On January 22 this year, members of two student outfits clashed at the Punjab University (PU), the largest state-owned educational institution in the Punjab. The conflict — which left eight students injured — involved youth belonging to the Islami Jamiat Taleba (IJT) and the Pakhtun Baloch Students Union (PBSU). The IJT is affiliated with the country’s mainstream religious outfit the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), whereas the PBSU claims to be an independent student council of Pakhtun and Baloch students studying at PU.

For decades, PU has been in the news due to similar clashes. In 2009, while doing research for a paper on student politics in Pakistan (Student Politics in Pakistan: A Lament, Celebration & History), I went through numerous reports on student union elections and campus violence documented in newspapers between the mid-1960s and the 1990s. I had largely focused my research in this context on PU and the Karachi University (KU). Regarding student union elections and violence across the decades, the only constant (at PU) was the IJT.

In the late 1960s, IJT’s main opponents at PU were the left-wing National Students Federation (NSF) and the ‘Maoist’ National Students Organisation (NSO). In the 1970s, the NSO withered away and was replaced by ‘progressive’ student alliances mainly made up of NSF factions, Peoples Students Federation (PSF) — the student wing of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) — and independent liberal student groups.

With politics so deeply entrenched in our system, can universities be an exception?

Between the late 1970s and the early 1980s, such alliances included the PSF, the Istaqlal Students Federation (ISF) — the student wing of Asghar Khan’s Tehreek-i-Istaqlal (TI) — and a radical leftist student outfit called the Black Eagles. In the 1990s, it was the student wing of the Pakistan Muslim League, the Muslim Students Federation (MSF). Even though violence during student union elections was common in the 1970s and early 1980s at PU, it hardly ever included firearms. Guns on campuses were first introduced during the 1979 student union elections at KU. By the early 1980s, they had arrived at PU as well.

Student union elections between student outfits affiliated to mainstream political parties were common until student unions and elections were banned by Gen Zia’s dictatorship in 1984. The ban revoked the 1974 Student Union Ordinance that had been authored by the Z.A. Bhutto/PPP regime. The Ordinance had regularised student union activity in all state-owned colleges and universities. It required campus administrations to hold annual student union polls on a single date.

These yearly elections were held in state-owned educational institutions across the country and were contested by student wings of various political parties. Election issues mostly included tuition fees, college/university transport systems and sporting, cultural and other extracurricular activities for the students. However, as my research demonstrated, student outfits were sometimes involved in rallying their supporters for various larger causes as well, such as the liberation of Palestine and Kashmir, the US involvement in Vietnam, socialism, Islam, etc. But the main issues during student union elections remained internal to daily student concerns.

The nature of violence which triggered the 1984 ban largely emerged from 1978 onwards — a year after Zia toppled Bhutto in a reactionary military coup. But it is interesting to note that despite going on a banning spree right after coming to power, the dictatorship did not immediately ban student unions. Till 1983, student union elections continued to take place according to the 1974 Ordinance.

There was a clear spike in incidents of violence between student groups at PU and KU from 1979. Then between 1981 and 1983, the violence intensified when students began to die from gunshot wounds. A 2009 documentary series Street Fighting Years (which ran on Dawn News and was produced by Mazhar Zaidi) showed former leaders of the progressive alliances accusing the IJT of introducing gun violence on campuses. There is enough evidence to suggest the same, but my research exhibited that by 1981 all student groups were armed.

The proliferation of sophisticated weapons, which appeared on the streets with the arrival of Afghan refugees due to the Afghan Civil War, had made it easier for student groups to acquire arms from clandestine gun- and drug-runners. Former progressive student leaders also point out that the Zia regime “used IJT as a tool to counter anti-Zia outfits on campuses.” On the other hand, the aforementioned documentary also showed former IJT leaders claiming that the left and progressive student outfits were armed by “Soviet agents”, anti-Zia parties and by “separatist ethnic groups.”

It is true that the intensity of violence on campuses witnessed a manifold increase just before the 1984 ban. But the violence did not end. To neutralise it and channel the students’ energies back into practising a more constructive brand of campus politics, the first Benazir Bhutto government lifted the ban on student unions in 1989. Peaceful student union elections were held in dozens of colleges in Punjab the same year — except at PU. But the ban was then re-imposed in 1992 by Nawaz Sharif’s first regime after violence broke out at PU between the MSF and IJT.

Banning student unions and elections on campuses hasn’t quite turned students into Einsteins. The nature of Pakistan’s often tense ethnic and political polarisation is such that students — especially in state-owned colleges and universities — still find the need to continue creating political outfits. But with no official electoral activity allowed, disagreements between these groups are often settled in a violent manner.

Some commentators have lamented that it is only on Pakistani campuses that student groups affiliated with political parties emerge. This is entirely incorrect. Hundreds of colleges and universities in India have continued to hold student union elections contested by student-wings of the country’s leading political parties, such as the Congress (National Students Union), Bharatiya Janata Party (Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha), Communist Party of India (All India Students Federation) and dozens more.

Even in the UK, many contestants during student union elections (even in the country’s leading universities and colleges) are often backed by the student wings of Britain’s three main parties: the Labour Party (Labour Students), Conservative Party (Young Conservatives) and Liberal Democratic Party (Young Liberals). One can also find a similar scenario in colleges and universities of South Africa, Egypt, Bangladesh and various other countries.

While researching for this piece, I stumbled upon a September 17, 2017 report in a web edition of an Australian newspaper about a student union election in Australia’s famous Monash University, where a panel backed by Australia’s Labour Party had lost control of the Monash Student Union.

Student union elections and activity in Pakistan can be gradually re-introduced. This can be done in stages — especially if the youth are to become part of the democratic process early. The ban has made them vulnerable to the idea of channelising their anger through violence — or worse, makes them fall prey to the clandestine militant groups who eventually filled the vacuum created by the blanket ban on student unions.

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 4th, 2018