Picture Credits: KM Vasudevan, Deshabhimani

A member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [(CPI(M)], Subhashini Ali has been a prominent face representing the Left in Indian politics for the last four decades. She was a Member of Parliament from 1989 to 1991, having been elected from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. She was part of the heated debates on caste and communal questions that took place in the parliament during this period. As an activist of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), Subhashini Ali has been at the forefront of numerous struggles in defence of women’ s rights. She currently serves as the Vice-President of the organisation.

In her conversation with Nitheesh Narayanan of the Tricontinental, Subhashini Ali speaks on the debates over the Mandal Commission inside and outside the parliament as well as the Indian Left’s understanding of caste-class relations and its long history of fighting caste oppression.

Nitheesh Narayanan (NN): You won the parliament election in 1989 and were a member of the Lok Sabha till 1991. Could you tell me something about the political atmosphere of the 1980s and the role played by the Left which culminated in your victory in one of the important centres of the Hindi heartland?

Subhashini Ali (SA): For us in Kanpur, which is an industrial city, the latter half of the 1980’s was a time of great activity: strikes of Municipal Corporation employees, lawyers’ struggle, textile workers movement culminating in the historic Rail Jam [blockade] of 110 hours. We played a prominent role in all of these.

This was a time of communal polarisation also. On the one hand, after the Supreme Court Judgment in the Shah Bano case, many Muslim organisations went on the offensive against this intervention in their personal laws. They were able to pressurise Rajiv Gandhi into bringing in a law that nullified the judgment. This was followed by the opening of the locks that had been placed by the court on the Babri Masjid.

Our Party had come out strongly in support of the SC judgment and we held many meetings of Muslim women all over Kanpur. We also criticised Rajiv Gandhi’s opportunistic compromise, first with Muslim fundamentalist forces, and later with Hindu communal sentiments.

The BJP gained tremendous political momentum. On the one hand, their propaganda against both the Muslim community as anti-women and anti-Constitution, and against the Congress Party as a party of appeasers gained tremendous credibility. On the other hand, their campaign claiming the Babri Masjid site as the Ram Janmabhoomi [birthplace of the Hindu god Rama] received a tremendous boost when the locks were removed and lakhs of Hindu devotees descended on the site to offer pooja to Sri Ram. The Congress lost much of its support among both majority and minority communities.

With VP Singh’s resignation from the Congress Government, the political situation in Uttar Pradesh and much of North India changed completely. The BJP came out in support of his campaign against corruption. VP Singh and his supporters who left the Congress with him formed the Janata Dal along with many groups of Socialists and Charan Singh supporters. Both the BJP and the Communist Parties supported the Janata Dal in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections of December 1989.

In the elections, because of the many struggles that we had led in Kanpur, I contested as the CPI(M) candidate, supported by the Janata Dal. The BJP put up a candidate against me and also against the two CPI candidates in the State, Mitrasen Yadav and Ram Sajeevan. We [the Left] did not support their [the BJP’s] candidates. It was an exciting campaign with all sections of society and huge numbers of young people supporting us and actually taking the responsibility of booths, public meetings etc. in their own hands. That is why we could win the election despite the fact that our Party had very limited strength in the city. Of course, the textile mills were open, and along with all other workers and employees, textile workers mobilised for us in a big way. This was possibly the last Lok Sabha election in UP and perhaps North India which was fought around livelihood issues. Even in this election, however, what was to become the hallmark of BJP electioneering and campaigning made its appearance. Their entire campaign against me was based on an untruth. I was accused of having said that a toilet should be constructed at the Babri Masjid site. This campaign became more and more shrill as voting day approached. BJP workers were extremely aggressive. At each polling station, they would apply sandalwood tilaks on Hindu voters’ foreheads and appeal to them to vote in the name of Ram.

The support of the Janata Dal and of the bulk of the working people along with the minorities (both Sikhs and Muslims), however, ensured our victory.

Picture Credits: Unknown

NN: During late 1980s, the questions linked to the upliftment of the OBCs and implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations started coming to the forefront. What was CPI(M)’s response?

SA: These issues were important campaign points for the Lohiaite groups, but were not very prominent during the elections in places like Kanpur. They became burning issues after VP Singh’s government supported the recommendations and this was voted upon in Parliament. Both Communist Parties supported the government’s stand. I would like to add that as soon as the government was formed, the issue of renewal of political reservations for SC/STs came up before Parliament. This was something that was done every ten years but this time both the Congress and the BJP instigated aggressive anti-reservation demonstrations and attacks.

I actually delivered my maiden speech in support of extending the term for political reservations for SC/STs. Here are some excerpts:

“Today when we are discussing the issue of extending the provision for reservation by another ten years and in order to take a decision in this matter it has to be considered whether the circumstances under which the said provision was made have changed and whether social exploitation and disparities have ended. In case it is otherwise, extending this provision becomes necessary.

…Atrocities are still being committed on them, in fact the incidents of atrocities and social exploitation are constantly increasing. Nothing can be more shameful than this for any country.

Dalits and Adivasis were deprived of every single sphere of any kind of privilege, be it ownership of land and any other means of production, political participation, economic status, educational status or influence in social strata. Incidents of mass rape, general massacre and their settlements being set on fire are the kind of atrocities which have become commonplace in the rural areas. The situation is not very different in urban space. In a municipal school in Mumbai, Dalit children were made to clean the toilet as that was their traditional occupation. In Delhi, two 12 year old caste Hindu children killed their Dalit classmate because he had sat side by side with them to study Sanskrit.

At this very moment, Shri Khilahand Jha is sitting on ‘dharna’ here in Delhi. His crime is that he married a Dalit lady and he was not allowed to stay in his house and was dismissed from his job. The previous government promised him security and reinstatement, and he went back to Bihar where his house was set on fire and his wife was attacked. He has come back to Delhi seeking justice. There are thousands of such stories.

Reservation alone will not end it but it is a crucial step. Land distribution, employment generation, strengthening of grass root democracy, provision of free and quality education should be our priorities…”

As far as OBC reservations are concerned, they have existed in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra etc. from before Independence and the (united) CPI and later the CPI(M) have not only supported them but agitated for them.

In Kerala reservations for Ezhavas, Muslims, Other Backward Hindus, Latin Catholics and Anglo-Indians, and backward Christians were in effect for years before independence. These were the result of different kinds of mobilisations against caste discrimination, oppression and exclusion that were prevalent. Communists like EMS, AK Gopalan, Krishna Pillai and many others were in the forefront of movements for social justice including the temple entry movements that occurred in the ‘20s and ‘30s. They were beaten and jailed during these movements and were, of course, the most uncompromising of the participants.

The Communist Party contested the second general election, in 1957, on an election manifesto which supported the extending of the reservation period and also extending reservations to other deprived sections.

Since 1957, when the first communist-led government assumed office in Kerala, the scope of reservations has been consistently and continuously expanded. There have been Congress-led Governments alternating with communist-led ones till the present time, but the strength of the Left has ensured that the battle for social justice could not be opposed in practice by any political formation.

Reservation for members of religious minorities has been restricted to those who belong to OBC communities identified in several State-lists and also in the Mandal Commission report.  In Travancore and Cochin [both of which became part of Kerala in 1956], religion-based reservation was introduced in 1936.  In 1952, this was replaced by communal reservation of 45%.  Of this, 35% was earmarked for OBCs including Muslims.  After the re-organisation of States, the new State of Kerala came into existence, and the percentage of reservations was increased to 50% which included 40% for OBCs.  The government introduced a sub-quota of 10% within the OBCs specifically for Muslims.  Later on, this was replaced with 12% reservation for Muslims in State government jobs and 8% in professional educational institutions.  Kerala is unique in that all Muslims, irrespective of their social and economic status, are categorized as OBCs.  In 2021, the LDF government legislated reservations for the Christian Nadar community also.

Reservation based on religion as a category has become a very contentious issue.  This became very apparent when the Sachar Committee recommendation for reservations to be extended to all Muslims was vociferously opposed and could not be implemented.  Even the Ranganath Mishra Commission’s recommendations to extend SC/ST reservations to Muslim and Christian Dalits and tribals have not been implemented.  It is only the CPI(M) that has unreservedly supported these recommendations.  The truth is, however, that most Dalit groups and political formations are only willing to support reservations for Muslim and Christian SCs and STs from a special quota beyond that being accessed by SCs and STs currently.

In the Northern states, the Left was not very active in campaigns demanding OBC reservation or implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations.

It is important to add, that, while supporting OBC reservations, we have always been in the forefront of struggles against atrocities against the Dalits. Very often it is OBC groups and individuals who have been responsible for such atrocities. This is a very serious but less-discussed aspect of caste politics and caste mobilisations. It is often forgotten that hierarchy is intrinsic to the caste system, and at every level there are contradictions between groups and communities who want to maintain their hierarchical positions vis-à-vis those who are lower than themselves. The caste system, therefore, is able to gain support for its continuance at every level: among upper castes versus others; among OBCs versus Dalits; among men versus women in each caste grouping and so on.

Picture Credits: Unknown

NN: The Mandal Commission report was brought before and debated in Parliament in 1990, one decade after it had been submitted. It generated a debate which you participated in on behalf of the CPI(M). Could you tell us about what transpired inside and outside the Parliament?

In Parliament, the atmosphere was very charged, and divisions on caste lines were extremely visible in the Congress and even more so in the BJP. The Congress formally supported the government’s position, but its upper caste members were vocal in their opposition to the Mandal report and in their support for the anti-Mandal movements that had started. This divide was clearly reflected in the speech of their Lok Sabha leader Rajiv Gandhi. On the one hand, he supported the Mandal Commission, and on the other he alleged the VP Singh government as repeating the British policy of divide and rule for bringing the Commission recommendation to the Parliament. The BJP was completely and openly divided. While its OBC leaders like Uma Bharti were vociferous and enthusiastic in their support for the government’s decision, their upper caste leaders spoke against it in the House and were extremely upset. Of course, their ranks were very visible and active in the anti-Mandal agitations everywhere. It was in this situation that the BJP gave its call for the Rath Yatra. All those opposed to Mandal, including those who had hitherto supported other parties including ours, started shifting towards the BJP. OBCs and Dalits could also be mobilised for the Mandir movement by sentimental, religious appeals.

Outside Parliament, the situation was extremely volatile. Since I was from UP and spoke in Hindi, my interventions were given a lot of publicity in the Hindi press. Kanpur has a large Brahmin population, and upper castes were dominant in all organisations – trade unions, merchants, kisan. They were extremely aggressive and influential. SCs and OBCs, relatively unorganised and inarticulate, could not challenge the upper caste backlash. Some of our strongest supporters among LIC leaders and other employees’ and working class leaders became our strongest critics. Our party comrades and myself had to face the vicious opposition of vocal sections of employees, workers and young people. Beneficiaries of reservation and the Mandal recommendations, unfortunately, remained quite passive. Most unfortunately, many of them were swayed by the Rath Yatra and Ram Janmabhoomi campaigns and joined the ranks of BJP supporters.

It is surprising and, in many cases, motivated that in much of the writings and discussions on the Mandal debate, the CPI(M) is accused of not having supported the implementation of the Mandal recommendations. This is absolutely untrue. I know this since I was an active participant in debates in Parliament and outside. We had to pay a heavy price for our support. Many upper caste leaders of unions and other organisations turned against us and attacked us mercilessly. We had to face physical attacks as well. These attacks took a communal turn as well and the campaign in the 1991 Lok Sabha election in Kanpur saw us being attacked from all quarters. Actually an atmosphere of hysteria prevailed. I have no doubt in my mind that those who are responsible for having started this campaign based on lies were focused on driving a wedge between the CPI(M) and the OBCs. Since many decades have passed, their writings have influenced several generations of people to become anti-communist on a completely false premise. This is extremely unfortunate.

The series of events set in motion in 1990 has changed the political scenario in UP and other Hindi-speaking States. While it has ensured the rise of OBC leaders and OBC political mobilisation, it has also been responsible for the phenomenal rise of the BJP which could use the Mandir mobilisation to consolidate the majority community across caste divisions. Class consciousness and mobilisation has receded considerably. This, in turn, facilitated the introduction of the neo-liberal reforms which strengthened these trends of caste and religious mobilisation and diminished class consciousness and mobilisation which continue, by and large, till today.

