For 120 years, Indian students have fought to change politics and public life
He does not say that for three thousand years, Indian students have sought to serve the State in a more or less corrupt manner.
What happened 120 years ago which caused Indian students to start fighting?
The answer is that the Legislative Councils (founded in 1862) were expanded & more of the members were elected under the 1892 Indian Councils Act. Students could now go on to serve the State & enrich themselves through political activity rather than by discharging a clerical or judicial function. In Bengal, the Swadeshi movement to reverse the partition of the Province (thus ensuring more jobs for the educated Hindu) attracted young foot-soldiers who folllowed the line of the revolutionaries who had set up the Anushilan Samitis and who published 'Jugantar'. One could say that both the Congress Seva Dal and the RSS were inspired by these Samitis. Many successful politicians began their career in the youth wing of a political party. However, the youth movements of different States had different aims though, speaking generally, this was linked to getting jobs. In Tamil Nadu, imposition of Hindi was the issue which energised youth. Interestingly, Tamils believed they had a better chance, in competitive exams, with English than Hindi! In Assam, the issue was Bengali immigration. In Punjab, issues related to the Sikh religion have greater salience while, in UP/Bihar, caste and creed were constitututive of politics.
A short history of student movements, from the swadeshi agitation in Bengal to the Cockroach Janta Party-led protests.
The cockroach movement features ex-students who feel they haven't yet found a sufficiently lucrative berth in life. Its creator used to work for AAP media cell before that party imploded in Delhi. He was doing an MA in America when a tweet of his went viral. Like his former boss, he wants to make money as a strategic politicial consultant who might also manage Social Media campaigns for Corporate clients. This is a revolution which will be monetized one way or another.
In early July, as the students’ protests in Jantar Mantar were taking shape, the Trinamool Congress MP, Mahua Moitra, was one of the first politicians to show up in person and offer solidarity.
Her party had just lost West Bengal.
Three weeks later, when the Union education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, resigned, Moitra thanked the younger generation “for saving Indian democracy” by bringing “this fascist, arrogant government to its knees”.
It was Mamta & Mahua who had been brought to their knees. Pradhan wants to go back to Odisa which his party now rules.
This, as she pointed out, was something the Opposition parties had not been able to do in the past 12 years.
Modi eases out people who haven't performed- e.g Harsh Vardhan over COVID. What is important is that Modi had been able to push Mamta out of power in West Bengal.
Mahua Moitra’s praise was well merited.
It was foolish. What mattered was Akhilesh. He did visit Jantar Mantar. He is desperate to win in February next year. Otherwise it is a case of 'three strikes & you are out'. Maybe he will align with Owaisi for the Muslim vote & hire some of the 'cockroaches' to rally the youth.
The resignation of the education minister, the home minister’s prolonged absence from Parliament, the sacking of several senior BJP office-bearers, and – not least – the clumsy, late-night videos of the prime minister, all testified to a regime whose customary air of hubristic arrogance had (at least temporarily) given way to weakness and confusion
This is nonsense. The BJP did very well in elections earlier this year but it knows that February 2027 is when the fate of the nation will be decided. If Yogi gets a third term, he becomes Modi's successor. If Akhilesh & Rahul win, all bets are off. 2029 could go either way.
It is too early to say whether the momentum that the student “cockroaches” have thus far generated can be sustained,
It can't. It is a silly season story.
leading to a fuller renewal of the constitutional promises of liberty, equality and fraternity.
& sodomy for senior citizens like Guha
Historians are not astrologers, so, instead of projecting forward, I shall here look backwards, exploring other times in the past when Indian students have sought to leave their impress on politics and public life.
After the Great War, Gandhi called for students to quit Government schools and Colleges. Some did. The Government laughed heartily. Gandhi unilaterally surrendered and went meekly off to jail. Students had a choice- get Gandhian and go to jail or get Revoutionary and hanged by the neck. The safer course was to cram for your exams and then, thirty years later, tell everybody you were actually a secret courier of some type.
The first such occasion was 120 years ago, during the swadeshi movement in Bengal. As Sumit Sarkar observed in his book on that particular upsurge, “Students of every district came to study in Calcutta, and no doubt it was through them above all that the movement initially spread into the mofussil.”
It alienated the Muslims. Tagore was right to warn of the consequences of this.
While the more prominent leaders came from the established professional and landed classes, writes Sarkar, “the volunteers themselves of course came largely from the student community, many of them of extremely tender years”.
Some ended up in New York or California or Berlin or Moscow.
In subsequent years, students energetically participated in the movements against British colonial rule led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress.
From time to time. The thing went in cycles.
