THOUSANDS marched in Delhi on the national call of ‘People’s March to Save Democracy’ by various student organisations. JNUSU has also given a call to join this march. This march saw the convergence of people’s anger against the RSS’ assault on the educational institutions across the country and this was evident in the demands raised as well. The demands included dropping of sedition charges and release of those who have been jailed, abolition of the draconian sedition law,  end of witch-hunt of students and teachers of JNU,enactment of Rohith Act to stop caste discrimination in higher educational institutions, and the resignation of Smriti Irani for misusing power and peddling lies. Apart from those from the universities in Delhi, hundreds of students from Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Uttarakhand also joined the march.The leaders of student organisations, JNUSU and JNUTA office bearers, Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of CPI(M), D Raja, national secretary of CPI, Kavita Krishnan, Polit Bureau member of CPI (ML)-Liberation and Arundhati Roy, addressed the march.

CONVERGENCE

OF ISSUES

As the chain of events following the February 9th incident in JNU has progressed, the issue at hand is no longer only the defence of JNU and its democratic ethos, rather the assault by RSS (with the aid of government machinery and a section of media) on the higher educational institutions has become central. It goes without saying that assault of this magnitude doesn’t limit itself only to the confines of the universities, in fact it has sought to use this to not only justify the regime but also to hide the crisis of the polity. There has been brave resistance by students in IIT Madras, FTII Pune, Hyderabad Central University and Allahabad University. However, what has been remarkable in the period since the JNU movement is the remarkable convergence of the isolated struggles over the last year and half. In fact, this process had started with the nationwide protests against the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula in HCU. This convergence has put forth a real possibility of the emergence of a strong, nationwide movement against the RSS machinations to further its agenda of Hindutva.

WITCH-HUNT OF

STUDENTS CONTINUES

Even when students and people from all walks of life were marching in defence of democracy, the calibrated witch-hunt of the JNU students continues unabated.  The report of the High Level Enquiry Committee (HLEC) constituted by the JNU VC and the discrepancies between it and the show cause notices served to the students expose the intentions of the administration. Students and teachers of JNU have boycotted this committee because of its flawed composition (two out of initial three members have known RSS links) and lack of any terms of reference. VC M Jagadish Kumar blatantly refused to heed to the demand of ‘democratisation’ of the committee. What is surprising is the fact that this report nowhere mentions the fact that students and teachers refused to depose before it. Apart from this, there are many other glaring discrepancies in this report, for instance, the lie by registrar Bhupinder Zutshi that he had a meeting with the JNUSU office bearers on February 9 or the fact that two security persons have later retracted from their position in their deposition to the magistrate (Delhi government enquiry). This report hence is a complete failure when it comes to ascertaining the facts of February 9.  However, what is even more disturbing is the attempt to increase the surveillance in the campus (a mere cursory look over the ‘lapses’ identified by the committee would be enough to see this). In the coming days, the movement inside the campus will have to be carried out at political, as well as legal level.

ECONOMIC

ATTACKS

The recently presented general budget carries forward the neo-liberal philosophy of limiting the public expenditure on education, while at the same time shamelessly seeks to divert people’s money into the hands of fraudulent private players. The saffron chimera of Hindutva is today being used not only to break people’s unity but also to act as a smokescreen to hide the ruthless economic assaults on the people.What needs to be particularly underlined is that this is also an attempt to arrest the “crisis of the polity”. The student movement in particular has been able to accelerate the “crisis of the polity” by taking up the economic demands of the student community (Movement on non-NET fellowship for instance). The latest budget would go on to accentuate the “economic burden” over the students further.While countering and resisting the authoritarian assault on the universities and democracy is of prime importance today, the “economic issues” will also have to be taken up with right earnest. In fact, it is essential to defeating this assault.