As far as the Party’s ideological understanding of the issue of OBC reservation is concerned, Com. Prakash Karat’s article ‘Protect Unity with Social Justice’ in People’s Democracy in 1990 is the most comprehensive articulation of this. Some portions are quoted below:

“Reservation for the OBCs has existed in many States for a long time. It is a fact that the bulk of those who are categorised as OBCs in the States belong to the rural poor. They are sharecroppers, small tenants or poor peasants with small holdings. Further, in the rural areas the OBCs are in occupations which are still based on the traditional caste hierarchy such as dhobis, barbers, cattle-rearers and artisans. Their lowly caste status prevents their entry into education and new occupations… Therefore, where the caste status contributes to the backwardness of communities under the OBC category, and where anti-caste movements have not been able to cut across caste barriers and build powerful class-based mass organisations, there is a justification for providing reservations to such communities. This is the basis on which the CPI(M) supported the implementation of the Mandal Commission report since 1981-82 and earlier in States where due to prolonged movements the OBCs were accorded reservations.”

Prakash goes on to say in support of an economic criterion, “The complexity of the OBC problem lies, thus, in the fact that within some communities of the OBCs there is a great economic (inter-caste) differentiation and also there is inner-caste differentiation, i.e., compared to a few better-off communities there are a number of more backward communities. This criterion need not necessarily be just an income ceiling, but can be a package in which income tax assessments, extent of landholding, professional status of parents, etc., can be taken into consideration.”

His article also gives valuable historical information. “…As early as 1958, the Administrative Reforms Committee in Kerala headed by E.M.S. Namboodiripad, Chief Minister, suggested such a criterion for backward classes reservation. The Nettoor Damodaran Commission report of 1971 also made a similar suggestion. The Justice Chinnappa Reddy Commission report, the most recent in Karnataka, has recommended that from the OBC reservations those whose parents are income tax or sales tax assesses, hold land upto eight acres or are Class I officers can be excluded. In Kerala reservation in admissions to medical colleges is governed by an income criterion. Only those whose parents draw less than Rs, 20,000 per year are entitled to benefit from OBC reservation. In some other States like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, there are two or three categories of backward classes, with the more backward either getting more fee concessions and other facilities or getting a greater quantum of reservations. The difficulty is that wherever OBC reservations already exist, the introduction of an economic criterion meets with strong resistance. Only when a broad consensus is reached can it be implemented. In Kerala, it has not been implemented so far as there is no such agreement. In the case of Bihar, when OBC reservations were being introduced for the first time in 1978, it was possible, after a destructive anti-reservation movement, to arrive at a formula which has been working since then. The 26 per cent reservation consists of 12 per cent of the most backward category listed in Annexure 1; eight per cent for other backward classes listed in Annexure II with an income ceiling of Rs 12,000 per annum; three per cent for women and three per cent for the poor of the forward castes. The National Front Government at the Centre should consider the Bihar Experience which brought about some stability in the tense caste situation.”

He goes on to say that there must be periodic reviews undertaken of the experience of various OBC communities and then stresses an issue crucial for the promotion of class unity: “There is a second qualification with respect to OBC reservations. While the CPI(M) has been supporting the demand for the implementation of the Mandal Commission report, it has also been asking for a consensus to be evolved on the sensitive question.”

His conclusions are extremely important:

• “The Marxist analysis of contemporary reality holds that the anti-caste movement, if it is to be successful in eliminating caste domination, requires linking the anti-caste movements with the movement for agrarian revolution, for building the unity of the working people, and advancing the democratic movement.
• …Unfortunately, some sections of the intelligentsia with democratic inclinations are opposing reservations for the OBCs on the plea that it perpetuates casteism and fragments society. This is to ignore the fact that it is the casteism of the upper-castes attendant with the monopoly of the means of production, which has perpetuated backwardness.
• …The modern working class and the organised movement of the working people can advance only the basis of the unity of both sections of the working people — the advanced sections of the urban working people and rural mass who suffer from both caste and economic oppression.
• Those who advocate reservations without any restraint and recklessly compete to hike up quotas for the backward classes and scheduled castes are not mindful of the vital need for unity…Both the pro-reservationist and the anti-reservationist leaders work within the bourgeois mould and foster the illusion that the distribution of the limited number of jobs at stake is a life and death question for the advancement of their communities.
• The CPI(M) attitude to OBC reservation stems from its class standpoint…The democratic sections amongst the toilers not covered by reservations, both working class and peasantry, have to accept the necessity for reservations, so that overall unity can be cemented.
• …The RSS has come out openly against the declared reservations for the OBCs. Denouncing V.P. Singh, the Organiser stated: “He wants to undo the great task of uniting Hindu society from the days of Vivekananda, Dayanand Saraswati, Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Hedgewar.” The RSS view, not surprisingly, is governed by its Hindu chauvinist upper-caste bias… Both the BJP and Congress(I) activists are actively competing to lead the anti-reservation agitation. Their representatives in the executive of the Delhi University Teachers Association have ganged up to try and pass a resolution condemning the implementation of the OBC reservations. From these activities it seems that for these parties, unlike the CPI(M), the demand for an economic criterion is not meant to improve the scheme of reservations, it is a ploy to try and scuttle its implementation.
• At the same time, the advanced democratic movement, the fighting organisations of the different sections of the people have a heavy responsibility before them:

     1. To oppose movements against reservations.

     2. To explain to the democratic sections not entitled to reservations, the necessity to    accept this limited concession to those deprived of the capacity for equal competition due to historical-social conditions.

     3. To counter caste-exclusive movements which stress only reservations and seek to keep the SC or reserved categories of employees and workers away from the common movement. This requires championing their special demands and problems.”

It was necessary to quote at length from this article to give a clear understanding of our Party’s understanding of this complex issue.

Picture Credits: Unknown

NN: It took almost one decade for the report to be placed before the Parliament after its submission to the government. Why was it delayed for such a long time?

SA: The Congress Party was never in favour of its implementation, and even in 1991, Rajiv Gandhi as leader of the opposition was very ambivalent on this issue.

NN: Could you remember specifically what all were mentioned in your speech during the debate? How did you counter the argument that reservations and even discussions about caste are ‘divisive’?

Some of the points in my speech in Parliament in support of the government’s decision were – opposition to the caste system; the lack of representation of OBCs in the administration, higher educational institutions etc.; strong criticism of those opposing the government in the name of ‘Hindu unity’ and the hypocrisy of those who were voicing support for the government’s decision but were also stoking resentment and opposition to it. These were members of the Congress and, even more so, members of the BJP.

All movements against caste discrimination are labelled ‘divisive’ and condemned as conspiracies to divide Hindu society by those who are committed to a system of caste hierarchy which they feel benefits them. This is not limited to only upper caste people but many sections of the OBCs too who want to safeguard their ‘higher’ status vis-à-vis the Dalits. The truth is that it is the caste system which is intrinsically divisive and cannot be the basis of any kind of unity, within castes and between castes. As Dr. Ambedkar had said, the caste system is based not only on the division of labour but on the division of labourers.

NN: What were the reactions in the country following the Mandal debate in the Parliament? How did different political parties respond to it?

SA: As a party, CPI(M) stuck to its support for Mandal but we learnt a lot about caste polarisation among our own supporters and mass organisation members from their reactions. JD was strong in its defence of Mandal but the strength of the Mandal consolidation was broken when Mulayam Singh Yadav supported Chandra Shekhar who ousted V.P. Singh and became PM himself.  Interestingly, many of Chandra Shekhar’s supporters were upper caste critics of the Mandal Commission, and Chandra Shekhar was himself ambivalent. While Mulayam Singh benefitted from the impetus that OBC political mobilisation received (as did Lalu Prasad Yadav), the bitter division in the ranks supporting implementation of the Mandal Commission Report was to have very far-reaching consequences.

NN: Could you tell us something about the communists’ history of fighting caste oppression and understanding the caste-class character of Indian society?

SA: This question is best answered by referring to the writings of Comrades BT Ranadive and EMS Namboodiripad, and to Party documents.

Com. BTR wrote a long piece for the Economic and Political Weekly in 1971, on ‘Caste, Class and Property Relations’. Some important sections from that are quoted below. He has referred to the 1930 Platform of Action of the CPI which is the first clarion call by any political party in our country for the abolition of the caste system:

“Social reformers have not understood this link between the agrarian revolution in India and the retention of caste and communal inequalities, outlook and prejudices. For them casteism and communalism were just injustices unlinked with any production relation system, a prejudice to be removed by denouncing it, by asking those who practice it to reject it, and nothing more. The struggle was not to be linked with the present-day social system – its pre-capitalist and capitalist basis, its source of class exploitation. It was not to be conducted as part of the general democratic movement or modern class struggle…The Communist Party was the only party which linked the struggle against untouchability and caste-system with agrarian revolution and end to imperialist domination. It alone saw in agrarian revolution and class struggle the key to overcome Hindu-Muslim separateness in practice. The Platform of Action of the CPI, 1930, said:

“As a result of the rule of British imperialism in our country, there are still in existence millions of slaves, and tens of millions of socially outcaste working pariahs, who are deprived of all rights. British rule, the system of landlordism, the reactionary caste system, religious deception and all the slave and serf traditions of the past throttle the Indian people and stand in the way of its emancipation. They have led to the result that in India, in the twentieth century, there are still pariahs who have no right to meet with their fellowmen, drink from common wells, study in common schools, etc.

Instead of putting an end once for all to this shameful blot on the Indian people, Gandhi and other Congress leaders call for the maintenance of the caste system which is the basis of and justification for the existence of that socially outcaste pariahs. Only the ruthless abolition of the caste system in its reformed, Gandhist variety, only the agrarian revolution and violent overthrow of British rule, will lead to the social, economic, cultural and legal emancipation of the working pariahs and slaves. The CP of India calls upon all the pariahs to join in the united revolutionary front — with all the workers of the country against British rule and landlordism.

The CP of India calls on all the pariahs not to give in to the tricks of British and reactionary agents who try to split and set one against the other the toilers of our country.

The CP of India fights for the complete abolition of slavery, the caste system and the caste inequality in all its forms (social, cultural etc). The CP of India fights for the complete and absolute equality of the working pariahs and all the toilers of our country.”

It will be seen that the Communists did not say that caste, untouchability and communal outlook would disappear without a revolutionary struggle against the antiquated land system and British rule; or that the struggle to eradicate the caste system can be fought in isolation from the class struggle in the villages and the cities, by mere denunciation of the system. They knew that this class struggle was of a people who were not yet free from caste prejudices and who therefore had to be united in the course of the struggle to discover their common identity as exploited. Real and abiding unity was to be achieved during the course of the revolutionary struggle which is fought with no holds barred.

…The Communists also saw that caste disintegration was taking place rapidly; in each caste differentiation was taking place between the haves and have-nots and that the process of pauperisation was affecting all castes. Almost all peasant castes have been the victims of this process. Thus a new common bond was being created between the lower sections of all castes – a bond which had to be stressed and consolidated during the course of the common struggle. It was therefore necessary to stress this common bond while fighting against caste inequalities. Here there is no question of replacing caste by class, refusing to recognize the caste distinctions and recognising only the class distinctions. It is a question of addressing yourself to the concrete reality which combined the growing formation of an exploited class with the existence of caste distinctions – the formation process of the class. Those who did not understand this double process landed themselves into reformism”.

Com. EMS Namboodiripad’s understanding of the caste system was that it combined social oppression and class exploitation. He wrote:

“…it would… be unrealistic to pose the problem as if it is either class struggle or caste conflict. The fact is that there is a certain interpenetration of class and caste… In the actual social conditions of Kerala, the development of the democratic movement is bound to be linked with the organised struggle against caste-Hindu domination.” (“Once Again on Castes and Classes”, Social Scientist, 1981, 9 (12)).

In 1979, EMS wrote about the basic weakness of the Congress Party and its futile efforts to find scapegoats for the failures of the civil disobedience movement etc.:

“All this [the failures] was conveniently blamed on the ‘wily manoeuvres’ of the British rulers and the ‘lack of patriotism’ on the part of the caste and communal leaders. Mahatma Gandhi made the heroic statement that, if only the British rulers left India to her fate, all the caste and communal problems would be solved immediately and automatically. The total unreality of this assertion was proved not only by the large-scale massacres that accompanied the partition of India – massacres which are perhaps the most inhuman in the history of mankind – but by the fact that, after full 31 years of independence, India today is as politically divided as it was in the pre-independence days on caste and communal lines. Those nationalists who even today blame caste and communal organisations for all the evils that are overtaking our country should ponder over the question of why they (the caste and communal leaders) are able to release the worst kind of sentiments among the people for inciting the most inhuman atrocities on the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward communities.”

