Student union session held at KLF

Staff Reporter The Karachi Literature Festival organised a session on ‘Student Politics in Pakistan’ without a single student on the five-member panel. It discussed the revival of student unions at universities across the country. The panel had a journalist, an alumna, a professor, a politician and a human rights’ activist and all the other ingredients a good panel should have. What it didn’t have, however, was a representative from the group to whom the topic of discussion matters most–the students. The issue was first highlighted a few weeks ago on Twitter when the session’s panelists were announced by the festival, after which some changes were incorporated. But the basic issue remained the same. This vacuum is not just seen at conferences and plenary sessions, but also on practical grounds. The Sindh government recently started working on a bill for the revival of student unions but has not involved student stakeholders in the bill’s formation, Arooj Aurangzaib, a University of Punjab graduate and one of the panelists pointed out. “Stakeholders that are students at different campuses should be called,” she said. “We will not accept anything otherwise. “We don’t want ice cream unions where nothing happens, or that are dictated by other people. We want a union led by students, where healthy discussions take place,” Aurangzaib said. Journalist Azhar Abbas was of a similar opinion, calling student unions a medium that encourages “diversity” and “debates” in schools, colleges and universities. “Student politics is necessary because it encourages debates and dialogue on social issues around us,” he said. The other people on the panel were MQM leader Faisal Subzwari, Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba’s Khalid Amin and human rights activist Najma Iqtidar. Azhar explained that a ban was placed on student politics because General Zia-ul-Haq knew that student politics played a vital role in the Movement for Restoration of Democracy in 1983. “It was a well-thought out conspiracy by the establishment to curb freedom of speech by banning student unions,” he said.