New Delhi: Jamia Millia Islamia will have a students' union again, nearly two decades after the last one, after the university administration agreed to restore it and hold elections following weeks of protest and a hunger strike.
A late-night order set May 15, 2027 as the deadline for approving and implementing the union's constitution. Elections must be held within six weeks of the start of the next academic session, expected on July 15.
The administration also ordered the withdrawal of disciplinary proceedings, suspensions, rustications and campus bans linked to the agitation.
The campus broke into celebration. More than 1,000 students joined a victory march, and five hunger strikers called off their fast.
What students had asked for was narrow: the union back, and elections to it. Getting there took weeks of sit-ins and a fast that put the administration under steadily rising pressure.
The union had been dormant for years, leaving students without an elected body to take up complaints, curriculum demands or day-to-day problems on campus.
Under the order, the department concerned will steer the constitution through approval, with student representatives involved in the exercise. The shape of the union's executive and the election method will be settled in that document.
The May 2027 deadline gives the university a full academic year to complete the paperwork before the first vote in nearly 20 years.
Without a union, students had no elected body to put their case to the administration collectively. That gap is now being closed.
The election itself cannot be held until the constitution is approved, which is why the first vote in nearly two decades is likely to come at the start of the next session.