“The national movement, as was sought to be built up by its bourgeois leaders, was primarily a movement for the ‘revival’ of the ‘age-old’ Indian civilisation and culture. This civilisation and culture, let us remind ourselves again, is based on the village community at whose centre is the division of society into a hierarchy of castes. Millions of people, who had, out of sheer helplessness, borne the burden of this caste-based society, were for the first time able to see that they need no more be bound by the ideology of Varnashrama Dharma. They started imbibing a part of the modern bourgeois ideology – freedom, equality and fraternity. They were not prepared to tolerate a movement which would culminate in the replacement of the then ruling British imperialism by the old Varnashrama society.”

“…one has to abandon all ideas of paying tributes to the ‘age-old’ civilisation and culture of India. One has to realise that the rebuilding of India on modern democratic and secular lines requires an uncompromising struggle against the caste-based Hindu society and its culture. There is no question of secular democracy, not to speak of socialism, unless the very citadel of India’s ‘age-old’ civilisation and culture – the division of society into a hierarchy of castes – is broken. In other words, the struggle for radical democracy and socialism cannot be separated from the struggle against caste society.” (“Caste Conflicts v/s Growing Unity of Popular Democratic Forces”, Economic and Political Weekly, 1979, 14 (7-8), pp. 333-334).

The CPI(M) from its inception, in all its documents has repeatedly addressed the issue of caste and called upon its members and supporters to confront this issue with understanding and courage.

The CPI(M) programme, updated in 2000, deals with this issue in detail. It says:

“The bourgeois-landlord system has also failed to put an end to caste oppression. The worst sufferers are the scheduled castes. The dalits are subject to untouchability and other forms of discrimination despite these being declared unlawful. The growing consciousness among the dalits for emancipation is sought to be met with brutal oppression and atrocities. The assertion by the dalits has a democratic content reflecting the aspirations of the most oppressed sections of society. The backward castes have also asserted their rights in a caste-ridden society.

“At the same time, a purely caste appeal which seeks to perpetuate caste divisions for the narrow aim of consolidating vote banks and detaching these downtrodden sections from the common democratic movement has also been at work. Many caste leaders and certain leaders of bourgeois political parties seek to utilise the polarisation on caste lines for narrow electoral gains and are hostile to building up the common movement of the oppressed sections of all castes. They ignore the basic class issues of land, wages and fight against landlordism, which is the basis for overthrowing the old social order.”

NN: Could you say something on the formation of the Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch (DSMM), its objectives, activities and campaigns?

SA: At the time of DSMM’s formation, strong anti-caste and anti-untouchability organisations and movements in which CPI(M) played an important and leading role already existed in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, united Andhra Pradesh and Tripura. The Hindi heartland was lagging behind, and therefore the DSMM was founded as an organisation fighting for Dalit rights and against Dalit oppression and atrocities against Dalits by joining hands with all Dalit organisations and democratic organisations. We have had limited success but it has been a positive development. It has to be taken forward in a big way. The Manuvadi policies of the BJP governments and their attack on and curtailment of Dalit rights have to be fought at every level, building the widest possible unity. DSMM has been active in standing in solidarity with those who were killed and arrested after the April Bandh in 2018. In BJP-ruled states UP, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan (ruled by BJP at that time) it was only DSMM and the CPI(M) that were seen standing with the Dalits who faced terrible violence and victimisation.

DSMM has also been supporting all the struggles of the working class and the peasantry after its formation. During the current farmers’ struggle, DSMM is making an effort in all the Hindi states to mobilise Dalit communities in support of the struggle.

Illustration by:- Nipin Narayanan

The story of a woman-dalit agricultural worker without formal education who rose up to be a leader of the communist movement

– Nitheesh Narayanan

On 24 January 1970, a group of goons of the Indian National Congress and other groups who were part of the then right-wing government of Kerala attacked KS Ammukkutty — a 36-year-old leader of the Kerala State Agricultural Workers Union. She was on her way, along with a few other women comrades, to the place in Alakkode, Kannur district, where communist leaders had come for a discussion with the local landlord during a militant land struggle. The goons lurking in the forest grabbed her by the hair and trampled her. Beaten all over the body, she was left unconscious. Many thought she would not survive. It took almost one year of intense care and treatment for Ammukkutty to return to normal life. “I was lying unconscious for many days. I could not move from bed for months. It pained throughout the body and it took six months for me to eat even a bun,” the 86-year-old Ammukkutty recalls. The injuries it caused lasted long, perhaps for a lifetime.

It was on the 24^th day of the Surplus Land Struggle called by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] along with the Karshaka Sangham (Kisan Sabha, or Peasant Union) and the Karshaka Thozhilaali Union (Agricultural Workers Union) that Ammukkutty was attacked. One month before, on 13^th and 14^th of December 1969, she had participated in a convention called by the agrarian movements at Alappuzha to announce a massive struggle to take over surplus land and distribute among the landless peasants and agricultural workers.  Prior to this conference, a procession of peasants and agricultural workers from three parts of Kerala had reached Alappuzha. Kerala’s second EMS Namboodiripad ministry (1967-69) had passed a bill which guaranteed land to all the landless peasants in the state. But the government had stepped down from power after having lost the majority in the legislative assembly, and the bill was pending on the table of the President of India for approval. In the Alappuzha convention, the leaders of the Agricultural Workers Union and the Peasant Union declared, ‘approved or not, the bill will be in force from January 1^st of 1970’. This became known as ‘The Alappuzha Declaration’.

Ammukkutty, who returned from Alappuzha to her region Alakkode — a hilly forested area in Kannur district — began preparations for the struggle with her comrades. Across Kerala, activists of the Agricultural Workers Union entered large areas of land held by landlords. Planting the red flags they kept with them on the surplus land they entered, the activists declared that the land belonged to the poor peasants and agricultural labourers. Ammukkutty and her comrades took over 56 acres of land which was under the authority of Alakkode Raja (king), the landlord. The leaders of the surplus land movement were brutally attacked across Kerala. At some places they could resist with stronger organisational capacity. But there were places like Alakkode where the Communist Party was in its nascent stage. KS Ammukkutty was one of the early workers of the Communist Party from that area. She was a threat to the right-wing. But Ammukkkutty was not someone who bowed down in the face of physical attacks. She emerged stronger and rose up to organise the agricultural workers across the state.

KS Ammukkutty is now 86 years old. She is called Ammukkuttiyechi, with ‘chechi’ (elder sister) added to her name, by everyone. Saddened by the way the world has been turned into due to the pandemic, Ammukkuttiyechi is at her departed sister’s house. Amidst a life among medicines and routine health check-ups, Ammukkuttiyechi loves to talk for long, to whoever visits her, about the old days when the oppressed were awakened. ‘Awakening of the Man’ was the title of the book by Godavari Parulekar — a stalwart communist leader who led the heroic Warli Struggle in the Warli Adivasi (tribal) region of Maharashtra.

Ammukutty was just 13 when her family migrated to Karthikapuram of Alakkode (in the then Malabar district) from Kottayam (in south-central Kerala) around late 1947. The Dalit family reached the hilly forested area after the Alakkode Raja offered them some land to settle down. Theirs was one of the early families that migrated to the region. There were around five migrant families settled there at that time. It was a predominantly Adivasi (tribal) settlement. Ammukkutty’s family lived in a bamboo shed, after clearing a small area of the Karthikapuram forest. Though they were offered land to cultivate, they were not given complete ownership of the land. The offer was under the condition that a share of whatever they produce will go to the landlord; and this share would be decided by the landlord, not the peasant. In short, poor migrant families like Ammukkutty’s remained almost as agricultural workers, not peasants who own land and produce enough to survive on their own.

Ammukkutty studied only till Standard 5, when her family was staying at Kottayam. She did not go school after coming to Malabar. Also, there was no school in that hilly region. Amidst extreme poverty and hunger, Ammukkutty also went along with her parents to work for the landlord. The work of one person would have added a little more to their earnings.

“I went to work due to starvation. We all had to earn in order to live. If there is no salt, we had to go to Chapparappadavu, which is kilometres away. Isn’t this a forest where elephants and other animals wander during the day time? We lived here, after clearing some forest area.  Hunger is important, right? And we used to earn a meagre amount of money from work.  So, we thought, if one another person also goes to work, it would add to our earnings.”

Going for work was also a very difficult and risky task that time. The labourers were forced to work continuously for 12 hours a day. When Amuukkutty recalls those days, we wonder how a 13 year old girl survived all those hardships!

“I had to go to work at seven in the morning. There is no work in case you reach one minute late. It lasted till evening seven o’ clock. It will be night by then.  In order to reach home, we had to walk through the forest. There was no electric torch. We used to walk holding the dress of the people walking in front of us holding the flambeau. Once we got trapped in front of an elephant. Luckily we escaped.”

Communist leaders used to come to those hilly areas from other parts of the district to organise the Adivasis. Once the migration had begun slowly, they also reached out to the migrant peasants and attempted to mobilise them against landlordism. Not all migrant families joined them. Many of them were given land by the landlords by evicting the Adivasis. Adivasis had no right over the land or on what they cultivate; they were subjected to extreme oppression. Pacheni Kunhiraman and AV Kunhambu were among the leaders who would come and call the peasants and agricultural workers to in front of some Adivasi hut for meetings. Since there was no transport facility, the leaders walked many kilometres to reach the area by foot. The leaders would stay at an Adivasi hut after the meetings as there was no option to return at night. In the meetings, the leaders would explain, in the Adivasis’ own languages and usages, the truth behind their hardships and reasons for why they are being exploited.

Some migrant families bought the land by paying the landlord and settled down. But the purpose behind giving land to poor immigrants was to exploit their labour. Ammukkutty’s family belonged to this section. Being at the bottom of the caste ladder, their condition was similar to that of Adivasis in terms of social status. And the extremely rigid landlordism ensured that there was no obvious difference between the poor peasants and agricultural labourers. Ammukkutty started working for the landlord at the age of 13, and began to understand the exploitation faced by poor peasants and workers, by virtue of being one among them. During that time, when the leaders of the Karshaka Sangham came to that area, she eagerly went to listen to them. She began to contemplate what they were saying, along with what she saw and experienced every day, and realised that whatever they were saying was true.

“I didn’t study political philosophies. It is my experience. Do you know how the conviction about the truth of that life came? The peasants who worked under the landlords and the exploitation they had to face; we also experienced a part of it. Our Pacheni [Kunhiraman], AV [Kunhambu] and [KKN] Pariyaram [leaders] came to the hill and explained, to the majority of Adivasis and handful of migrants while they leaned against the pillars of their huts, the need to form and organise a group of farmers. Then I thought, this is also my own direct experience. Since then, I have kept in my heart the belief that only my party can raise voice against those injustices. That belief will be there till my death.” Though none of her family members had any political background, Ammukkutty gradually became a communist, a warrior whose life was devoted to the liberation of the oppressed. 

The peasants were met with enormous exploitation by the landlord. There were oppressive taxes imposed on them. The landlord could grab anything from what a tenant cultivated. There was no need of any permission, and the peasant was not even informed. Many a time, the tenants were left with absolutely nothing after they pay the rent that is the landlord’s share. Faulty measurement by the agents of the landlord made the situation awful. The famers were subjected to huge debt, which made them even more subjugated to the landlord.  The plight of the agricultural workers was not any better; it could only be worse. They were forced to work from sunrise to sunset. The wage was very minimal, with which they could ensure only their physical existence. Most of them were Adivasis who were denied even the status of human beings. Poor peasants who could not survive with what they get after paying the lease amount to the landlord had to send their family members as well to work.  The workers were paid paddy once a week and chaama (millet) during the rest of the days. Male workers were given ¾ seer (about 0.92 kg), while female workers received half a seer (about 0.62 kg). However, if Friday or Tuesday turned out to be the days when the paddy had to be given as coolie, the workers received nothing. There was a reason. It was believed that paddy should not be taken from the Patthaayam (the large bin in which paddy was stored) in those particular days. It was believed that doing so would diminish the fortune of the Patthaayam. Therefore, during those days the workers returned without receiving any payment.

