{"id":4701,"date":"2021-01-28T15:23:10","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T15:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-edict.in\/?p=4701"},"modified":"2021-04-11T10:03:34","modified_gmt":"2021-04-11T10:03:34","slug":"methodology-over-ideology-can-tarz-renew-ashokan-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/2021\/01\/28\/methodology-over-ideology-can-tarz-renew-ashokan-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Methodology Over Ideology: Can Tarz Renew Ashokan Politics?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Arya Shukla (UG 23) and Ananya Gupta (UG 22)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the pandemic set in and students deserted the campus en masse, reports began surfacing about contractual workers being laid off and, in some cases, coerced to resign. The Student Government mobilised for their cause, raised an amount of money that is bigger than its annual budget, and effectively got the resignations reversed. However, for the founders of Tarz, this was an example of all that is wrong with our student politics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tarz said that the information was scanty, \u201ccoming out in chunks and pieces\u201d in emails \u201cdirected to a certain outcome\u201d which they claim prevented students from forming their own opinions on \u201cthe course of action.\u201d This situation unfolded, to them, in \u201cnot the most coherent way\u201d due to a \u201clack of information\u201d and the SG subsequently \u201cmotivating students\u201d to send emails to the administration demanding that the resignations be revoked. Herein lies their point of disagreement with Ashokan politics – its method, its manner, its tarz<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 24th November, Ashokan politics met its newest member, Tarz<\/a>, founded by ex-Chief Election Officer Amola Mehta, ex-AUEC member Maanya Saran, and erstwhile member of Prakrit Dhrupad Damani. The party was formed as a reaction to the withering opposition<\/a> in an electoral field that is increasingly dominated by Prakrit after the exit of Moksh<\/a>. In a couple of interviews with the Edict, the founders of Ashoka\u2019s newest party spoke about how they \u201cwant to offer the student body an alternate manner in which student politics operates.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the outset, it is a promising idea and the new faces and fresh impetus they bring has the potential to invigorate Ashokan politics and capture the attention of a student body suffering from \u2018Prakrit fatigue\u2019. The party has come out and explicitly decried the current political landscape. Their stance on the approach taken by the current SG is that there is a reactionary influx of sentimental conduct that takes away from their efficiency. They aspire to bring about changes through a more negotiation-based approach, stating that protests should be a last resort and not the consequence of emotions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A unique characteristic of Tarz is the party organisation, which they explicitly state as being hierarchical. The structure follows a meritocratic logic of rewarding one\u2019s \u201corganised and dedicated work ethic\u201d with \u201cupward mobility\u201d and creates an internal marketplace of ideas amongst its members. According to the founders, this counters any \u201cbiased hierarchy that might develop naturally\u201d and allows party members to rise up the ladder without having to \u201cpander to any one of our opinions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the party, \u201cconsensus is not mandated but discussion and convincing is necessary,\u201d with a founding member adding that \u201cyou should not agree with me just because I\u2019m senior or higher up in the party, you should agree with me because you agree with me.\u201d This feature of the party is intended to promote individuality and prevent any implicit favouritism from \u201ccompromising on internal democracy,\u201d even if it is for the sake of \u201ca united front.\u201d By doing so, they believe they would be adapting to the \u201cnew electoral circumstance\u201d of the modified Swiss PR system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tarz\u2019s founders said that they do not have a hierarchy of issues or a single-issue agenda, averring that not every party member is expected to be \u201cgung-ho\u201d about all issues. At the same time, they posit that \u201csome issues take natural precedence over others\u201d, which is reflected by their criticism of the Adhoka protests, in which, they insist, cross-access became the focal point, overshadowing vital issues like trans-friendly housing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tarz believes that the party\u2019s manifesto is meant to reflect the \u201cone thing we all have in common which is that we are in agreement with certain ethical principles and ethos.\u201d No specificity was added regarding the contents of their manifesto, and the party did not proceed to clarify beyond \u201cwe are still in ideation.\u201d This use of their fledgling \u201cjust four weeks old\u201d status (at the time of the interview) was distinctive as a crutch to slide by certain irregularities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their prefatory email, they condemned the \u201clack of ideological plurality\u201d in student politics, but later described themselves as espousing the same \u201cprogressive left leanings\u201d that are the mainstay of Ashoka\u2019s existing parties. They stated that \u201cwe are possibly going to be passionate about similar things to what most of Ashoka cares about\u201d and therefore cannot \u201cdepend on an ideology in the conventional sense to be our differentiating factor.\u201d They don\u2019t think that \u201cpolitical parties are going to represent other political leanings,\u201d especially \u201con a campus which has a decently homogenous population.\u201d The justification of their similarity in ideology to pre-existing parties felt peculiar, as they claimed that \u201cdifferences come down to things like execution, like approaches to solution and processes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amongst these broad statements about the political leanings of the Ashokan student body, one can detect their underlying cynicism\u2014the idea of a permanently alienated electorate, unchanged by larger political currents. But as Tarz would have it, does the Ashokan political system have no more space for ideological imagination?  