant action’. The following day saw no talks and meetings with the admin but the suspension of 10 students, which included the elected student representatives. Without any trial the students were given suspension letters.
It seems that the semester will go without a JNUSU. Mobilization for the suspended students began as soon as the suspensions came. The democratic right of the students to put up posters on the walls of JNU walls has been challenged and it is being taken very seriously since the MCM’s case. Everywhere one can see representatives talking to others, some knocking the doors of the hostel rooms, some organizing Mess mobilizations and others giving pamphlets to others who nod with them in agreement. It is a time in JNU when the students have to unite, transcending their political sympathies and inclinations against the administration who have challenged their rights.
Amidst all this, the main cause is left somewhere far behind. There has suddenly been a shift in the immediate concerns, in the twist of events for which the admin is solely responsible. The laborer’s are still waiting for their minimum wages and the electricians for their jobs.
While the parties are getting divided on issues and expressing their concerns on ‘more important concerns’ and pulling themselves out of the strike, the drawbacks of democratic systems come to the fore.
As the situation turned worse the demand for a UGBM had to arise. So it did. There was a need for a specific number of signatures and the party members and their friends could not fill that number. There was a huge mela sort of scene outside Teflas, a popular place on the campus. In a bizarre twist of events, the JNUSU president first announced that no UGBM would take place and then, to worsen the matters he fled the venue with the signature sheet even before the counting could have started. The result, another ‘Protest Demo’ at night. The night saw people of different political stands coming out on the streets and protesting against the suspensions, the enquiry, the act committed by the President and his fellow workers and for the laborers. The walk from Ganga Dhaba till Chandrabhaga seemed full of spirits and tireless. Then right outside Chandrabhaga, starts a small UGBM, of course minus the President and the representatives of his party.
This issue has seen many people coming together, those who are politically charged and also those who are interested in the issue and not the political culture of the place. And now it is a sad time indeed, when the JNUSU is divided, when there is a real no vote bank issue on hand.
As the winter melts into spring, the administration and its surroundings are booming with bigger and happy looking flowers and so is the state of affairs of the admin. The students are getting alienated on their issues and the sufferers are still at lost. The tale that began for the workers and laborers almost three months back, now has taken a new twist with the attack on the democratic culture of the students and then the bolt from the blue, the suspensions. The real fabric of the story has got lost. When this all ends, one will be back on ground zero to start again, everything.
Comments