Male students joined the Non-co-operation and Civil Disobedience movements in large numbers, organising demonstrations and courting arrest.
Some new 'Swadesi' educational institutions were created.
Students were even more active in the Quit India movement, filling the jails in their thousands.
There were quite a few who did more than that.
A feature of Quit India was the dynamic role played by young women. The stirring story of Usha Mehta, the Bombay University student who helped organise the underground “Congress radio”, has been documented in an excellent book by Usha Thakkar.
Usha Mehta became a Professor. Nanka Motwani, the owner of Chicago Radio, made the 'Congress Radio' possible. He provided the equipment and the technicians. Usha's father had been a judge and she was trustworthy. She had graduated and planning to sit the law exams at the time of 'Quit India'. In other words, she was a 22 year old woman, rather than a student, with considerable freedom of movement
But there were other notable (if now less known) examples too. A file I found in the archives, titled “Karnatak in Revolt”, narrates how the “most phenomenal feature” of the movement in this part of India was the response of the student community, which organised boycotts and hartals in Belgaum, Gadag, Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore, Bijapur, Bellari, Sirsi and other places.
Student means 'young person with time on his hands'. But it also means 'young person who doesn't matter at all.'
On October 23, 1942, two students from Dharwad, a Miss Shenolikar and a Miss Gulawadi, entered the district court, hoisted the national flag, told the district judge (who was present) that he was dismissed from his office, distributed leaflets, and disappeared. (There the archival trail runs out – one would love to know what happened to Miss Shenolikar and Miss Gulawadi in later life.)
They got married and had babies. I believe both came from Congress families & thus they were related to MLAs or Ministers.
In the decades leading up to Independence, students were active in social and political movements.
Like the Pakistan movement.
What of the years after India rid itself of colonial rule? In 1968, the American scholar, Philip G. Altbach, edited a book titled Turmoil and Transition: Higher Education and Student Politics in India. In his introduction, Altbach remarked that while “students played a key role in the struggle of Independence”, since 1947 “most student agitation has not been directly political, but has concerned non-ideological issues”.
1968 was the year the shit really hit the fan. The term 'student' went from meaning 'lazy shithead' to 'crazy hoodlum or homicidal Naxal'.
The book’s case studies examined the “non-ideological issues” raised by students in the 1960s which included not only high fees and poor hostel facilities but also cultural activities such as music and theatre.
Within a year of this book’s publication, students had re-entered politics, playing a major role in
the Naxalite movement
the movement for a separate state of Telangana which started in 1969, although it bore final fruition long afterwards. This was one of three regional movements in post-Independence India that have strongly featured students. The others were the Assam movement of the late 1970s/early 1980s and the Uttarakhand movement of the 2000s.
Every regional movement has featured students.
Of the Assam agitation, the historian, Arupjyoti Saikia, writes that “the movement was largely in the hands of student leaders”, whose “idealism inspired large numbers; when they delivered their fiery speeches, crowds of both women and men listened in rapt attention”.
They were good at killing. I grant you that.
The All Assam Students’ Union gave birth to the Asom Gana Parishad, which won an assembly election in 1985.
After the Nellie massacre in 1983. Congress saw there was no point in giving Bangladeshis the vote if the local people killed them before they could get to the ballot box.
Three decades later, students also helped propel the Telangana Rashtra Samithi to power in that state.
All parties benefit from energetic student wings. Hopefully, there will be increased accountability such that educational outcomes match with employment opportunities.
All these struggles form the unacknowledged prehistory of the movement currently underway.
None do. A tweet by a guy in America never caused a student movement in India. This whole thing has been cooked up by the Media because it is a slow news period.
However, the most obvious precursor from the past is the “JP movement” of the mid 1970s
JP was 70 years old. He had been spoken of as a successor to Nehru. He was joining hands with the Old Congress in a bid to take down Indira Gandhi. In 1977 he succeeded.
The cockroaches themselves were trying to replicate the success of the Anna Hazare movement which gave birth to the AAP party. What they needed was some seventy or eighty year old Saint to grace the occassion. All they got was some dude from Ladakh who was the model for the character played by Aamir Khan in 'Three Idiots'.
in which students played such a prominent part. In his book, Protest Movements in Two Indian States, Ghanshyam Shah carefully documents the course of the protests in Gujarat and Bihar.
Political parties were using both Trade Unions & Student organizations for their own purposes. The result was that less work was done & less education imparted.
In both states, students played a leading role.
in turning both states to shit.
In Gujarat, the Congress chief minister, Chimanbhai Patel, was widely seen as corrupt, becoming a prime target of youth anger.
