Assertion of Student Power

Arup Kumar Sen

Assertion of student power takes different forms and carries different meanings in different contexts. While documenting radical assertions of student power in the 1960s on a world scale, the book, Student Power (edited by Alexander Cockburn and Robin Blackburn, 1969), observed: “The emergence of the student movement  promises a renewal of revolutionary politics as well as the arrival of a new social force. Student insurgents have rejected established models of political action: they refuse to pin their hopes on the remote manoeuvres of parliamentary assemblies or party conferences. The main student movements are quite aware that their struggle is against the social system as a whole: they refuse to participate in it on its own terms”.

In the last 50 years, global economy and politics have witnessed massive changes. In the two decades of the 21st century, we have noticed massive onslaught on the people and rise of rightwing populism globally.

The dominant paradigm of current student politics in India differs significantly from the radical paradigm of student politics of the 1960s. The student organisations often give legitimacy to the ruling party, right or left. But, there are a few educational institutions in India where assertion of student power challenges ruling power and questions the legitimacy of the oppressive social and political system. Jawaharlal Nehru University is one such institution where the students have challenged the undemocratic acts of the ruling party, BJP, and the University administration in recent times. The students of JNU have also raised their voices in support of larger people’s movements.

In the wake of the recent attacks (January 5, 2020) on JNU students by masked men, allegedly backed by the student wing of the ruling party, inside the university campus, the ex-student leader of  JNU, Shehla Rashid, rightly observed: “JNU does not identify itself with the ideals of political parties as much as it identifies itself with people’s movements…One may argue that the politics of JNU might isolate you from the realpolitik of the outside world, which is muscular and money-based. But it is not fair to dismiss our politics as a utopian model. It is a model for the future”. (Frontline, January 31, 2020)

In fact, student politics of JNU does not speak in a single voice. Here lies its strength. An old radical slogan of democracy comes to our mind in this context: Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom and a Hundred Schools of Thought Contend.

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Jan 27, 2020