“Weren’t we the ones who filled the Patthaayam and brought fortunes? We did not know it then. Such a consciousness had not developed during those days,” Ammukkutty says. The first attempt was to bring them to a different consciousness that would not have to serve the interests of the oppressor. It was not easy to organise the peasants. There was already a consciousness among them that they were inferior to the land‘lord’. Therefore, the attempt was to break this notion and seed class consciousness in them through small meetings in which leaders spoke for long, explaining the oppression they were subjected to. The theory of class struggle was being inculcated to its warriors in their own language, and connecting it to their own lives. That was the universal applicability of the theory of class struggle.

“Gradually Karshaka Sangham activists were winning their demands one by one. The times had changed from a period when they had to drink porridge served in the pit beneath the courtyard of the landlord to that of getting the porridge at the yard itself. The next demand was to receive better food in the verandah of the house itself. And we achieved that too.” Ammukutty recalls how the organised agricultural workers, who hitherto used to live like slaves, started winning all their demands.

A major demand was to increase wages. For the first time, the agricultural workers began demanding better wages according to the work they were doing. Financial liability was a major factor which forced them to remain silent and be obedient to the landlords. It struck down all movements and any chance of upward mobility.

“What all struggles we had carried out demanding wage increase! There was a period of struggles when we didn’t even have time to sit or stand anywhere. What sorts of struggles! People’s marches, vehicle processions, dharnas (sit-in protests) in front of offices, etc. Each right is acquired step by step.”

The tenants also protested against oppressive taxes and kallappara — a fraudulent measurement system using which the landlords or their agents collected more paddy than the actual amount from the tenants. The tenants also began questioning various restrictions and threats targeting them. Ammukkutty, an agricultural worker since the age of 13, emerged as the leader of her class; a beloved comrade of the Adivasis and agricultural workers.

Both the Kerala Mahila Federation (Kerala Woman’s Federation) and the Kerala Karshaka Thozhilali Union (Kerala Agricultural Workers Union) were formed in 1967. Ammukkutty was part of both. She participated in the formation conference of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) which was held in Chennai in 1980. She was a district-level leader of the women’s movement.

One of the major campaigns of the Mahila Federation was for public distribution of the most essential goods. Food was the central concern. It took up other issues as well. For a woman, entry into public life was a difficult task. A lot of impediments awaited her in every step. Being a Dalit woman and an agricultural worker, she faced multiple challenges.

“The pressure and abuses of all social inequalities await women. What is the most difficult thing for women is that people always like to talk about and make fun of her chastity. This is seen as the easiest way to subdue her, both in family relationships and in politics. She would survive anything else. But this way of talking makes her exhausted.  Our women comrades felt extremely bad seeing and hearing such things. But they survive such difficult times through reading, public meetings, classes, camaraderie, and the like. Isn’t experience our teacher!”

“I had to travel day and night. On some days I had to sleep in party offices, and sometimes at the houses of different comrades all across Malabar. My movement stood with me, always,” says Ammukkuttiyechi. It was under the leadership of Ammukkutty that a women’s march was organised, for the first time in Kerala, to a police station. The march was in protest of police raping women at the Nehru Trophy ward in Alappuzha. Ammukutty was then the secretary of the Alakkode panchayat (village council) committee of the Mahila Federation.

Ammukkutty learned more than what years of formal education could teach one. “Experiences from the struggles for our rights, mobilising the downtrodden, and the senior party leaders — I gained my knowledge and consciousness from all these,” she says. Ammukkutty speaks of class struggle and class consciousness with extreme clarity and vigour. She gained rich knowledge through night study classes, party committee meetings, and reading Marxist literature available in Malayalam. “I am physically weak now, and troubled by illnesses. Still I cannot start my day without reading ‘Deshabhimani’ (the daily newspaper of the CPI(M)) in the early morning.”

The most significant struggle in the life of Ammukkutty is the one mentioned at the beginning of this article, the Surplus Land Struggle. The second communist ministry of Kerala passed an amended land reforms legislation which ensured land to all agricultural labourers and tillers in the state. The bill abolished both tenancy and landlordism. It gave the right to the agricultural worker to purchase his/her homestead land from the landowner on easy terms. It also conferred to the tenants the ownership of the land that they were cultivating. The bill gave the right to the government to take possession of the surplus land and to distribute it among tenants and landless agricultural labourers. But the Left government was toppled by a united front stitched together by the Congress party with an organised plan to prevent the implementation of the bill. The bill was before the president of the country to get approval. It was in this context that the Communist Party called for a two-day convention in Alappuzha following which a massive rally and public gathering of peasants and agricultural workers took place. Ammukkutty was a delegate to the convention. Important leaders of the communist movement in the country, including P Sundarayya, EMS Namboodiripad (EMS), AK Gopalan (AKG), and Hare Krishna Konar participated in the convention. In the public meeting, which saw the participation of around half a million people, AKG declared, “Whether the president gives his approval or not, we will claim our right for the land.” Thus the movement began on 1 January 1970.

“The party suggested that if any of those people who threw stones at this struggle, who became false witnesses against us, or who filed false cases against us do not own a piece of land, they should be given at least half an acre land from the surplus land we take over,” Ammukkutty remembers the call from the party leadership. The struggle went on for a few years, and most of the time Ammukkutty was bedridden following the brutal attack she was subjected to in the first month of the struggle itself. But, with unyielding spirit, she remained an inspiration to the movement throughout. “It was this struggle, the struggle for the right to land, that provided courage to the lakhs of agricultural labourers, who faced both social and economic oppression, to stand up,” she says.

No one from her family, including parents and siblings, visited Ammukkutty when she was bedridden. Her father said in pain and anger, “She was beaten up because she went there heeding the words of the scoundrels (the communists). I have never beaten her. Now she is getting beaten up by others.” 

“It was my comrades who treated me. Boys would stay at night to give me medicine and the women comrades would stay with me during daytime. I could not even digest a bun during the first six months. They did it consciously, targeting me.” Five decades have passed. But Ammukkutty remembers those days as if those incidents happened just yesterday. 

As soon as she regained her health, Ammukkutty started moving around with her comrades to build the movement further. She had also been in underground for two months, following the political witch hunt by the right-wing and the ruling classes. Nothing could stop her. She emerged stronger and stronger after every challenge she was met with. Ammukkutty became a district-level leader of the Kerala Agricultural Workers’ Union, and began going to different corners of Kannur district. Agricultural workers were mostly former ‘untouchables’, and in some areas many of them belonged to former slave castes. This explains the lethal pairing of social and economic oppression.

Ammukkutty was elected as the vice president of the Kerala Agricultural Workers Union. The organisation had grown to 1.2 million members by then (the early 1990s). In 1996, she was elected to the working committee of the All India Agricultural Workers’ Union (AIAWU) in the fourth all-India conference held at Khammam (then in Andhra Pradesh). Thus she rose to be a leader of two million agricultural workers enrolled in the union.  She remained in the supreme committee of the largest organisation of agricultural workers in the country for more than a decade before stepping down due to severe health issues which paralysed her movements. Currently Ammukkutty’s organisation has a membership of more than 7 million agricultural workers in the country.

Ammukkutty tells an interesting story about a member of the royal-landlord family she went to work for when she was young.

“There was a lord. On the third day of work, the lord said that the child is not in a position to work and therefore there is no need for her to come to work.  Still I did not stop going to work. Gradually I became as efficient a worker as my elders were.”

Captain Kerala Varma was the person who suspected that the child Ammukkutty could not work. He was a member of the Cochin royal family. He was married to the sister of the Alakkode Raja. He was not interested in living in royal comforts. He was the first one to join the military service from the Cochin royal family. He was dismissed in 1949 after seven years of service for alleged links to the Indian National Army (led by freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose) and the communists. He must have come to Alakkode in between.

“Let me proudly say one more thing. After many years, I think in the 1990s, a special convention of the agricultural workers union was being held at the Ernakulam town hall. EMS had come for it. The next day, when his photo appeared in the newspaper, I was seen sitting next to him. After seeing this, the lord came to the convention venue. He and his family were living in that district. He came to take me to their home. I couldn’t go due to organisational engagements. It never happened. He died about ten years ago”.

A few days after she was elected to the working committee of the AIAWU, Ammukkutty received a letter. It was from Captain Kerala Varma. “Comrade, I am proud more than anyone else that you were elected to the all-India leadership of thirteen and a half crore downtrodden people. I have the right for that [to be proud]”.

Ammukkutty travelled across Kerala while she was the state leader of the movement. She was in charge of building the organisation in Wayanad district, a region in Kerala with a large Adivasi population, for nine years. “I was asked by the state committee to supervise the union’s works in four districts — Kasaragod, Kannur, Wayanad and Kozhikode,” she recollects. At a time when there was no transport facility in most of the areas, she travelled from one place to another and from one district to another to invigorate the movement.

People used to ask, partly as a joke and partly in due seriousness, whether there is any house left in Kannur district where Ammukuttiyechi had not stayed. There were continuous journeys during the initial decades of the organisation from one place to another to mobilise and organise agricultural workers. There was no chance of getting back home on the same day during those times. Ammukkutty would stay at the house of some comrade of hers after the meeting, and then moved to the next meeting place the next day. “It was a period when our movement was in the initial stage. We had no time to either rest or to even go home. We also lacked money to conduct the activities, for travel, stay and so on. There was a time when two people shared one curry and ate rice,” she says.

“She fought different battles together. I remember working with her in the district committee of the agricultural workers union. A comrade who loved everyone, lived in simplicity and with extreme commitment to the cause. She was there in organisational meetings to guide the movement, and also in public meetings, with her simple way of speech to convince the people to rally together,” remembers MK Kunhappan, an 88 year-old communist who was a comrade of Ammukkutty in the movement of agricultural workers.

Ammukkutty was the candidate of the CPI(M) in the Panchayat elections of 1980. She contested to the Udayagiri panchayat in the first elections held after the formation of that panchayat. The beloved comrade Ammukkutty won with a stunning margin. This was repeated in the next election as well. The party also put her at the top of administrative bodies of cooperative institutions. She was a director of the Alakkode Cooperative Bank, and was in a leading role at the Karthikapuram Women’s Cooperative Society. 

Ammukkuttiyechi always reminds the new generation about the sacrifices of the communist martyrs who laid down their lives fighting the odds in society and for the betterment of the future generations. “We should also keep in our mind how did we become what we are now. People who sacrificed their lives in the streets, forests, fields and factories thought that the next generation should not go through such inhumane treatments.” She sounds even stronger as she says this.

“We used to talk politics, about our struggles and slogans, and about injustices in society in workplaces, bus waiting shelters, tea shops… wherever at least four people gathered. We must bring that habit back,” Ammukkuttiyechi tells the youngsters.

And she underlines for the communists of today: “The former generation was fighting the odds of that time. They made this place liveable for all. Keeping those in mind, we have to identify the challenges of our time, prepare slogans and launch struggles to overcome those.”

Comrade KS Ammukkutty is as contemporary as her vibrant past.

