Jamia student’s hunger strike enters 18th day

NEW DELHI, Oct 29: Today is the 18th day of an indefinite hunger strike for Ebin Basil, a third-year student of law at JamiaMilliaIslamia, a prominent Muslim university on the southeastern edge of the Indian capital.

Basil, 23, has been fasting since October 12 for the restoration of the university’s students’ union, which has been suspended for the past 20 years.

Surrounded by dozens of friends and supporters, he remains resolute as his frail body lies on a mat inside the university’s political science department building. “Till my last breath, I will be fighting,” he told Al Jazeera.

Basil is among five hunger strikers at the core of the protest, which has seen hundreds of Jamia students congregating in the grounds surrounding a statue of iconic Urdu-Persian poet Mirza Ghalib, near the university’s main entrance. Several other students who initially joined the hunger strike have withdrawn over health concerns.

The protest began this month with students holding night vigils and calling for the students’ union election. On October 16, the university suspended Basil for a year and banned two other hunger strikers from the campus. By the night of October 17, nearly 200 protesters had returned to the grounds, and their demonstrations continued.

On October 24, the entrance gates to the university were barricaded, classes moved online, and students in halls of residence were pressured to leave. Armed police and paramilitary forces were stationed outside the gate, and a ban on gatherings of more than four people was imposed on campus.

On Monday, the university administration announced that elections would be held within 15 days of the approval of a draft union constitution to be prepared according to the guidelines of the University Grants Commission, the body that controls India’s state universities. 

Jamia has set a December 20 deadline for a committee to draft the union constitution and to hold elections within 15 days of the draft’s approval. But no deadline for approval has been set, prompting the students to reject the university’s offer as “too slow”�"AL JAZEERA