JNUSU Elections 2025: Arunachal Researcher Yari Nayam runs for General Secretary

As the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) gears up for its 2025 elections on April 25, this year’s contest is witnessing a powerful and deeply resonant candidacy. Yari Nayam, a 27-year-old doctoral researcher from Arunachal Pradesh, has announced her independent run for the post of General Secretary, bringing with her a voice that speaks directly to the lived experiences of the most overlooked communities in higher education. Her entry into the race marks a critical intervention in campus politics—pushing back against erasure, tokenism, and structural apathy with clarity and conviction.

Yari’s journey begins in Dapoijo, one of the least developed and often forgotten regions of Arunachal Pradesh. Raised in a place marked by limited infrastructure and even fewer educational opportunities, she is a first-generation learner who moved through the ranks of an under-resourced school system, breaking through multiple layers of social and institutional neglect. Yari has carved out a space for herself in academia—a path fueled by determination and an unshakable belief that education must serve the people, not alienate them.

Over the years, this belief has shaped Yari’s politics and her activism. At the heart of her campaign lies a clear and uncompromising framework: Voice, Visibility, and Access. These aren’t just catchphrases—they critique the current state of student governance at JNU and demand what it should become. Her candidacy emerges directly from the silences and failures of the university administration and student political parties, particularly around the recent Barak hostel issue.

What began as a vision to provide inclusive housing for Northeast students was reduced to bureaucratic neglect. As students from the region mobilized, protested, and demanded answers, the dominant student parties chose quiet complicity over solidarity. For Yari, this was not just disappointing—it was an insult to Northeast students.

She recognized a deeper pattern: the systematic erasure of marginalized communities at JNU. Whether it is tribal students, Dalits, queer students, disabled students, or first-generation learners, their issues are rarely treated as urgent unless they serve a party’s immediate agenda. The Northeast student community organized, marched, and spoke out for weeks. And for weeks, the rest of the political ecosystem on campus stood by in silence. This vacuum—this absence of political will to stand with the marginalized—pushed Yari to contest.

Yari’s refusal to reduce her campaign to a question of identity or optics sets her apart. Yes, she comes from Arunachal. Yes, she is a tribal woman. But her politics go far deeper than symbolic presence. She is demanding a structural overhaul of how representation works within JNU. Her campaign calls for the full and unapologetic inclusion of historically excluded groups—not just in cultural events and token committees, but at the decision-making table, in policy framing, in budget allocation, and in every space where power is exercised.

Yari runs independently—not because she lacks support or credibility, but because she wants to stay true to the movements and communities that shaped her politics. Political parties on campus have become too invested in preserving their machinery. They selectively co-opt marginalized voices but rarely center them. By stepping outside party lines, she is challenging that very structure. Her candidacy is both an act of resistance and a reclamation of space.

Yari’s organizing credentials are already well established. While at North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), she actively built solidarity networks among tribal students from across the Northeast. After arriving at JNU, she quickly became a key figure in the Northeast Students’ Forum, eventually taking on the role of Co-Convenor. Her leadership during critical moments—from protests against discriminatory hostel policies to campaigns for linguistic inclusion—has consistently foregrounded the need for care, coalition-building, and justice. Unlike many candidates who surface only during election seasons, Yari has been on the ground for years: showing up, speaking out, and doing the slow, necessary movement-building work.

Her campaign doesn’t promise quick fixes or performative gestures. Instead, it promises clarity—that student politics must be accountable to those most affected by its decisions. It promises courage—to speak up when others stay silent. And most importantly, it promises to bring the ignored to the center, not as an act of charity, but as a political and moral imperative.

At a time when the campus is increasingly shaped by bureaucratic overreach and sanitized politics, Yari’s candidacy cuts through with rare honesty. It reminds JNU what student politics can be—unflinching, grounded, and genuinely transformative. As the elections approach, her campaign is not just a call to vote. It’s a call to listen, unlearn, and reimagine the university as a place where every voice matters—not just the loudest or the most powerful.

By Akishe L Jakha | Special to Mokokchung Times