ঐশী ঘোষ — কেন্দ্রীয় কৃষি আইনের বিরোধিতায় ডাকা ছাত্র-যুবদের মিছিলে , মান্ডি হাউস ০৩/০২.২০২১ — ফোটোগ্রাফ সৌজন্য — সামীম আসগর আলী

তখনও মাস্ক পরে থাকা বাধ্যতামূলক হয়নি এ দেশের প্রতি প্রান্তরে। তখনও মুখ ঢেকে রাখা আবশ্যিক হয়নি মারণ ভাইরাসের হাত থেকে বাঁচতে। তাও হঠাৎ–ই বেশ কিছু মাস্ক পরিহিত লোকের উদ্ধত চলাফেরা্র ছবি  জে এন ইউ ক্যাম্পাসের –  বলা যেতে পারে ছবি ভিডিও সোশ্যাল মিডিয়াতে আসা মাত্রই তাজ্জব বনে যেতে হয় গোটা দেশবাসীকে। হাতে তাদের প্রত্যেকেরই লোহার রড, ক্রিকেট ব্যাট। তাদের আক্রমণাত্মক ভঙ্গি আমাদের অবাক করে। কোনো মারণ ভাইরাসের হাত থেকে রেহাই পেতে না – নিজেদের লজ্জাজনক কাজের থেকে মুখ লুকাতে মাস্ক পরে তারা এন্ট্রি নিয়েছিল এ দেশের অন্যতম যুক্তির চর্চাকেন্দ্র জওহরলাল নেহেরু বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের ক্যাম্পাস চত্বরে। নৃশংস আক্রমণ চালায় বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের ছাত্রছাত্রীদের উপর। ভাঙচুর চলে ক্যাম্পাসের মধ্যে – ইঁট কাঠ পাথরের বিল্ডিং দিয়ে ঘেরা এ ক্যাম্পাস কেবল ক্যাম্পাস না – নিজেদের ঘর। অনাহুত কিছু লোক সে ঘরে এসে হঠাৎ–ই ভেঙ্গে তছনছ করতে থাকে। এমন কি হস্টেল, লাইব্রেরিও ছাড় পায় না। টেলিভিশন মিডিয়া বা সোশ্যাল মিডিয়ার স্ক্রিনের এ পারে বসে আমরা অসহায় ভাবে  দেখতে থাকি ,শুনতে থাকি এক দল ছাত্রছাত্রীর  চিৎকার – কিন্তু এক পা পিছু হটে না অসভ্যদের হাত থেকে নিজের ক্যাম্পাসকে বাঁচানোর তাগিদে। দাঁতে দাঁত চিপে, রক্ত ঝরিয়ে নিজের ক্যাম্পাসকে আগলাবার প্রাণপণ বাঁচাবার চেষ্টা দেখি ওদের প্রত্যেকের দৃপ্ত চোখমুখে।  মাথা ফেটে রক্ত ঝরতে দেখি আমরা ঐ বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের এক পড়ুয়ার – বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের নির্বাচিত ছাত্রসংসদের প্রেসিডেন্টের – ঐশী ঘোষের। ফেসবুকে স্ক্রল করতে করতে আগের ছবি মনে না থাকলেও আমাদের মেমরি স্ক্রল করলে এখনো সেদিনের ঘটনা সেভ হয়ে আছে সবদিনের জন্য। আমাদের মনে আছে। মনে থাকবেও। ডিলিট করে দেওয়ার কোনো অপশন আমরা রাখিনি।  সেদিন কেবল একা ঐশী ঘোষ নয়, সেদিন এরকম অনেক ঐশী ঘোষ মিলে দেশের ছাত্র আন্দোলনের ইতিহাসের পাতায় নতুন একটা অধ্যায়ের ভূমিকা লিখতে থাকে নিজেদের রক্ত দিয়ে – ভারতীয় জনতা পার্টির মত একটি মনুবাদী কুসংস্কারে ভরা ধর্ম নিয়ে ভেদাভেদ করা একটি দক্ষিণপন্থী শক্তির বিরুদ্ধে ছাত্রদের লড়াই আন্দোলন। এ হেন শক্তির সাথে লড়াইয়ে কীভাবে সম্মুখ সমরে নামতে হয় তার জন্য প্রস্তুত হতে শেখায় এ বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের প্রগতিশীল ছাত্রছাত্রীরা।   

আমরা জানি, ভারতবর্ষের ইতিহাসে গণআন্দোলনে ছাত্রদের অগ্রণী ভূমিকা অনস্বীকার্য। অন্যান্য বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়গুলোর পাশাপাশি দিল্লির জওহরলাল নেহেরু বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের ছাত্রসংসদ নির্বাচনের প্রক্রিয়াতেও একটি সংগ্রামের ঐতিহ্য বহমান। JNUSU –র নির্বাচনে কর্তৃপক্ষের নূন্যতম ভূমিকা থাকে না। ছাত্রসংসদ নির্বাচনের শেষপর্বে জে এন ইউ তে রাত জেগে চলা presidential debate (প্রেসিডেন্সিইয়াল ডিবেট) বরাবরই দেশজোড়া আকর্ষণের কেন্দ্রবিন্দু। দেশ তথা আন্তর্জাতিক রাজনীতি, মানুষের গণতান্ত্রিক অধিকার রক্ষা,ভারতীয় শিক্ষাব্যবস্থার উপর নয়া উদারবাদী চেতনার হামলা প্রভৃতি এই বিতর্কের বিষয়বস্তুতে উঠে আসে।

স্বাধীনতা পরবর্তী সময়ে জে এন ইউ এর ছাত্র আন্দোলনের উপর নানাবিধ আক্রমণ হয়েছে এবং কেন্দ্রে ভারতীয় জনতা পার্টির বর্তমান সরকার আসার পর বিগত কয়েকবছর এই আক্রমণ অনেক বেশি তীব্রতা লাভ করেছে।বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় পরিচালনার প্রগতিশীল ধ্যানধারণা থেকে নির্বাচিত  ছাত্রসংসদের নেতৃত্ব সবই প্রত্যক্ষ বা পরোক্ষভাবে হামলার শিকার। ২০১৯ সালে অনুষ্ঠিত ছাত্রসংসদ নির্বাচনে ঐশী ঘোষ তার নিকটতম প্রতিদ্বন্দ্বী অখিল ভারতীয় বিদ্যার্থী পরিষদের (abvp) প্রার্থীকে বিপুল ভোটে পরাজিত করে ছাত্রসংসদের সভাপতি নির্বাচিত হন।এর অনিবার্য ফলশ্রুতিতে কেন্দ্রের ক্ষমতার অধীন দক্ষিণপন্থী সরকার ও তাদের অনুগামী এবং বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের কর্তৃপক্ষের চোখে এই নব নির্বাচিত ছাত্রসংসদ বিরাগভাজন হয় এবং ক্যাম্পাসের উপর তারা ব্যাপক আক্রমণ নামিয়ে আনে। 

২০২০ সালের ৫ ই জানুয়ারী ক্যাম্পাসে তখন ছাত্রসংসদের নেতৃত্বে অযৌক্তিক কোর্স ফি সহ অন্যান্য ফি বৃদ্ধির বিরুদ্ধে প্রতিবাদ চলছে, এমন সময়ে প্রকাশ্যে প্রায় দিনের আলো থাকতেই থাকতেই বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় ক্যাম্পাসে প্রবেশ করে মাস্কধারী (করোনা পূর্ববর্তী কালে) গুন্ডাবাহিনী। তাদের হাতে লোহার রড, লাঠি, ক্রিকেট ব্যাট।দিনের আলো থেকে অন্ধকার নেমে আসা পর্যন্ত তান্ডব চলে ভারতের প্রথিতযশা এই বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে।ছাত্রস্বার্থে এবং সর্বোপরি বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের অর্জিত সম্মান রক্ষার্থে ঐশী ও তার সহকর্মীরা বাধা দেন এই নৈরাজ্যের এবং গুরুতরভাবে আহত হন।

এ সাক্ষাৎকার ঐশী ঘোষের। এই সাক্ষাৎকারে ঐশী কথা বলেছেন শতরূপা চক্রবর্তীর সাথে তার ছাত্র রাজনৈতিক জীবন এবং ওঁর অভিজ্ঞতা নিয়ে ।

প্র : – আপনি কিভাবে ছাত্র রাজনীতি তে এলেন ?

উ : –  আমার জন্ম পশ্চিমবঙ্গের দুর্গাপুরে । আমি ছোট থেকেই একটা বামপন্থী রাজনৈতিক পরিমণ্ডলের মধ্যে বেড়ে উঠেছি । আমাদের দুর্গাপুরে ট্রেড ইউনিয়ন আন্দোলন খুবই শক্তিশালী ছিল ।  আমার বাবা বরাবর বামপন্থী রাজনীতির প্রতি সহানুভূতিশীল ছিলেন । আমি দেখেছি তাদের লড়াই । বাবার সাথেও আমার কথা হতো কিভাবে কেন্দ্রীয় সরকারের নীতি ট্রেড ইউনিয়ন আন্দোলনকে ক্ষতি  করছে এইসব নিয়ে ।

 এরপরে আমি স্নাতকস্তরের পড়াশুনো করতে দিল্লি বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের দৌলতরাম কলেজে আসি । এখানেই আমার দেশের উচ্চশিক্ষার হাল হকিকত নিয়ে প্রথম চাক্ষুষ অভিজ্ঞতা হয় । সরকার যদি শিক্ষাকে  সুলভ না করতে চায় তাহলে স্বাভাবিকভাবেই সেখানে দরিদ্র, আদিবাসী, দলিত, মহিলা, সংখ্যালঘু এইসব অংশ থেকে আসা মানুষরা উচ্চশিক্ষার সুযোগ পাবেন না, সুতরাং পুরো ব্যবস্থাটাই যে কিরকম একপেশে এবং বৈষম্যে ভরা তা আমার নিজের চোখে দেখা । হোস্টেল এর অভাব – একটা বিরাট সমস্যা ডি ইউ তে ।

আমি কলেজে পড়ার সময়ের দুটো অভিজ্ঞতার কথা বলবো। আমি তখনো সক্রিয় রাজনীতিতে আসিনি । একবার হঠাৎ ক্যাম্পাসে ছাদ ভেঙে পরে। ছাত্রদের স্বাভাবিক কারণেই খুব রাগ হয় এবং আমরা প্রতিবাদে আন্দোলন শুরু করি । এটা তো ছাত্রদের ন্যায্য দাবী । অবাক করার মতো বিষয় হল আমাদের ‘বামপন্থী‘ বলে ঘোষণা করে দেওয়া হলো । আরেকবার হঠাৎ করে ফী ৫,০০০ থেকে বাড়িয়ে ১৬,০০০ করে দেওয়া হলো । প্রশাসনের এইধরণের সিদ্ধান্ত যে শুধু স্নাতকস্তরের ছাত্রছাত্রীদের অসুবিধেয়  ফেলে তা নয় , স্নাতকোত্তর স্তরের পড়ুয়ারাও এর আওতায় আসেন । কোনো কলেজের ছাত্রদের তো ৩০,০০০ টাকা অব্দি বার্ষিক ফী দিতে হয়েছিল । ফী নির্ধারণে কলেজগুলো নির্বিচারে নিজেদের গা জুয়াড়ি করে এবং বিক্ষোভ জানাবার কোনো উপায় ডি ইউ তে নেই । ছাত্র সংসদ একেবারেই অচল। ছাত্রদের কোনো ন্যায্য দাবিদাওয়া নিয়ে তারা আন্দোলনে যেতে পারে না । আমাদের ভোট কেনার জন্য ডি ইউ এর দক্ষিণপন্থী ছাত্রসংগঠনের নেতৃত্ব ডোমিনোজ  থেকে পিৎজ্জা বা কে এফ সি থেকে খাবার খাওয়াতেও কোনোরকম কুন্ঠাবোধ করত না। এবং এই কাজগুলি তারা করত শুধু আমাদের ভোট কেনার জন্য।

কিন্তু ২০১৬ সালে যখন জে এন ইউ তে পড়তে এলাম, একটা আকাশ – পাতাল পার্থক্য অনুভব করলাম। বামপন্থী ছাত্র রাজনীতির একটা দীর্ঘ ইতিহাস থাকার জন্যে যে, ক্যাম্পাসটা ছাত্রদের অধিকার সম্পর্কে কতটা  সংবেদশীল হতে পারে সেটা নিজে না দেখলে বুঝতে পারতাম না । এখানে এসে, বিশেষত একজন মহিলা ছাত্র হিসেবে বলছি, একটা স্বাধীনতার আস্বাদন আছে। আমি যত রাতই হোক না কেন ক্যাম্পাসে প্রয়োজনে বেরোতে পারি। আমায় যদি আমার মেয়ে হওয়ার জন্যে কোনো ভেদাভেদের শিকার হতে হয়, আমি নির্দ্বিধায় আমার ছাত্র প্রতিনিধি কে যোগাযোগ করতে পারি । সেখানে কোথাও এটা ছোট সমস্যা বলে এড়িয়ে যাওয়ার প্রবণতা নেই । হ্যাঁ , এখন যারা প্রগতিশীল, বামপন্থী রাজনীতি করেন, তাদের কাছ থেকেই এটাই আশা করা যায় ।

বামপন্থীদের দ্বারা পরিচালিত আর ডানপন্থীদের দখলে থাকা ছাত্র সংসদের মধ্যে তফাৎ টা যে কতটা গভীর আর তীব্র, সেটা নিজে না দেখলে বুঝতে পারতাম না । এবং আমার মনে হয় যে ডি ইউ বা জে এন ইউ এর বাইরেও সারা দেশের ক্ষেত্রেই এটা সত্যি । ছাত্রাবস্থায় যারা রাইট–উইং রাজনীতির সাথে জড়িত হন অনেকেই শুধুমাত্র নিজের রাজনৈতিক ভবিষ্যতের কথাটা মাথায় রাখেন ।

প্র : – জে এন ইউ তে বামপন্থী রাজনৈতিক পরিমণ্ডলের কথা, আপনার নিজের অভিজ্ঞতা এগুলো যদি আরেকটু বলেন ?

