H-Rep Manifestos: Expectations v/s Reality
Written on August 25th, 2019 by {"login"=>"jcbitshyd", "email"=>"journal@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in", "display_name"=>"Journal Club, BPHC", "first_name"=>"", "last_name"=>""}Every bhawan on campus has a hostel representative or H-Rep, who is elected by the residents of their respective bhawans. While this post can be held by students of any year, it is especially relevant to first-year students. It is the only opportunity for a fresher to be a member of the Student Union Council (SUC). The elections are conducted by the Election Commission early on in the first semester, usually by the end of August. This gives freshmen their first taste of student politics, in their college life. The H-Rep elections also allow students, including the ones not contesting, to become familiar with the election procedure on campus, all the way from nomination, to the actual voting and announcement of results. One of the most significant steps in the process is the release of the candidates' manifesto. The manifesto comprises of a list of targets and goals the candidate promises to achieve during their tenure if they are elected into the post.
Most candidates, especially those who are new to the campus (and the rest of the general body) assume that hostel representatives have a say in all the factors affecting hostel life. As a result, hostel representative manifestos are often overly ambitious and cover a wide array of fields, that does not, in reality, fall under the jurisdiction of a student representative.
The actual role and extent of the power of a hostel representative are outlined in the Student Union Constitution [1]. According to the Constitution, the hostel representative is primarily responsible for the inventory management of their respective Bhawans and call for meets in their Bhawans to address the concerns and grievances of the students in their respective Bhawans. Apart from this, they can make recommendations for any additional equipment or infrastructure changes to the President, supervise informal events/competitions that happen in the hostels and act as advisories to the cultural and sports secretaries during Renaissance and RIXA respectively.
Since there is currently no existing formal system by which hostel representatives are held accountable for their promises, the infeasibility of these manifestos is never highlighted. Additionally, many candidates, especially those who are new to the system refer to previous manifestos as a basis for their own manifestos, and thus, a vicious cycle of misinformation and false promises is formed.
In this article, we will be highlighting some of the most common points that were present in H-Rep manifestos and analysing whether they come under the purview of the H-Rep and their feasibility. The data that we have used is from the manifestos of the H-Rep candidates for the 2018-19 academic year. A total of 23 candidates stood for the hostel elections that year in the 11 bhawans.
- Resolving Internet and LAN problems
Most manifestos included statements about resolving the LAN problems in certain hostels. Some manifestos even promised additional routers and signal repeaters in the bhawan. While point 1 of Section IV part (e) of the constitution does mandate that hostel representatives can request for additional inventory, all internet-related issues on campus come under the CCIT (Computer Centre IT), and students can address their concerns directly to the CCIT either through the SWD Complaints portal or email the CCIT at ccit@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in .</p> - Improving the quality of the water
Warm water, more coolers, better water: these were some of the phrases present in virtually every H-Rep manifesto last year. According to point 3 of Section IV part (e), an HRep may recommend infrastructure or equipment to be procured for their hostels to the President, hence this comes under their purview but the feasibility depends on whether the recommendation is accepted by the administration.
- Pest control
Pest control comes under the jurisdiction of the estate manager, the H-Rep has no such formal power to directly approach the concerned authority for the same, but if the hostel needs extra fumigation the H-Rep can talk to the superintendent to get it done.
- Housekeeping Services
This was a common manifesto point for the hostel representative candidates specifically in Vishwakarma Bhawan. Fixed-rate for housekeeping or regular free housekeeping were some of the proposals. However, as per the hostel guidelines, cleaning staff is not allowed inside the rooms of students and hence formalizing and regulating this procedure is not achievable, unless the current guidelines are changed, which do not come under the powers of the hostel representative. </p> - Maintenance of washrooms and corridors
A common concern for a lot of residents, hence, most candidates tend to put up this point. An H-Rep can push for an increase in the frequency of cleaning by conveying the concerns of those in their respective hostel bhawan, but, in reality, this is an issue that can and is often taken care of by the hostel superintendent.