The oil shock was inflationary on top of which there was a global food shortage in 1974
Students attacked the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, for protecting Chimanbhai and for not being able to stem price rise. The protests were by no means non-violent, featuring attacks on government property and the looting of shops.
Indira had brought in younger, poorer, more radical grass-roots politicians. The old guard was strking back. Indira then showed that India was not a 'soft state'. It was well hard. She jailed all her opponents and, soon enough, they were whimpering for mercy.
Shah writes that, as in Gujarat, “students were the vanguard of the Bihar movement” of the 1970s.
& the RSS was in the vanguard of the ABVP which was in the vanguard of the student movement.
However, unlike in Gujarat,
where a key leadership role was undertaken by Morarji Desai (aged 78) who launced an indefinite hunger strike in March 1974. Morarji had previously been Deputy Prime Minister.
in Bihar one elderly individual played a key leadership role. This was Jayaprakash Narayan.
JP was only 72- six years younger than Morarji. JP made Morarji the PM in 1977.
As Shah observes, “his concern for the poor, his moral stance, his simplicity and humility”, all contributed to the veteran freedom-fighter’s charisma.
But, in Gujarat, it was Morarji who mattered.
JP appealed to the students to give up studies for a year to “save democracy”.
JP & Lohia had opened the door to the Jan Sangh (now known as BJP) joining anti-Congress coalitions and thus gaining national salience. Morarji was more circumspect.
The students who flocked to his call included members of the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and also many young socialist activists.
The arrow of causation runs the other way. JP was looking for a way back into electoral politics (bhoodhan having proved a scam) and the RSS was only too eager to provide the organizational muscle and financial resources to sustain a mass movement.
The present student upsurge
is opportunistic and merely cosmetic
resembles the JP movement in one significant manner.
Everybody knows that if you aren't in the ABVP, they you are probably wasting your time.
The principal targets of both have been authoritarianism and the cult of personality, as represented in the 1970s by Indira Gandhi and her party and by Narendra Modi and his party now.
Indira was authoritarian which is why she jailed her opponents. Modi is democratic, which is why he doesn't jail anybody.
Yet there are also major differences. The ABVP was then against the ruling regime; now it is firmly on the side of the ruling regime.
It is the student wing of the ruling party.
It does also seem that, compared to the JP movement, women students are more visible in the current protests, their idealism and courage reminiscent of the female satyagrahis of 1942.
They would be even more visible if they weren't as ugly as shit.
The upsurge of the 1970s presented itself as
either anti-Indira or anti anyone who was anti Indira. Indira prevailed because the opposition had zero esprit de corps.
a second freedom struggle, working to finally fulfil the failed promises of the first. In so far as it helped end one-party rule and brought about a fresh wind of democracy, the movement succeeded.
No. It failed. By 1980, India was condemned to dynastic rule. Interestingly, it did not initially feature primogeniture- Sanjay was the younger son- but Fate took care of that problem. Congress now belongs wholly to Rahul. His cousin, Varun, gets nothing.
On the other hand, the JP movement also gave legitimacy to the forces of Hindutva, which have steadily gathered power and influence in the years that followed.
With hindsight, it was the RSS which gave JP political credibility. Otherwise, he'd have had to become more and more like Vinobha Bhave.
To their credit, the student leaders of the present resolutely oppose both authoritarianism and religious bigotry.
But not opportunism and coprophagy.
The invocation by them of Ambedkar, Gandhi and Nehru – all together – suggests that they
are as stupid as shit.
see their movement as a third freedom struggle, working to finally fulfil the failed promises of the first and the second.
The first succeeded in getting rid of the House of Windsor. The second succeeded in getting rid of the House of Nehru (albeit helped along by an assassination or two). The third will succeed in getting rid of Modi because he is already 76 years old. The question is- who will succeed him? If Yogi gets a third term, my money is on him. But, if Akhilesh wins big- he becomes the kingmaker going into the next General Election.
How far these ideals will be realised in the years ahead shall depend on the actions of countless individuals and organisations, many of whom who were not themselves present in Jantar Mantar during those heady days of June and July.
If the ideal is to get rid of Modi- it will fulfil itself through the natural process of ageing. If the ideal is to replace the BJP with some other party or coalition of parties then the first priority must be to win in February 2027 and thus get 'big mo' for the General Election.
Can students play a role in this? Sure. They can help with 'booth management' just as well as anybody else. However, it is the poorer woman- not the student- who remains the 'swing' voter, all parties must try to entice.
One caveat. If the caste census is completed before the next general election, issues regarding reservations may take precedence. My gut feeling is that Akhilesh stands to benefit most. Sadly, I am always wrong. This means Yogi will win big in February.
No comments:
Post a Comment