No, they won’t be ‘tamed’

Yogendra Yadav

BHAGAT SINGH’S birth anniversary is marked with many a meaningless ritual: functions, tributes, garlands, speeches and what not. Just the kind of things the great revolutionary would have scoffed at. Over the years, Shaheed Bhagat Singh has been turned into an empty symbol: a radical nationalist, full of passion, but with no particular ideology. Just the kind of image Bhagat Singh did not wish to have. 

His 110th birth anniversary is an occasion to remember him for what he was — a revolutionary with a vision for India and for the world. And the best way to remember him is not to turn to the past and tell tales about his life. The best way to remember a revolutionary is to ask a question about our present and the future: how can the youth reshape the future of India?

It is a good moment to ask this question. The unprecedented protest in Banaras Hindu University (BHU), led by women students, has once again drawn the attention to youth politics. The last two years have witnessed a number of protests across university campuses — FTII in Pune, Allahabad University, Jadavpur University in Kolkata, Central University of Hyderabad, JNU, University of Delhi and now BHU. Are these protests just a series of disconnected episodes? Or can we read a common thread here? If so, does it hold a promise for the future?

It would be easy to dodge this question. The stereotype of today’s youth is that of an easy-going, career-oriented, fun-loving creature, more interested in social media than in social change. The trouble is that this is how every grey-haired generation has always viewed those younger than them. Every generation is full of those who seek success and glory within the given system. Every generation has a significant minority that defies and redefines the system. Today’s youth is no different. From my own experience of public life, I can testify that this generation has no dearth of idealist youths who seek something bigger than personal career, who are willing to take risks in pursuit of their values. Their number is perhaps bigger today than it was in my youth. At any rate, this stereotype must not hold us for long.

There is another escape route. It would seem that the various incidents across university campuses have nothing in common. Their issues are different — FTII was a protest against an incompetent chairperson foisted on an institution of eminence, while the Hyderabad protest was triggered by the suicide of a student and the BHU protest is against gender discrimination and sexual harassment. In the case of JNU and the University of Delhi, the students reacted to some alleged ‘anti-national’ incidents; in other places the protests were spontaneous. The politics of these protests is also very different. The protesting youth is Leftist in JNU and Ambedkarite in Hyderabad. But it would be hard to put any such label on student protests in the rest of the campuses that have seen unrest in recent past. 

A closer look, however, shows one common thread that tie these diverse forms of youth protests. All these episodes of student protests represent resistance to a new order of things that the current regime seeks to impose on institutions of higher education. The usual label ‘saffronisation’ is not a good description of this new order. More than saffronisation, what this regime is doing is plain degradation of higher education. More than reshaping the minds through new curricula, the regime is interested in a political capture of higher education institutions. Bereft of intellectual resources, the regime has resorted to regimentation.

This regimentation of higher education takes many forms. Appointment of loyal managers with dubious intellectual credentials to head the institutions of higher education was not unheard of earlier; it has become the norm now. The fig leaf of autonomy is done away with and these administrators are then used to capture university bodies and faculty positions. To be sure, previous regimes, including the Congress and the Left, were also guilty of all these sins. With the BJP, it touches a new low. Since the Sangh Parivar has never succeeded in attracting any first or even second-rung intellectual in the country, it leads to downgrading the already poor standards of the faculty and university administration. 

For students, this regimentation often means infantilisation, as these adult citizens, especially women, are treated as if they are schoolchildren. This is accompanied by depoliticisation, as the university closes its doors to open debate, freedom of expression and, of course, student protest. Occasional and strategic use of physical coercion to intimidate any voice of dissent is a part of this strategy. All this takes place in the context of de facto privatisation of higher education and accentuation of the already existing vast inequalities of educational opportunity.

This is what the students are protesting against. They are protesting against this new order of higher education and its regimentation techniques. They are rebelling against the bureaucratic and authoritarian managers of higher education. They are refusing to gulp down the new ideology being prescribed for them. They are unwilling to be silenced.

What would this protest lead to? It is too soon to draw definite conclusions and one should resist the temptation to over-read. But one thing is clear: so far, the regime has not succeeded in bringing the youth under its thumb. The student union elections in various universities this year — JNU, University of Delhi, Guwahati University, Panjab University and the University of Hyderabad — confirm this trend. While the winners vary from place to place, the regime-sponsored Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad is the loser everywhere. It is not a coincidence that much of this protest is led by women students and those from marginal social communities. Universities are thus becoming one of the key sites of resistance.

Will this resistance shape the future of the country’s politics? The answer to this question depends on how this resistance is channelised. Organisationally, will these protests be coordinated? Politically, will the protests within the campus be linked to the growing unrest among the youth outside the campus on issues of unequal education and stagnant employment opportunities? Ideologically, will these be linked to a new vision of India? 

These are big question, the kind of questions Bhagat Singh taught us to ask. If he was around today, he would have surely asked these questions, while taking pride in the resistance of the BHU girls. 

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