উ : –  আমার মতে  ছাত্র রাজনীতির বা ছাত্র আন্দোলনের অন্যতম মূল লক্ষ্য হলো ক্যাম্পাসে একটা গণতান্ত্রিক পরিবেশ গড়ে তোলা। একমাত্র তাহলেই আমরা সুনিশ্চিত করতে পারবো যে সব অংশের প্রতিনিধিত্ব রয়েছে ক্যাম্পাসে। জে এন ইউ তে সেই আন্দোলনের দীর্ঘ চল্লিশ বছরের লড়াইয়ের একটা ইতিহাস আছে । আমাদের ছাত্র সংসদের  নির্বাচন প্রক্রিয়াই তার একটা উদাহরণ। পুরো নির্বাচনটাই পরিচালনা করেন ছাত্রদের দ্বারা নির্বচিত কমিটি । আমাদের লড়াই আন্দোলনের সিদ্ধান্ত নেওয়ার প্রক্রিয়াটিও খুবই গণতান্ত্রিক। এখানে একদম নিচের স্তর থেকে জি বি মিটিং করা হয় । আমরা যখন ছাত্রদের প্রতিনিধিত্ব করি তখন ছাত্রদেরও অধিকার থাকা উচিত তাদের মতামত প্রকাশের । এখানে ডিবেট এবং ডায়ালগ এর একটা স্বাস্থ্যকর পরিবেশ রয়েছে । ক্যাম্পাসে আমরা সব সংগঠন আমাদের কথা বলার মাধ্যম হিসেবে একটা হাতিয়ার পোস্টারিং কে ব্যবহার করে থাকি। পুরো ক্যাম্পাসটাই পোস্টারে ঢাকা থাকে যার মধ্যে দিয়ে আমরা আমাদের রাজনৈতিক কথা, সংগঠনের মতাদর্শের কথা, আমাদের দাবিদাওয়ার কথা বলি। আপনারা হয়তো জে এন ইউ র ধাবা culture এর কথা শুনেছেন । এখানে অনেকগুলি ধাবা রয়েছে যেগুলো অনেক রাত অব্দি খোলা থাকে। সেখানে সব অংশের ছাত্ররা নানান রকমের আলাপ আলোচনা করেন । অনেক ছাত্রের ক্ষেত্রেই এইরকম space গুলো খুবই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ হয়ে ওঠে যেখানে তারা হয়তো প্রথমবার কোনো প্রগতিশীল রাজনৈতিক মতাদর্শের কথা শোনেন ।

ঠিক ততটাই গুরুত্বপূর্ণ হলো এই ক্যাম্পাস এর গণতান্ত্রিক প্রতিষ্ঠানগুলোর অস্তিত্ব। সেরকমই একটি কমিটি হলো জেন্ডার সেন্সিটাইজেশন কমিটি , যে কমিটি যে কোনো ধরণের সেক্সুয়াল হ্যারাসমেন্ট এর ঘটনার বিরুদ্ধে লড়াই করে এবং লিঙ্গবৈষম্যের বিরুদ্ধে লড়াই করে। এ নিয়ে সচেতনতা গড়ে তোলার চেষ্টা করে। জি এস ক্যাশে  ছাত্র, শিক্ষক , কর্মচারী সব অংশের প্রতিনিধিরাই ছিলেন। ক্যাম্পাসে নতুন ছাত্ররা এলে নানারকম জেন্ডার সেন্সিটাইজেশন workshop করা হতো । এই প্রতিষ্ঠানের  অস্তিত্ব কিন্তু অন্য যেকোনও ক্যাম্পাস এর সাথে ফারাক বুঝতে সাহায্য করে, বিশেষত ডি ইউ র সাথে । ওখানে সন্ধ্যে ৬টার পরে বেরোতে অস্বস্ত্বি হতো , অথচ জে এন ইউ তে কোনোদিন ভাবতেই হয়নি ।

২০১৭ র ১৮ ই সেপ্টেম্বর হঠাৎ করে প্রশাসন জি এস ক্যাশ কে সরিয়ে ইন্টারনাল কমপ্লেইন্টস কমিটি (আই সি সি ) নাম একটা কমিটি বসায় । এটি আদ্যন্ত প্রশাসন দ্বারা পরিচালিত একটি কমিটি যার সাথে ক্যাম্পাসের গণতান্ত্রিক আন্দোলনের কোনো যোগ নেই । সঙ্গত কারণেই মহিলারা একেবারেই উৎসাহিত বোধ করেন না আই সি সি তে তাদের অভিযোগ জানাতে । ঠিক সেই সময় একটি স্কুল এ আট জন মহিলা গবেষক একজন প্রভাবশালী অধ্যাপকের বিরুদ্ধে যৌন হেনস্থার অভিযোগ আনেন। আই সি সি সেই অধ্যাপককে পূর্ণ রূপে shield করে। এটা একটা উদাহরণ যে গণতান্ত্রিক উপায়ে যদি ক্যাম্পাস না চলে তাহলে ছাত্রস্বার্থ  বিরোধী কার্যকলাপ চালানো কতটা সহজ হয়ে যায় ।

জে এন উ ছাত্র-সংসদের ডাকা ‘শিক্ষা বাঁচাও’ মার্চ, ১২/০৮/২০২০ — ফোটোগ্রাফ সৌজন্য অজানা

প্র : – আপনি ইন্টারভিউয়ের শুরুতে ফী বৃদ্ধির কথা বলছিলেন । আপনি নিজে জে এন ইউ এস ইউ এর প্রেসিডেন্ট হিসেবে ফী বৃদ্ধির আন্দোলনে নেতৃত্ব দিয়েছেন এবং আমরা দেখেছি ২০২০ সালের ৫ই জানুয়ারী ক্যাম্পাসের ওপরে হামলাও হয় । যদি একটু বলেন ?

উ: – ফী বৃদ্ধি শুধু ভারতবর্ষের শিক্ষা প্রতিষ্ঠানগুলোতে সীমাবদ্ধ নয় । বিশ্বজোড়া নয়াউদারনীতিবাদের পরিণাম হচ্ছে এটা । ল্যাটিন আমেরিকার চিলিতে এর বিরুদ্ধে লড়াই  আর দক্ষিণ আফ্রিকার ‘ফী মাস্ট ফল‘ আন্দোলনের কথা তো আমাদের জানা। আসলে স্বাস্থ্য , শিক্ষা , প্রবীণদের যত্ন এসব sector গুলোই আজ ধুঁকছে । একটা সমাজ কতটা গণতান্ত্রিক বা প্রগতিশীল তা বোঝা যায় এসব সেক্টরগুলোর প্রতি রাষ্ট্রের দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি দেখলে ।

শিক্ষাক্ষেত্রের যাতে ফী কম থাকে, যাতে করে সংখ্যাগরিষ্ঠ ছাত্ররা উচ্চশিক্ষায় আসতে পারেন তার দাবিতে লড়াই আমাদের দেশে অনেকদিন ধরেই চলছে । জে এন ইউ তে প্রত্যেক সেমিস্টারে ২৮৩ টাকা ফী নেওয়া হয় । এর ফলে আমার মত একটা বিরাট অংশের মানুষ যাদের বেশি টাকা দিয়ে পড়ার ক্ষমতা নেই, তারা পড়তে পারেন । এটা শুধুমাত্র টিউশন ফী নয় , এর থেকে হোস্টেল এবং লাইব্রেরি ইত্যাদি সুযোগ সুবিধেও জড়িয়ে আছে । কম খরচে পড়াশুনো, থাকার ব্যবস্থা একটা বড়ো কারণ যার জন্য বিভিন্ন সামাজিক অবস্থান  থেকে আসা এবং বিভিন্ন ভাষাভাষীর ছাত্ররা এই প্রতিষ্ঠানটিতে পড়েন ।

উপরন্তু বৃত্তি এবং ফেলোশিপও পড়াশোনা এগিয়ে নিয়ে যেতে সাহায্য করে। এটা কিন্তু কোনো সরকারি দোয়া নয় । এটা আমাদের দেশের পিছিয়ে পড়া অংশের অধিকারের প্রশ্ন ।তাই যখন জে এন ইউ প্রশাসন হঠাৎ করে ফী বৃদ্ধির সিদ্ধান্ত ঘোষণা করে, স্বাভাবিক কারণেই ছাত্রসংসদ থেকে আমাদের আন্দোলনে যেতে হয় । শিক্ষকরাও আমাদের সঙ্গে ছিলেন । সরকার যদি শিক্ষাকে পণ্য হিসেবে বিক্রি করতে চায় তাহলে সেটা তো গণতন্ত্রেরই হত্যা ।

প্র: – বৈজ্ঞানিক দৃষ্টিভঙ্গির বিকাশ ও গবেষণার প্রতি বর্তমান সরকারের দৃষ্টিভঙ্গিকে আপনি কিভাবে দেখেন ?

উ : – বিজেপি সরকারের আমলে যুক্তি এবং বৈজ্ঞানিক দৃষ্টিভঙ্গির প্রতি সব থেকে তীব্র আক্রমণ হয়েছে । মিথ্যাচার, অযৌক্তিক মনোবৃত্তি এবং ভ্রান্ত ধারণাকে ইতিহাস বলে প্রচার করতে এদের জুড়ি নেই । তলায় রামমন্দির আছে বলে প্রচার করে বাবরি মসজিদ ধংস করার ইতিহাস তো আমাদের জানা ।

বর্তমান সরকারের অনেক নির্বাচিত প্রতিনিধি থেকে শুরু করে মন্ত্রীরা যেসব বিবৃতি দিয়ে চলেছেন সেটা অবাক করার মতন । কেউ বলছেন গরুর গায়ে হাত বোলালে ক্যান্সার ঠিক হয়ে যায় তো কেউ গোমূত্রকে সব রোগের  ওষুধ বলে দাবি করছেন । অশ্বিনী কুমার চৌবে — যার অধীনে আয়ুর্বেদ, যোগ, ন্যাচারোপ্যাথী , হোমিওপ্যাথি ইত্যাদি সব গুরুত্বপূর্ণ বিভাগ রয়েছে, তিনি এটা দাবি করলেন। অযুক্তি এবং অন্ধবিশ্বাসের বিস্তার একটা গভীর চিন্তার বিষয় । অথচ বৈজ্ঞানিক গবেষণা যারা করছেন এখন আমাদের দেশে, তারা আর্থিক অনুদান থেকে ল্যাবরেটরি সংক্রান্ত নানান সমস্যায় জর্জরিত। কয়েক বছর আগে বিজ্ঞানীরাও আন্দোলনে নামেন ফান্ড এর দাবিতে।

আসলে এরা যেকোনো রকম বিজ্ঞানভিত্তিক গবেষণাকেই ভয় পায়। কারণ সেটা যদি ঠিক থাকে তাহলে এদের মুখোশ খুলে পরে যাবে। সমাজ বিজ্ঞান সংক্রান্ত গবেষণা তো আরো ক্ষতিগ্রস্থ ও উপেক্ষার শিকার হয়েছে এ সময়পর্বে। অথচ তথ্যনির্ভর গবেষণায় আমরা দেখেছি যে আমাদের স্বাধীনতা আন্দোলনের লড়াইয়ে আরএসএস এর কোনো ভূমিকা ছিলো না। বরঞ্চ তাদের ইতিহাসটা হলো আপোষের ইতিহাস। ধুঁকতে থাকা সমাজ বিজ্ঞান, বিশেষত ইতিহাস চর্চা সব সময় দক্ষিণপন্থী রাষ্ট্রের প্রচারযন্ত্রকে মদত যোগায়।

আমি যখন M.Phil করতে আসি ৫,০০০ টাকা মাসিক অনুদান পেতাম। এরমধ্যে হোস্টেলে মাসে ৩০০০ টাকা বিল দিতে হতো। হাতে ২০০০ টাকা নিয়ে বাকি মাস চালাতে হত গবেষণার খরচ সমেত। আমাদের রিসার্চের জন্য প্রয়োজনীয় অনেক জার্নাল ইউনিভার্সিটি সাবস্ক্রাইব করে না। লাইব্রেরিতেও অনেকে সময় সব বইপত্র পাওয়া যায়না। এটা দেশের অন্যতম নামী শিক্ষা প্রতিষ্ঠানের অবস্থা।

ছাত্র-সংসদ নির্বাচন—মনোনয়ন দাখিল করার পর মিছিল, ২০১৯ —- ফোটোগ্রাফ সৌজন্য—- অমিত কুমার

প্র: – ৫ই জানুয়ারির আক্রমণের ঘটনা কি ভাবে স্মরণ করবেন ?

