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“Girls are not allowed inside” — the murmur became a loud chant as I was making my way to the Sir Syed Hall (North). The men’s hostel doubles up as a control centre of sorts during the student union elections at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and women, even women candidates, are not allowed inside.
The rule would make some sense if it was enforced both ways. But all the male candidates have to do is fill a form to access the women’s hostel.
Despite all of this, three women candidates were elected to the ten-member cabinet at AMU. This is the first time in the university’s 94-year-old history that three women — Ghazala Ahmad, Labeeba Sherwani and Sadaf Rasool — were elected to the cabinet in their maiden attempt.
"It’s a revolution,” declares Labeeba Sherwani. A student of Bachelors in Social Work, Labeeba is the youngest of the three women cabinet members.
In 2015, Kehkashan Khanam was the first woman ever to be elected to the cabinet. This year the PhD student of theology, who contested the election for vice-president’s post, lost.
Speaking to The Quint before the election, she said, “Main apne bhaiyon ke vajah se yahan khadi hoon. (I am standing here because of my brothers.)”
However, not a single female student could be spotted in the crowd of supporters that followed Kehkashan through the campus.
In fact, some like Shazeen, a Mass Communication student at AMU, are all for encouraging women in student politics, but say they wouldn’t vote for them.
“We need the women students to vote for us,” says Ghazala Ahmad who won the election this year.
Ghazala and other female students were seated in a women’s only enclosure at the Union Hall. The final speeches by the sitting chairs — President, Vice-President and the Secretary — were going to be made, but the podium didn’t even face the women’s seating area.
“They don’t even address us girls directly,” says Shafaq Zahra, an English Literature student.
Still it’s been a slow yet steady progression towards increased participation of women in the student union election.
Suggestions from sections of the alumni to reserve some seats for women candidates have been met with a tepid response. But it could go a long way in weaning off the rampant regionalism that rules the student union elections at Aligarh Muslim University.
Recent election results prove that women candidates garner votes beyond gender and regional lines.
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