By the time the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) presidential candidate, Mukesh Kumar Mishra, rises to speak at the 18 October debate of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student's Union (JNUSU), it is already 11 pm and the candidates of the Congress and Samajwadi (SP) parties' student wings have had their turn. The audience, a thousand students spilling out of a maroon tent on a patch of lawn between two hostels, includes several hundred party backers sitting in blocks chanting down one another or flailing Mukesh.
Once he starts, it quickly becomes clear that Mukesh is not a gripping orator, even though his height gives him a stage presence. To make matters worse for him, students affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) launch into several rounds of jeering as he tries to find his stride. His voice suddenly becomes choppy; spectators see him gesture and move his mouth, but no sound comes out of the speakers. The audio system has failed partially, and comes back momentarily before going out completely. Election workers scurry about to investigate and repair, and a confused Mukesh retakes his seat on stage. The presidential debate on hold, the audience turns its attention back on itself.
"Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh? We shall fight we shall win!" shout supporters of the CP1 (M) affiliated Students Federation of India (SFI), who stand face-to-face with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-allied ABVP. "Vande Mataram bolo, Allah se kaam nahi chalega", is their response. The two groups straddle the median of the tent—the SFI on the left, the ABVP on. the right—while behind them smaller groups of student activists of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), (CPI-ML), the Congress Party, Samajwadi Party, and the Indian Justice Party heckle one another to the beat of drums. These last two groups are new arrivals on campus, the first looking for a boost from SP party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's ascendancy to Uttar Pradesh chief ministership on 8 September, the second a dalit party. Both started campaigning on campus late this fall and conventional wisdom counts them out. Outside the tent, students mill about or head over to the nearby dhaba for tea. Up on the stage, election workers continue to fiddle with electrical equipment. Minutes pass.
Sunny Dutta, a JNU alumnus now working for the ABVP national organisation, stands at the side of the tent counselling ABVP members. The interruption in Mukesh's speech, he claims, is no accident. Dressed in an over-sized Chicago Blackhawks windbreaker, he relates in his refined phrases the plot he sees in the putative technical failure: the election committee, at the SFI's behest, is sabotaging the ABVP presidential candidate's speech. He knows, he says, that many election officials are former SFI activists, and says that, "if the debate doesn't happen, elections should be cancelled. There should be no student union this year". Back inside the tent, the SFI-ABVP shouting match grows tenser, and someone in the ABVP camp produces a camcorder to record taunts. Sunny surveys the scene as ABVP activists begin to taunt the election workers and observes, "Violence could be possible if the debate is not restarted".