THE student movement is going through very crucial times in India. It, at present, looks a little ineffective and less sharp as compared to student movements of other countries where they have achieved many important victories. In fact, Indian society has witnessed rapid changes in the past few decades. In the era of neo-liberal economic policies, social values have changed and the social structure is changing. Impact of the capitalist and open market values are deepening in our society. Being an integral part of the society, students are also deeply affected by these changes. These changes can be felt in the daily life and process of thinking of students. There was a time when students had ample times after their classes. They were involved in various kinds of social and political activities but today, a student is continuously busy. At the same time, attacks on education are not limited to privatisation and commercialisation of education but have extended to teaching and learning processes. It appears that there is a deliberate change in the direction and the aim of education. As we march towards the 15^TH All India Conference of SFI, it is necessary for us to analyse these changes and adopt our strategy and working style according to the new challenges.

IMPACT OF CAPITALIST

VALUES ON STUDENTS

Neo-liberalism not only seeks to create avenues for profit maximisation but it also creates a set of social and political values that help in maintaining the status quo. These values are based on ‘individualism’ and portray the current system as one in which the success and failure of every individual depends solely on his/her efforts. This ‘individualism’ is perpetuated through various forms including newspapers, films, television and so on. Thus, while inequalities and misery are continuously increasing, the individuals are made to believe that it is due to the lack of efforts on their part. The overall result of this is to obstruct the possibility of individuals coming together, realising the fact that the reason of their woes lies in the system and working towards building resistance against the system.

Not only this, these capitalist values portray ‘market’ as the stage where individuals can realise their true ‘freedom’. Even though, this ‘freedom to consume’ is only for those who have the money to do so; people are made to believe that everyone can do so. We can see strong impact of these capitalist values among the students as well. The belief that individuals can fulfil their aspirations to have a particular lifestyle or to consume products of certain brands isolates them into cocoons. This is true even for the social work where individual efforts are given priority over collective one. ‘Everyone will change when I will change’ is getting popularity. In this situation, rare job opportunities in the ocean of unemployment and cut throat competition for them also strengthen this understanding where one finds a competitor even in his/her close friend. These individual values are basically opposing any kind of collective effort.

This results in the disbelief of changing the status quo or even more cynically in distrust of any collective effort. The impact can be seen everywhere, but the intensity is even more pronounced in the urban and metropolitan areas. While the attacks on education from the ruling classes are becoming more centralised and there is an urgent necessity of building strong unity, these capitalist values are also becoming roadblocks in the path of realising that task. We need to step up the ideological struggle from our side against these capitalist values.  Our journals, along with study circles and public meetings, will have to play a major role in countering the onslaught of the capitalist values.

NEW FORMS OF DE-POLITICISATION

OF STUDENTS’ MOVEMENT

SFI’s programme rightly identified the de-politicisation perpetuated by the ruling classes. It says: “Every demand for education, employment opportunities, and the right to work, and every slogan in defence of civil rights such as right to speech, assembly, and association, and every protest against any injustice or oppression are invariably connected with the policies of the state and thus assume a political character. In the face of this reality, it is hypocritical to subscribe to bankrupt slogans such as ‘students should abstain from politics’ and ‘education should be apolitical’. The Students’ Federation of India is of the considered view that such deceptive slogans have the political motivation of perpetuating political ignorance among the student community to conceal from them the harsh implications of the anti-people policies of the ruling classes thus help the conservative, exploitative social order to stay.” We have successfully waged a struggle against this ideology right from our foundation. But, today we are witnessing de-politicisation in new and varied forms.

Various small students groups or individuals have emerged over the last few years, particularly in university centres, that claim themselves student activists but also criticise student organisations. Their style of working is inspired by NGOs and many of them have direct relations with NGOs and so called ‘civil society’ organisations. These groups have been able to attract some of the very bright and talented people. Quite interestingly many of them proclaim themselves as Left. This is an established fact that students are anti-establishment in their nature which brings them near to the Left revolutionary ideology. These groups are well aware of this fact and use the same to attract them. They encourage adventurism among students and for this even not hesitate to have clashes with police with small group of students only to show them radical. But they do not encourage mass struggle to the decisive point. These organisations seek to disassociate the students’ movement from the larger democratic movement of the country in the name of autonomy. They do not leave any opportunity to abuse the structures of organisations; while they themselves are organised around certain anti-organisation ideas.

This situation is graver at a time when there is a far Right-wing government at the Centre and when there is a need of united actions. We need to keep guard against the harmful role of such groups. We have discussed in detail the challenge of de-politicisation in all its forms at various levels and adopt appropriate plan of action to counter and check them. While doing so, we must not forget the main political enemies in front of the student movement, that is unity and ideological struggle against such groups will have to go hand in hand.