Perhaps not. There are a lot of vital issues that get eclipsed in party manifestos. Ashoka is yet to see, for instance, its first green party that wants to make the campus carbon-neutral, or an Ambedkarite party that aims to bring caste-based reservation into the admissions process. There are these and countless other issues which have not come to the foyer yet.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vocabulary used by the founders in describing the Tarz method — professionalism, efficiency, communication channels, workable pathways — sounds corporatised and lacking in political pulse. Their stance on a myriad of issues appear to be reactions to what political actors before them have said and done. The party as a whole does not claim allegiance to any particular issue, but whatever it does take up, it aims to execute in moderation, level headedly, and without jumping to radical actions \u2014 an approach that, funnily enough, appears quite neoliberal or even somewhat conservative, depending on where one stands.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking about the conduct of political parties in the previous election cycle, Tarz accuses those in office of \u201cresorting to aggressive or overly defensive tactics\u201d in the face of criticism. According to them, the conduct of office bearers is integral to the objectives they fulfil during their tenure. They raised issues of presentation and optics, saying that their disagreement stemmed from how you would be boxed as pro-administration \u201cif you didn\u2019t agree with what a particular party thought or believed the right course of action was vis-a-vis the admin.\u201d While such dichotomies being drawn was not ideal in the first place, the fact that \u201cthere was no opposition to them and the opposition could not overcome this particular accusation\u201d was far odder to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consistent with their emails, they elaborated their stance on unionisation, reiterating how \u201cwe don\u2019t think it achieves the outcome it sets out to achieve and secondly we think it achieves things that it probably shouldn\u2019t be achieving, which is antagonising the admin.\u201d This stance is predicated upon their understanding of the administration as \u201cnot democratically accountable to the student body.\u201d They claim that despite their intensive research, they found Prakrit lacking the \u201clogistical planning\u201d to \u201cexecute unionisation\u201d. They raised concerns about whether unionisation is \u201csanctioned by the admin\u201d, stating that \u201can entire election has been fought on this\u201d but \u201csince then nothing has happened\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this critique of theirs was bereft of any commitment to a viable system of demanding accountability from the administration in situations where the SG cannot even make it to the negotiating table. This ambiguity allows them to prevent any ruffled feathers as well as skirt inquiry on the Tarz method of \u201cengaging effectively\u201d through more \u201cpersistent negotiation.\u201d Their negotiating spirit, which they say is an improved and more placatory method compared to protesting, ignores the political construction of a protest. Protests go beyond simply the act of mobilisation; they educate protestors on their rights and demands while also acting as a way to bargain with the body that is being protested against. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashokan politics is in the midst of its seventh cycle – with the election season having just commenced. Dhamma and Prakrit seem to be the two political parties that have stood the test of time and Ashoka\u2019s student body through these years. While both parties have had ebbs and flows in their popularity, their strong rooted ideologies and distinctive identities have cemented them with some permanency in the political scene at the university. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For an atmosphere structured by a small group of political actors and an overwhelming portion of students leaning towards political apathy, the addition of a new political party is a welcome sign. The advent of new players and newer ideas stirs the student politics scene, especially in light of the collapse of Moksh. Tarz faces criticism for being reactionary, but they reconcile the acknowledgement of the same by saying \u201cthe level on which we are reactionary is that we are not content with the politics at Ashoka.\u201d It brings diversity in issues and dialogue just by virtue of being actively involved in student politics. It has the potential to infuse competition in our political landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tarz believes that on \u201ca college campus in the middle of Sonipat which has a lot of privileged individuals coming to it,\u201d there exists broad-based consensus over ideologies and belief systems. But various incidents, like the doxxing on the UG Facebook group last September, have shown that Ashoka\u2019s political culture is not only ideologically diverse, but at times irreconcilably so. As such, parties have appealed to students over time by engaging with stakeholders other than just the undergraduate electorate and rooting themselves beyond the ecosystem on campus, especially with semesters being conducted online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which leads one to wonder, how does Tarz plan on preventing internal party discussions from devolving into a battle of wills? The party must decide to foster common interests and outcomes over simply being \u201ca collective of individuals\u201d who want to implement changes through a different method. It needs to clearly tell the student body what is to be expected from them. While they do bring something new to the table and bolster a political system struggling in the face of an apathetic atmosphere, how successful and sustainable their party is will depend on the values and principles shared by all its party members. They ask, \u201cwhat does it tell us if all we can do is fight?\u201d The answer is in what we choose to fight for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Arya Shukla (UG 23) and Ananya Gupta (UG 22) When the pandemic set in and students deserted the campus en masse, reports began surfacing about contractual workers being laid off and, in some cases, coerced to resign. The Student Government mobilised for their cause, raised an amount of money that is bigger than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,1],"tags":[414,157],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4701"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4701"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4707,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4701\/revisions\/4707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}