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Jadavpur University is drawing a lesson from Ramjas row - how to resist ABVP

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Manogya Loiwal
Manogya LoiwalMar 01, 2017 | 08:38

Jadavpur University is drawing a lesson from Ramjas row - how to resist ABVP

Student politics in India has been there for long and Bengal has always been at the centre of attraction and contradiction too.

After Jadavpur University (JU) got attacked last year in the same period of time, this year was the turn of Delhi University.

Students of JU strongly reacted to the recent violent clash at the university's Ramjas College, remembering the similar incident in Kolkata last year. They strongly opposed the ABVP's behaviour and believe that resisting the outfit is the best thing to do.

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Samashree Choudhury, a JU student, expressed an affirmative view on politics being part of student life, saying: "Politics and education are inter-related as politics influences education in a lot of ways. For example, when I am going to college to study, my studies are also determined by the country. For instance, if I want to study a certain course and that course is not financed by the government, then I will have to finance it, so in that case my economic stability might not be enough to finance my own course. On the other hand we have also seen how scholarships are been cut down by the government and how students are protesting against it. In such a case, a student has to participate in politics and organise and resist such attacks."

In support of her point, other students shared their own views. "We come here to settle our life but I have noticed one thing - that our country's politics is an important part of our life. So when politics determines our future, then we should determine our politics because politics controls our life," says Pritam Sen.

Aritra, another student, explained: "It is the student who raises important issues that affect them." Another scholar, Debraj Debnath, added: "Politics determines how much money is invested in an economical year."

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The students also talked about JU politics, for which it is renowned, and its ideological fight. "From the time of admission, everything is organised by political organisations that are present in the campus. From the very first day, the organisation tries to bring an ideological view to engage people in a healthy political debate. I think JU's political environment is debate-friendly and most cases are violence-free," said Samashree.

Student Pritam Sen added: "No one forces anyone. We play politics through our brain."

According to Aritra, JU's political fights are always ideological ones, different from the fights that go on in Delhi University.

"Jadavpur has its own ideology and it does not get involved in hooliganism," pointed out Debraj Debnath.

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Jadavpur University was attacked by the ABVP last year.

Somashree narrated: "Delhi is one city where the presence of ABVP can be felt every moment when you are in student politics. As for JNU, we saw last year how a commotion was created by the outfit and we have seen Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya and how they were targeted at the JNU campus and students were arrested. We need to focus on these things, this is a trend and it won't stop at the JNU campus. Whenever a person raised question against the government, or students questioned the moral authority and political background of the ABVP or RSS, they were attacked and labelled as terrorists."

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"We saw in the next student election how AVBP was hounded off the campus - they did not win any seats. We saw what happened at Ramjas and how the student community, staff and workers have come together to resist attacks on the educational sector."

Pritam pointed out that ABVP's ideology is dangerous for the student community while Debnath called Delhi student politics a lesson in courage and on how JU should resist the outfit. Sarthaki Dasgupta lauded the acts of Delhi students in a time of threat by the ABVP and RSS.

With so much happening, some students are scared but believe that fighting back is what is needed. Somashree admitted: "Yes, everyone is afraid of getting threatened on campus, we saw last year how ABVP and BJP leaders came into our university and tried to vandalise it. There was total commotion. One cannot say what might happen in the future because these tendencies are not limited to JNU or Delhi. It might happen any moment, but we will resist - we are not afraid."

Pritam added: "We are not afraid of ABVP. What it is doing in all colleges is so wrong. If ABVP comes here again, we will stop them."

Debraj said: "We students are facing the danger just like other colleges. We cannot think of being safe because of ABVP and RSS's hooliganism."

The fight against ABVP has taken Indian mainstream politics by storm. Let's see what more is in store.

Last updated: March 01, 2017 | 08:38
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