Divided by Ideology and United by Gender Stereotypes: Debating Politics of Representation and Tokenism in Student Politics in India

Abstract

This article attempts to problematise the student activism on university campuses, which has been a prominent political space for the youth. Student movements through their respective organisations have induced multiple levels of political consciousness among students during their stay. By critically looking at student activism on campus, one could not overlook the fact that student activism on campus has long been a masculine domain with a little or almost negligible presence of women student leaders in university politics. Against such lopsided gender realities, this article proposed to examine the nature and praxis of student political organisations with the help of gender perspectives. This article argues that despite being divided on lines of political ideology, these student organisations are, at one level, united by gender stereotypes that are creating permanent political barriers for women student leaders on campus. In doing so, it focuses on unexplored and undocumented internal politics of the student organisations that seem to have established invisible gender structures leading to under-representation and discrimination of women participants in student politics and activism. Analytical concepts of this article have been developed based on ethnographic data collected from women students at a central university located in South India.