উ : – ওই একটি দিনের কথা বলার আগে আমি কিভাবে জে এন ইউ এর ওপরে বিগত কয়েক বছর ধরে একটা সামগ্রিক আক্রমণ চলছে তা একটু বলতে চাই। পুরো বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের ওপরেই একটা দমনমূলক আচরণ দেখানো হয়েছে বারে বারে। ২০১৬ সালে শুরু হয় আরএসএস এবং বিজেপির সংগঠিত আক্রমণ – ‘shut down JNU ‘ তারই একটা উদাহরণ। পুরো একটা ইউনিভার্সিটিকে ‘anti- national’ বলে প্রচার করে দেওয়া যে কতটা নিষ্ঠুর হতে পারে তা আমরা প্রত্যক্ষ করেছি। এরই সাথে বলতে চাইবো হায়দ্রাবাদ সেন্ট্রাল ইউনিভার্সিটির কথা। আমাদের কোনো দ্বিধা থাকা উচিত নয় রোহিত ভেমুলার মৃত্যুকে একটা প্রাতিষ্ঠানিক হত্যা বলতে। আসলে এই সরকার চায় না বিরুদ্ধ কোনো কন্ঠস্বর থাকুক এবং উচ্চশিক্ষার প্রতিষ্ঠানগুলোতে রোহিতের মতন সামাজিক অবস্থান থেকে ছাত্ররা পড়তে আসুক।

এবারে আসি ৫ই জানুয়ারির কথায়। ওটা হয়েছিল আরএসএস এবং সরকার এর উদ্যোগে। স্পষ্ট মদত যোগায় ক্যাম্পাসের প্রশাসন আর দিল্লি পুলিশ। আসলে উদ্যেশ্য ছিল ফী বৃদ্ধির বিরুদ্ধে আমাদের যে আন্দোলন চলছিল তার থেকে দৃষ্টি ঘোরানো। একরকম  দিল্লি পুলিশ আর প্রশাসনের হেফাজতে ক্যাম্পাস ঢোকে মুখোশধারী জে এন ইউ – এবিভিপি এবং আরএসএস এর গুন্ডারা। তারা একইভাবে বিজয় উল্লাস করতে করতে বেরোয় ইউনিভার্সিটি চত্বরের বাইরে। এর সঙ্গে জড়িত হয় সরকারি মদতপুষ্ট মিডিয়ার কারসাজি। মুহূর্তের মধ্যে প্রচার শুরু হয়ে যায় যে বামপন্থী ছাত্র সংগঠনগুলি ক্যাম্পাসে হিংসার পরিবেশ তৈরি করছে।

কিন্তু এটা কোনো বিচ্ছিন্ন ঘটনা নয়। এই আন্দোলনের শুরু থেকেই বহুবার শারীরিক আক্রমণ নামানো হয়েছে আমাদের ওপরে। আমরা যে ‘লং মার্চ‘ করেছিলাম ক্যাম্পাস থেকে HRD মিনিস্ট্রির উদ্দেশ্যে, সেখানেও দিল্লি পুলিশ একইরকম ভাবে ছাত্রদের পেটায়।

প্র: – এই ঘটনা আপনাকে ব্যক্তিগতভাবে কিভাবে প্রভাবিত করেছে ? এবং ভবিষ্যতে ছাত্র আন্দোলনের নেতা ও রাজনৈতিক কর্মী হিসেবে আপনি নিজে কোথায় দেখেন ?

উ : – আমাকে লোহার রড দিয়ে মারা হয়েছিল। হ্যাঁ, ভয় তো লেগেছিলো। আমাকে হসপিটালে ভর্তি করা হয়। প্রচুর হুমকি এবং অশালীন কথাবার্তাও বলা হয়। বিচলিত হয়েছিলাম। কিন্তু একইসাথে প্রচুর মানুষ সহানুভূতি আর ভালোবাসা জানান। সেসব আমায় লড়াইয়ে এগিয়ে যাওয়ার সাহস যোগায়। কিন্তু আমি এটাও বলতে চাই যে জে এন ইউ দিল্লিতে অবস্থিত হওয়ায় খবর দ্রুত পৌঁছায়। আমাদের দেশের অনেক শিক্ষা প্রতিষ্ঠানে রোজ হামলা হচ্ছে। সব খবর আমরা পাইনা। কিন্তু আমরা একে অন্যকে অনুপ্রাণিত করছি । এই লড়াইয়ে আমরা কেউই একা নয়।

আর রাজনীতিতে আসার আগের আমি আর এখনকার আমির মধ্যে অনেক তফাৎ। শুধু একজন রাজনৈতিক কর্মী হিসেবে নয়, মানুষ হিসেবেও আমি আজ অনেক সমৃদ্ধ। আমি নিশ্চিত যে আমার ভবিষ্যতের রাজনৈতিক জীবন গণআন্দোলন থেকে অনেক কিছু শিখবে।

Aishe Ghosh raising slogans at the students-youth protest at Mandi House, Delhi, against the central farm laws on 03/02/21. Picture Credits: Samim Asgor Ali.

How did you become a part of the students’ movement? What drew you to student politics?

I am from Durgapur in West Bengal. I grew up in a place where I witnessed left politics from my childhood onwards. My father was sympathetic to left politics, and I used to talk to him about politics and government policies that affected our lives. Unions played a major role in Durgapur, so I got to see them in action. This provided the backdrop to my own direct experience with unions and political activity.

I came to Delhi to study at Daulat Ram College. There, I understood what it meant to have a union and the importance of unionisation for students. Things that appear to be unrelated to politics – such as fees, the syllabi of our courses, and our accommodation – began to appear to me as indeed very political. How much students must pay to study is not an apolitical decision; it rests on the values of the government. In a capitalist society, education becomes a commodity; but in a truly democratic society, education should be free. Even the question of accommodation is a political matter. Lack of concern for the living conditions of students shows disregard, by the government and by the college administration, for the well-being of students. In private colleges, where education is fully commodified, students are treated like consumers, and education is a commodity that is bought by the highest paying consumers. Isn’t the government complicit in this commodification when it starts withdrawing from the task of providing education?

If everything is determined by politics, I learned, my participation in politics becomes essential. It is in the realm of politics that issues such as fees and living conditions, the syllabus and the orientation of study are debated. I joined politics to take my views forward, and to work to make things better.

Unions give their members a platform to raise their voices. We have found in our experience that if students want to raise issues that trouble them, there is no substitute for a students’ union. The same goes for workers, who need workers’ unions, and for teachers, who need teachers’ unions. Each section has its own set of issues, its own demands. These unions are places where students, workers, and teachers raise their issues, which are then – in discussion – further developed. It is important that students’ unions support teachers’ demands, and that teachers’ unions support student demands. This solidarity is important.

You have been a student at both Delhi University and at Jawaharlal Nehru University. What has been your experience of student politics in both these universities, and how do they differ?

My college in Delhi University – Daulat Ram College – was not affiliated to the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU). But I did experience the work of the DUSU in colleges affiliated to it. DUSU has been mostly dominated by right wing student organisations, such as the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Students did not see their representatives, nor did the representatives hear from the students – except during the period of the election campaign. During elections, right-wing student organisations would come to us to distribute chocolates or to give us treats from Domino’s Pizza or Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). This was to buy votes. Their interest was to win elections, not to work for the students.

In our college, there was an incident when the ceiling fell. This should have provoked general outrage, since it could have seriously hurt the students. When we raised this issue in a protest, we were immediately branded as ‘Leftists’. A similar process took place when we protested the sudden rise of our annual fees from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 16,000. These escalating fees affect not only undergraduates but also masters’ students, who – in some colleges – have to pay as much as Rs. 30,000. There is no uniformity in the fee structure. There is also no mechanism to hear the grievances of students when these fees are arbitrarily raised. Even these basic demands – for better living conditions and for reasonable fees – evoked from the right-wing student organisations and the administration the idea that we are somehow dangerous students. The union did not come to ask us about our problems, nor did they lead any protests. It was the college students who protested against administrative policy, not the union led by a right-wing student’s organisation. Their entire focus is on winning elections, by hook or by crook.

Things were very different in JNU. I got there in 2016. The Jawaharlal Nehru University Student’s Union had a totally different culture. It is not merely a vehicle for students to win elections and then have ambitions for higher office. The point of the JNUSU is to work for the good of the students, from minor to major issues. The JNUSU gets involved not only to fight fee hikes, but also in issues such a defective tap in a bathroom. Each of these issues must be addressed by the union because each of them impacts students. The union has to make it possible for students to study without hindrance – if you cannot bathe or you cannot afford to finish your degree, you are being adversely impacted by administrative inaction (in the case of the tap) or action (in the case of the fees).

One of the key problems in any university campus is safety, particularly for women students. If I feel uncomfortable going about my business on campus at night, and if I face any sexist behaviour, I have always felt that it was my right to approach any office-bearers of the union. Of course, the Left office-bearers are more sympathetic because they have a greater commitment to gender equality.

 The sharp contrast between the two streams of politics – the right and the left – can be seen in Delhi University and in Jawaharlal Nehru University, as well as in universities across India. In JNU, thanks to the left culture of politics, the student organisations of the left work amongst the students and raise student demands before the administration. In Delhi University, on the other hand, right-wing student organisations whose leaders are only interested in their individual careers are dominant.

You mention the left culture of politics in JNU. How significant is left culture in shaping campus life in JNU?

Democracy is about people. Democratic institutions must be able to represent the voices of all people. For that, a democratic culture is necessary, a culture of debating, listening, courteousness and conviviality. For us, a university must be a place to incubate the culture of democracy. That is what the history of JNUSU has been – to model a form of democracy for a university campus. The JNUSU sees all those who live and work in the campus – the students, the teachers, the non-teaching staff, the workers, the families of the teachers – as ‘citizens’ of the university.

The democratic institutions in JNU shape the character of the university. We have a student-run Election Committee to conduct our students’ union elections. This makes an enormous difference to our confidence in our election process. This year [2019], the administration interfered with our elections – it was a clear-cut attempt to shape the outcome of the elections.  But despite pressures and harassment, our Election Committee stood firm and did not surrender to the administration. They upheld the student mandate. This demonstrates to the students that our democratic institutions should be protected, and that they are the backbone of our campus democracy.

The culture of JNU includes the dhaba culture. Dhabas are roadside teashops, and the dhabas in JNU are spaces where students – and others – sit and talk, even through the night. Here we discuss everything – from our intellectual lives to our student lives to our political world. Sometimes even the teachers join us. Ideology of course plays a role in our discussions, but this dhaba culture is very open to all views. It is like the Greek agora: a meeting place of minds to learn from each other and to push each other in a progressive direction. Democracy needs such places of interaction. JNU also has the poster and parcha (leaflet) culture, where our different student organisations put out our competing views on the walls and in leaflets to educate other students about the issues before us. If you don’t have something like the poster and parcha culture, you do not have a way for students to transmit their ideas to each other. These posters and parchas are the newspapers of an Indian university campus. If you can’t sit and talk or if you can’t distribute a parcha, you cannot pretend to have a democratic culture.