- Organising Bhawan nights and intra-Bhawan events
Supervising events and competitions within the hostel is one of the duties of the hostel representative as per point 4 of Section IV part (e) of the constitution Constitution. But this is rarely fulfilled, partly due to low turnout as well as time constraints, especially in the even semester. However, last year Vishwakarma Bhawan did have an intra-bhawan sports competition, but due to organisational flaws, it was not implemented to its full extent.
- Sports equipment in the common rooms besides maintenance of the QTs
This was another common point in many manifestos over the years. An H-Rep has the power to ask for sports equipment in the common rooms as per point 3 of Section IV part (e) , but this request isn’t generally accepted in lieu of utilising funds for more important changes, though, there is a possibility of the request being granted somewhere down the lane. Regarding the lights, nets and levelling of grass in the QT, the H-Rep can convey the same to the Hostel Superintendent.
- Provide newspapers on every floor
This was a common point in many of the manifestos of the candidates, including those who won. While, according to point 3 of Section IV part (e) of the constitution, H-Reps can make requests about additional inventory for the hostel, the requests for the same thus far have been rejected, and it has not brought to fruition till date. Currently, there is one common newspaper in every hostel lobby. Students can also subscribe to a newspaper and get their own copy daily from the hostel. </p></strong></li>
- Altering Hostel in-time/out-time
</ul>
This does not come under the purview of the hostel representative. The hostel in-time and out-times are decided by the Chief Warden. While the H-Rep can act as a single voice for the residents of the hostel, they do not formally have any power in this regard.- Recording Hostel Complaints
One of the foremost duties of a hostel representative is maintaining the inventory of the hostel point 1 of Section IV part (e). As a result, some manifestos contained points about recording complaints either in a register or online through a custom portal or Google Forms.
However, all hostels already maintain their own complaint register at the hostel office. Additionally, the administration has purchased a cloud-based solution for maintenance and IT services called QuickFMS. According to the SWD website [2] “this system will be utilized to submit requests associated with all the maintenance division and IPC support activities”. In this way, students can directly address their complaints to the administration.
- Maintenance of a hostel medical kit
The maintenance of each hostel’s medical kit which has emergency supplies such as antiseptic and cotton falls under inventory management, according to point 1 of Section IV part (e) of the constitution but is taken care of by the hostel administration, usually by the Hostel Superintendent. To upgrade the medical kit, and include more items, any student can email the administration. Once again, the hostel representative can act as a voice for the bhawan, but they have no formal power in this regard. Last year, requests were made to include more medicines in the medical kit but were rejected on the grounds of the relatively short shelf-life of medicines.
Despite these being some of the most common points, many of these have not been fulfilled. In some cases, this was unfortunately due to the lack of power held by the representative, currently provided in the constitution. If you see a manifesto point that has been repeated time and time again over the years, try to think about why it has not been implemented to date. If you are a nominee, find out what was done before and think about what you can do differently before including it on your manifesto.If you are a voter, look and what the different candidates have to offer and always ask questions.
It is of note, however , that while H-Reps might have limited power in the hostels, as part of the SUC, they do help out with other Student Union initiatives. Last year these included projects such as the Vendiman, the LAN Radio committee, Food Outlet Committee and the Student Health Council. While some of these initiatives like the LAN Radio seem to be inactive with no updates on them for months already, HReps definitely are in a place where they can effect change on campus, if they choose to.
Nonetheless, candidates campaigning for a particular post should take care to not create misleading manifestos, intentionally or unintentionally, about the extent of the power and responsibility that their post entails. Voters should also remain aware of the role and duties of their elected representatives.
Footnotes:
[1]: You can find a copy of the Students’ Union Constitution here.
[2]: This information and link can be found under the Complaints tab of the SWD website.
[3]: The image (word cloud) in this article was generated based on the frequency of appearance of the words in most of last year's manifestos. All manifestos were taken from the Election Commission Facebook page, and processed to plain text using an OCR application, Tesseract. All related raw data can be found in this link.
- Altering Hostel in-time/out-time