New Delhi: Yari Nayam, a 27-year-old doctoral researcher from Arunachal Pradesh, is the first female independent candidate from the Northeast contesting for the post of general secretary in the 25 April Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) elections.
“I am contesting to say: WE EXIST. WE MATTER. And we’re done waiting. I represent every student made to feel ‘too rural’, ‘too queer’, ‘too tribal’, ‘too soft-spoken’ ‘too poor’ or ‘too much’ for this campus,” Nayam told ThePrint, repeating her campaigning slogan.
Her journey began in a modest household, hailing from the often overlooked Daporijo region of Arunachal Pradesh. She is the first woman from Daporijo to pursue a PhD. Now, she becomes the first woman from Arunachal Pradesh and the Northeast to contest the JNUSU polls for the post of general secretary as an independent.
Nayam decided to contest to fight what she calls the “failures” of both the university administration and established student political outfits, particularly when it comes to discrimination students from the Northeast face on campus and the Barak Hostel issue.
Students from the Northeast have been demanding 75 percent reservation in the newly constructed Barak Hostel on campus. The North East Students’ Forum (NESF) has been pressing for this reservation. It has alleged the university failed to honour its commitments made to the North Eastern Council (NEC) and the Ministry of Development of the North Eastern Region (DoNER) during the construction of the hostel.
Nayam said the students from the region mobilised, protested, and demanded accountability but didn’t get any answer or support from mainstream political parties on campus. These were the reasons that pushed her to enter student politics and project herself as a voice of the unheard.
Speaking about her decision to contest as an independent, Nayam explained the choice was not due to a lack of support or credibility, but rather a conscious effort to remain loyal and neutral to the movements and communities that have shaped her journey and fight.
“I signed up as an independent candidate because I don’t want to affiliate myself with any political body. When you’re affiliated, there are certain limitations—and I don’t want that. My very motto was to tell the campus, tell the university, and tell the country that we, Northeast students, exist,” Nayam told ThePrint.
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‘Not a campaign, it’s a call’
Nayam’s manifesto focuses largely on the demand for structural changes in how representation is handled at the JNU. She advocates for reserved seats in student bodies for students from the Northeast, and categories such as tribal, SC/ST, queer, and PWD—and not just “token representation” in cultural events or symbolic committees, but “meaningful inclusion” at the university’s decision-making tables, in policy formation, budget allocation, and every space where power is exercised.
“I came up more like an activist than a politician. I want to be the voice of the students who are not being heard,” she added.
Nayam has held various positions on campus. While she had never participated in an election of this scale before, she has always been involved in student activities.
During her undergraduate years at Saint Claret College, Ziro, she was part of the student body. Later, during her Masters at North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong, Meghalaya, she served as the women’s wing president—an experience that deepened her commitment to student representation and grassroots leadership.
“Whether I win the election or not, what matters is that we made the statement we wanted to make—and we’ve already succeeded in that. We’ve won people’s hearts,” she said. “My decision to contest will always stand as a message to other Northeast students to be vocal about your rights.”
(Edited by: Ajeet Tiwari)
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