Thanks to the now over four-decade efforts of the JNUSU, we had a healthy culture on campus where students had the space to discuss things with each other, and to disagree with our teachers too. Part of this culture was the creation and strengthening of important student institutions. One of them is General Body Meetings, where everyone can come and make their arguments, criticise the elected union representatives, and debate and discuss the issues of the day. This sort of General Body Meeting strengthens the union. It strengthens democracy. It prevents the union from becoming a bureaucratic group that merely works with the administration. We represent the students, so the students must have the right to be part of our deliberations.

One of the most important institutions in our campus was the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH), which had among their members student representatives, teachers’ representatives, and individuals from outside who are experienced in assisting women in cases of sexual harassment. As a student at Delhi University, I used to feel unsafe while walking on the campus roads after 6 pm. This was despite the various top-down attempts by the college through curfews and so on to create a safe environment. At JNU, however, I never had to think of my safety, even if I were on the roads at midnight. The existence of GSCASH made me feel secure that the students had either committed themselves to a non-sexist campus or that GSCASH would help students who were not prepared to make such a commitment. GSCASH ran sensitisation programmes to help students understand how to make the campus non-sexist. From my very first weeks at JNU, I felt that a sense of security prevailed because the students and teachers – through our own institutions such as GSCASH – worked to create a campus environment that did not allow anti-social behaviour against women.

All of a sudden, the present university administration decided to replace GSCASH with a new system – the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC). This Committee is not democratically run, but administration-run, and as a consequence of ICC not being part of the democratic culture of the university, there has been a deterioration of faith in the institution and a weakening of democracy in our campus. No woman feels comfortable to go and register a complaint with the ICC because of the way that the administration-run body has functioned. There was a case of sexual harassment by a faculty member. Eight complaints against him were filed with the ICC during March 2018. The courts said that he cannot enter the laboratory, and that the university must find new supervisors for the students who registered the complaint. But the ICC shielded the faculty member. This is a good example of the slow demise of the democratic culture in the campus. When we had GSCASH, we felt we could file complaints and that the student representatives would make sure to address them in a collegial manner. Now there is no-one taking the students seriously, and the students have no faith in the newly formed administration-run institution. This is one important example of why we need to safeguard these precious institutions and work to strengthen the democratic culture of our universities.

JNUSU’s march to Save Public Education on 12/08/20; Picture Credits- unknown

One of the points you raised in the beginning is the issue of fees. As the JNUSU president you led the anti-fee hike movement in JNU, which culminated in the violent attack against you and other protesting students on 5 January 2020. Could you tell us why you believe that the issue of fees is so significant?

The issue of fees is not only restricted to India. There have been protests from Chile to South Africa. In fact, in South Africa a few years ago, there were protests known as ‘Fees Must Fall’. Students were saying that they could not remain students if the fees were raised. Education, health care, and the care of the elderly are important indicators of the overall culture of a society. To make them unaffordable to large sections of society is to undermine our commitment to basic values of decency and progressiveness.

Students in India have long demanded an affordable fee structure so that pursuing higher education is not just the dream of the few, but that it can become a reality for the many. Most of us who do not come from affluent backgrounds cannot afford to pay high fees to get our advanced degrees. JNU’s fee structure – with a two eighty-three-rupee fee – provides a model. This modest fee is not only for the tuition, but it pays for a range of hostel and library facilities as well as other essential parts of student life. This affordable fee is one of the main reasons why JNU attracts students from diverse backgrounds including from marginal and vulnerable sections, and why the composition of students in the university is not confined to the upper class that can afford high fees. To get a PhD degree from an internationally renowned university without burdening our parents is possible for most students of JNU because of the affordable fee structure.

Alongside the affordable fee structure are stipends and other research fellowships that are important to students. To draw in students from different – particularly marginalised – backgrounds should not be seen as a gift to such students. It must be seen as an attempt to create a richer democracy in our society. When people from marginalised backgrounds get access to education, they articulate the problems of discrimination that they face.

When the JNU administration changed existing rules and arrogated to itself the right to arbitrarily increase fees without consulting the students’ or teachers’ bodies, we in the JNUSU initiated the anti-fee hike movement. The movement was to ensure that higher education stays affordable to the many students who come from diverse backgrounds to the campus. It was to ensure that the campus stays representative of the diversity of the country, unlike those institutions with very high fees.

The government is trying to destroy the affordable fee structure and the stipends as part of an overall neo-liberal attack on social spending. The government wants to turn education into a commodity. To buy and sell education is to ignore the rich culture of democracy created on our campuses. This culture of democracy is the JNU model. We have to fight to assert our right to an education, which includes this culture of democracy.

How do you view the present government’s attitude towards scientific enquiry and research?

Logical reasoning and scientific temper have been severely attacked by the BJP government. They want to replace these approaches to thinking with falsehoods, with irrationality, and with myths. There are open attempts to replace history with mythology. This began decades ago with the debate around Babri Masjid, the 16^th century mosque in Ayodhya, which the majoritarian communal right-wing claimed was built on an ancient temple. Facts were irrelevant. The point was to shout loudly and make your scream into reality.

Ministers in the current government have been making ludicrous remarks about medicine, such as ‘if you put your hand on a cow, you will be cured from cancer’, or ‘cow urine can cure most diseases’. It is perfectly legitimate to study the cow for the purpose of science, but this is not the purpose of the government of India’s Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH), whose minister – Ashwini Kumar Choubey – believes cow urine can cure everything. His conclusions come before any studies. This is one more example of the growth of unreason, and it demeans the legitimate work of scientists who are working on cures for ailments of all kinds. This is a serious problem. It is part of the larger weakening of legitimate scientific research. Those who do scientific research in India often do not have laboratories and funds for their experiments. Last year, scientists went out to protest this policy of starving them of funds. Meanwhile a government minister mocked mathematics and gravity. This is their attitude to the essential work of science and scientific inquiry. They have an anti-science attitude.

The BJP government sees research as a threat. Part of this threat is to its own ideology. Over the years, serious social science research has uncovered, for example, the history and agenda of the BJP’s parent organisation: the fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). This research has shown that the RSS had no significant role in the freedom struggle, that it had strong ties to Italian fascist movements, and that it has been party to terrible anti-social riots for its almost hundred-year existence. If more research is done on the RSS, more will be uncovered. The government prefers a mythology of the RSS than a history; it can control the former, while the latter can expose it. Starving social science and history and feeding mythological studies gives this government an advantage in the battle of ideas.

I got a fellowship of Rs. 5000 per month to pursue my M. Phil. My hostel bill came to around Rs. 3000 per month. This left me with Rs. 2000. This has to include my expenditure for research. Not a single academic journal specific to my research is available at the university library. How is a student supposed to conduct research when neither the library has the basic materials, nor does the fellowship allow her to buy them with such a meagre amount of money? This is JNU, one of the most renowned universities in India. The situation is worse elsewhere.

This government – it seems – has specially targeted JNU. Why do you think this vicious targeting on JNU is launched?

The JNU students’ movement always fought for student issues, but never confined itself to student issues alone. We raise our voices against a range of oppression and exploitation, and thereby question those in power. Between 1975 and 1977, when the Indian government declared an Emergency and suspended fundamental rights provided by the Indian Constitution, JNU students courageously fought for civil liberties, even as the police arrested students and tried to crush dissent. The students spoke for millions in the country during that period. This is a culture that has been maintained on the JNU campus.

Over the tenure of this government, we have seen many protests against the rise of intolerance, and the brutal use of the state machinery to crush dissent. The students’ movement of JNU has stood with those who have been attacked by the BJP, whether it be Dalits (oppressed castes) or the people of Kashmir. Those who are leading the present government knows that JNU is not just a campus, but it is also one of the places of resistance to their rule. The BJP government has therefore tried to repress our voices. In 2016, a ‘Shut Down JNU’ campaign was launched to demoralise and sabotage us. What kind of issues were we raising at that time which so irked the BJP and its followers? We had taken up the question of research fellowships, which had been scrapped. We believed it was a good thing to have fellowships for research. Apparently, the government did not agree. We took up the case of the ‘institutional murder’ of Rohith Vemula, a student at Hyderabad Central University who died because of intolerance to him as a student from an oppressed caste background and because of the slow death of institutional support for students. Once more, it appeared as if the government was indifferent to the suffering of students like Rohith.

Rather than take up these basic issues and have a discussion around them, the RSS and BJP branded JNU as an ‘anti-national’ institution. The phrase anti-national is chilling. It suggests that any dissent – even over research fellowships – can be branded as treason, and those who raise these issues are marked for various kinds of retaliation, including violence. This is the very opposite of the spirit of democracy. JNU’s culture is a culture of democracy. This is what the government found intolerable.

What led to the 5 January 2020 physical attack on you and on other students? What was the role of the administration and the Delhi police in the rampage?

Before I talk about the attack on this specific day, I want to go on record on how we have been treated throughout our anti-fee hike movement. Our peaceful long marches outside the university were brutally attacked by the Delhi Police, which works directly under the central government’s Home Ministry. The administration has initiated actions against us without any preliminary enquiries. In fact, some students received hostel eviction notices. All these things were happening simultaneously as the state and the administration tried repeatedly to break our movement. When those attacks did not succeed, ABVP members tried to divide the students. Even then the ABVP could not mobilise enough students in favour of the fee hike, after which they started physical scuffles with the protesting students and the union members who were leading the anti-fee hike strikes. On 5 January 2020, masked RSS workers from outside the campus attacked JNU students. It was an orchestrated attack by the members of ABVP-JNU and the RSS supporters among JNU teachers. After the attack, we gathered photographic and other evidence and exposed the role of ABVP leaders and that of RSS supporters among teachers (who also hold administrative positions) in organising the mob attack on JNU students.

The intention behind these attacks was two-fold: (a) to generate fear among student activists, and (b) to change the discourse from fee hikes to violence. The ruling party-backed mainstream media immediately started broadcasting how the violence happened on a campus with left-wing organisational leadership, even though in truth the perpetrators of the violence were members of right-wing organisations.

The violence could not have happened without the support of the administration and the Delhi Police. In fact, it was a well-coordinated strategy. A huge group of masked men were allowed to enter the campus with iron rods, hammers, and other weapons, and without security guards to stop them at the gates. Ironically, I had repeatedly asked the police officials for their intervention when the situation on the campus was getting tense. But they did nothing. Moreover, the masked goons were given full protection by the police as they were leaving the campus in a rally celebrating their victory. Can all this happen without orders from top officials and the university authorities?

How has this attack impacted you as a person?

After the beating (they beat me with iron rods), when I was in the hospital severely injured, I thought that I would die. Since then, I have received many dangerous threats and much abuse.

I was definitely traumatised by these acts. However, I feel I am not alone in this fight. Today, I have a voice that I must use to amplify the voices of all students. There is now more public recognition of what I have been saying. Now more people want to hear my voice. This gives me much strength and courage. I feel privileged by the extent of solidarity I have received because of the attack on me. I am aware that this is because I am the president of the JNU Students’ Union, and because JNU is in Delhi. There are many such attacks, often more brutal, which are happening in other parts of the country every day. People are getting killed. The media pays no attention to them; nor does our society. If people in those struggles have the courage to continue to fight despite the trauma inflicted on them, then I too can continue the fight. We are inspiring each other in this difficult time. And I am certainly not alone.

JNUSU Elections 2019 – March by United Left in JNU after the filing of nominations for JNUSU Elections 2019. Picture Credits: Amit Kumar

How do you see your growth as an activist and a leader of the students’ movement?

When I came to the JNU campus, I saw a few comrades leading the union. At that time, I could not imagine myself in that position. But after I got elected, every single day was a learning experience. I have realised that it is a huge responsibility to be in the leadership of the union. But I knew that I had the support of the students and thus never felt alone. I grew up as an activist. No one can teach you how to be a good students’ union president; it is only through day-to-day experience that one learns the duties and responsibilities of a leader and can then deliver results. Often one needs to have the presence of mind to take an immediate call and respond on issues as and when they arrive. I can say for sure that the person I was before being elected to the post of students’ union president is not the same person I am today.  I am sure that I will continue to grow as an activist and as a person by the time I complete my tenure as JNUSU president. Each day I learn something new from the movement and the people around me.

This interview with Aishe Ghosh was held over a period of time between September 2019 and January 2020.

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