CHALLENGE OF

IDENTITY POLITICS

Identity politics has become a big challenge in front of the student movement today. University centres in particular have become centres of identity politics, with scores of identity-based groups sprouting across the campuses. This in itself is not a new trend though it has been intensifying during the period of neo-liberalism. These groups use genuine concerns and issues of the socio-economically marginalised sections to prepare ground for their political work. There is nothing wrong in this and, in fact, we have been raising these issues everywhere.

What needs to be particularly underlined is how the work of these groups is damaging the democratic movement. The democratic movement in a country as diverse as ours will have to take into account the unequal development of capitalism and the uneven growth of various castes and linguistic groups. This is an intrinsic part of the development of strong and powerful students’ movement. In concrete terms, it means raising the issues related to the education of Dalits, OBCs, minorities and other deprived sections; and further linking it to the overall policy framework. These identity groups instead of doing this are pitting one section of the student community against another and are thereby damaging the overall democratic student movement. We have to adopt a two-pronged strategy to counter these groups: Firstly, we should sincerely take up the issues of marginalised sections and work towards cinching them, so that we are able to generate confidence towards our organisation among the students from these sections. Secondly, the disruptive tendencies of such groups should be exposed among the student community. We should engage the intellectuals and progressive heroes from these sections in a scientific manner.

ORGANISATION IN PRIVATE

AND PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Education in the era of globalisation has witnessed a structural change where the private sector is emerging rapidly attracting bright students in a big number. SFI has always opposed privatisation. This noncompromised struggle against privatisation of education has played a decisive role in growth and expansion of our organisation. We have rallied students and other section by educating them against privatisation but with rampant privatisation of education there is change in the public opinion also. In a planned manner, governments have weakened the public education sector and image of public education is also ruined among general public. At the same time, tall (fake and glorifying) claims are there about the quality of private education. The situation can be gauged from the fact that the poorest of the poor in India want to admit his child in a private school if it is affordable. Though the situation of higher education is bit different where public sector institutions are still looked with respect.

Due to all these, public sector institutions are in minority now. In the year 2005, there were 17 per cent private school in rural India. This percentage rose to 27 per cent in 2013 and this number has reached to 30.8 per cent in 2014. The pace of privatisation is more rapid in the area of higher studies. More than half of the students’ enrolled in higher education today are under private educational institutions. Sixty-six per cent of students in general education and 75-80 per cent in technical education are enrolled in private, self-financing institutions. So if we only reaffirm our struggle against privatisation of education and do not organise these students we will fail to build a mass student movement. This is more important for us because when we think of student organisation, our imagination goes up to public institutions only. Due to this reason, we are mostly operating in government and government-aided institutions where the attacks on democratic rights of the students are intensifying. We cannot overlook this sector which comprises more than half of the student strength of the country today. The vast private sector remains outside the ambit of democratic content.

But this is also the reality that we have succeeded to reach only to a small section of these students studying in the public sector. So shall we wait till all the students of public sector to be organised to enter the private sector. In fact, this is the main reason given by our comrades when it comes to discussion, which is very wrong.

In reality, there is a vast majority of students studying in the private institutions and they are facing immense problems. They are denied basic facilities even after paying huge amount of fees. There is discontent among the students and many are going through mental stress because no platform is there where they can express themselves. They are getting victimised, depressed and many are committing suicides. Last year, there was news about more than hundred students committing suicide on the campus of one institute in Andhra Pradesh. Similar news are also common from Delhi-NCR. Though the reasons for such suicides are not common but the root cause is one.

The laws of market are also very active in the sphere of private education. Most of the students who join these courses are hopeful of their employment and nurse a strong illusion of a secure future. It is only after a period of time that they realise that the reality is totally different from their dreams and the prospects of employment too are bleak. The quality of education offered in most of the private professional institutions is too sub-standard and fill the students with discontent.

This discontent has to be properly utilised by building our organisation among this section of the students. Most private institutes shut their doors to all kinds of democratic processes within their campuses. They do not permit student organisations to enter their campus and threaten students against any such move. This authoritarian attitude is to shield their institutes from public scrutiny as many of them fail to meet necessary academic standards.

We are still following our traditional style of working which is evolved during our experiences in government-sector institutions. Students studying in private sector institutions have some different experiences and conditions. The objective reality demands the SFI to draw innovative and imaginative avenues and ways in order to address and organise the students of the private institutions. We have to study these concrete conditions and evolve strategy accordingly to organise these students along with those in government institutions. It is high time to organise these students because private sector institutions are already in majority and we cannot build a nationwide movement without organising students of private institutions.