ON February 16, 2020, more than a thousand volunteers of the DYFI in Maharashtra started a 125 km protest walk from Uran in Raigad district towards the state capital Mumbai, demanding employment and education opportunities and against the unconstitutional and communal CAA-NRC-NPR drive of the BJP central government.

The Maharashtra police mounted inexplicably severe repression on all four days from February 16 to 19 to stop the youth march from moving towards Mumbai.  The DYFI had chosen BPCL Terminal at Uran as the starting point and Chaityabhoomi, Mumbai, the final resting place of Dr B R Ambedkar’s mortal remains, as the culminating point of the youth march.

On the first day, in order to prevent the march from being taken out, a large contingent of the police force was stationed in front of Uran terminal of BPCL from where the march was to begin. Volunteers reaching the spot in hundreds were arrested. At another part of Uran, in the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) premises, police used brutal force against DYFI national president, Mohamed Riyas, AIKS national president, Ashok Dhawale, DYFI state general secretary, Preethy Sekhar, DYFI state president, Sunil Dhanwa, SFI state president, Balaji Kaletwad, SFI state general secretary Rohidas Jadhav and hundreds of DYFI activists.

They were all arrested and kept in Nhava Sheva Police Station compound for more than two hours.  Police officers wanted the march to be called off and all volunteers to be sent back to the districts, which DYFI leadership flatly refused.  Ultimately the police had to relent and the march started at 5.00 pm. The march was received at Jasai by the gram panchayat sarpanch and others. From Jasai the march proceeded to Wahal where night halt was arranged at Sai Mandir Complex, Wahal.

The second day, February 17, the police blocked the youth march outside the Sai Mandir complex on the main road. The stand-off continued till noon and ended up with the police using brutal force to arrest all volunteers. More than a thousand volunteers were detained inside a compound of the police department. Comrades in detention inside the compound and those who managed to come out of detention agitated bravely, the police had to relent and the march resumed again!

The second night halt was to be at a temple complex in Sanpada but the police threatened the temple authorities and persuaded them not to give place to youth march volunteers. Marchers were provided night shelter at the Comrade B T Ranadive Bhavan library building and adjacent buildings in Belapur in New Mumbai.

That night itself, police barricaded the roads leading to BTR Bhavan. Hundreds of police personnel were deployed to stop the march moving towards Mumbai. The illegal detention inside BTR library continued till 2 pm on February 18. Upon hearing that police have surrounded BTR Bhavan, Subhashini Ali, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and S K Rege, state secretariat member of  CPI(M), reached Belapur and asked the police to let the march take place but they were in no mood to listen. Hundreds of activists who pushed ahead were brutally roughed up and taken to 13 different police stations in Navi Mumbai and detained till late night. Subhashini Ali and S K Rege were also arrested by the police.

Volunteers from various districts were forcefully taken to railway stations and bus stands far away from the city.  But most of them travelled back from wherever the police had released them and they reassembled at Adarsh Vidyalaya, Chembur, where the third day's halt was planned. 

Around 600 youth gathered in Adarsh Vidyalaya by 2 o clock in the morning of February 19. Police plans to thwart the youth march failed again! Police repression against the peaceful DYFI youth march was getting covered by the media widely, especially in the context of continuing anti-CAA protests.

On February 19, which was the birth anniversary of the legendary king, Chhatrapati Shivaji, it was Mumbai police's turn to attempt to thwart the youth march. Since morning, police surrounded Adarsh Vidyalaya compound prohibiting the volunteers to move out. The stand-off continued till late afternoon.

Meanwhile hundreds of citizens had gathered at Chaityabhoomi demanding release of the youth march volunteers. CPI(M) leaders Ashok Dhawale, Mahendra Singh and Vinod Nikole, MLA arrived at Adarsh Vidyalaya and after  prolonged and heated arguments, the youth were released in the evening. There was not enough time left for DYFI volunteers to walk till Chaityabhoomi but they set out for Chaityabhoomi in their vehicles.

Foiling all the machinations of the Maharashtra police from February 16 to 19, the march concluded at Chaityabhoomi itself in a grand public meeting. Before that, all leaders paid homage to the Ambedkar Memorial there.

Continuous police repression only made the comrades more determined. Apart from DYFI and SFI leaders, the concluding meeting was addressed among others by Ashok Dhawale, Mahendra Singh, Vivek Monteiro, Sayeed Ahmed, Sonya Gill and Shailendra Kamble.

The youth march was successful in combining the protest against CAA-NRC-NPR with the protest against rising unemployment and commercialisation of education. On the citizenship question, the youth march asked for stopping all official activities in Maharashtra related to NPR and demanded that the Maharashtra state assembly pass a resolution against CAA, NRC and NPR.

The specific demands regarding employment were to stop privatisation of public sector companies, to lift the ban on recruitment in the government sector, to start public sector enterprises in adivasi regions, to implement Maulana Azad self-employment scheme sincerely and to provide permanent employment to contract employees. Controlling private educational institutions which loot students, strict implementation of free education schemes under RTE and improving the conditions of government schools were some of the demands related to education.

In addition, the youth march raised the burning question of the Modi government refusing to pay promised amounts to poor families under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana especially in tribal districts.

The huge support which the youth march received and the determination with which DYFI volunteers faced police repression has given much fillip to the struggle against the Modi government's attempt to disenfranchise the minorities and the poor as well as the struggle for employment and education opportunities.  The SFI Maharashtra state leadership also participated in the youth march and was in the forefront in braving police repression. The path forward for student-youth unity was consolidated due to it.

The DYFI is determined to carry forward this struggle. In the coming days, while rejecting CAA, NRC and NPR, the organisation will mobilise to develop a National Register of the Unemployed. Maharashtra will be a major site of this movement with emphasis on defending both secularism and the right to employment.