College Elections in Uttarakhand and Lyngdoh Reforms. One of the reform areas in Lyngdoh Reforms was minimising the money spend in College Elections.

July and August are the College Elections or Students Union Elections time in Uttarakhand. For a fortnight or so, printed banners and handbills lace the college campuses and the areas adjacent to it. The number of these posters and handbills is mind boggling. The area of the circulation and the cost of printing may be less, but still the money spent on these canvassing instruments is head rolling. 

What are Lygdoh Reforms?

JM Lyngdoh or James Michael Lyngdoh, as Gujarati bhai Narendra Modi sarcastically calls him, some years ago rolled out extensive reforms to College Elections. The said reforms when implemented are known as Lyngdoh Reforms.

One of the reform areas in Lyngdoh Reforms was minimising the money spend in College Elections. Since the money spent on promotional instruments like banners, posters, handbills and vehicles was observed to be quite high, hence Lyngdoh Committee banned any printed promotion in College Elections. Instead it offered the promotion or canvassing through Hand-made banners, posters and handbills. In addition, in order to stop the money spend on canvassing vehicles, the reforms restricted the canvassing within the College campus.

During the College Elections in Uttarakhand, no rule of Lyngdoh Reforms is implemented. The Candidates hire vehicles to wander the entire city and outskirts and get truckloads of promotional items printed. And no one seems to care.

No one is complaining about the litter and the posters carelessly pasted all over the city, including important Road Signs:

The litter of these banners, posters and handbills is alright. It's the small price one pays for inculcating democracy in young men and women. The problem lies somewhere else.

Lyngdoh Committee recommended the handmade banners, posters and handbills as it not only wanted to curtail the Election Spend, but also to give the students more time to interact with each other. Just imagine, 40-50 supporters of a candidate getting together to hand made these promotional stuff, and you will know what I mean. To put it simply: Not only the candidate and supporters will have more contact time to discuss the party philosophy, goals and plan of action, but it will also give the candidate a better pitch for the prospective voters.

Indian psyche has a strange habit of focussing on the negatives. Just like anything, the Lyngdoh reforms are also seen with a complete negative mindset. College Politicians and their supporters failed to see the positives of the Lyngdoh reforms. This lack of appreciation never allowed any constructive politics in the College Campuses. This is unfortunate, as Colleges are the grounds for the germination of the political seed. If College elections don't give the students the opportunity to know political process, political ideologies, democracy better, than the entire exercise is futile.

Right now some of finest politicians in the country come from those Colleges and Universities which are known for their ideological debates. Let's hope, the College Elections in Uttarakhand next year will be more conforming to Lyngdoh Reforms.

PS: Most of the College Level politicians can't make it to the State and National Politics, as they have poor knowledge of Theoretical Politics. And ideological debates with the rivals is the way to improve Theoretical Politics. The moment College politicians start having heated ideological debates in a calm manner, they will improve.


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