Students Brave Jayalalitha Govt’s Repression To March Forward

G Mamatha

Ay, today,

Stern is the tyrant’s mandate, red the gaze,

That flashes desolation, strong the arm

That scatters multitudes. Tomorrow comes!

That mandate is a thunder-peal that died

in ages past; that gaze, a transient

on which the midnight is closed, as on

that arm

the worm has made his meal.

                                                                        --- P B Shelley

EMBOLDENED by the Supreme Court judgement negating the right to strike, the Jayalalitha government of Tamilnadu has taken many megalomaniac decisions curtailing the democratic rights of not just the workers, but of all the sections of people. If anybody ‘dares’ raise a voice of protest against the ‘great amma’ she or he is intimidated and threatened of punitive action. Recognition of some of the employees’ associations and organisations has been cancelled. It is ironic that organisations that work for safeguarding the rights of the common people are not allowed to exist in this democratic land, but associations like the FICCI, CII, J J Fans associations are allowed to function and flourish. No wonder the Jayalalitha government is in the good books of the World Bank, and is in the good company of the self-proclaimed CEOs like Chandrababu Naidu and others.

The Jayalalitha government has unleashed severe repression on the student movement. After the August 21 strike that was observed at all the district headquarters in Tamilnadu to protest against the fee hike, the state government is acting like a drunken monkey. It has sent circulars to all the institutions to dismiss the students who took part in the strike. The managements are now preparing a list of the SFI cadres studying in the respective institutions. At Dindukkal, SFI district leader from GTN College has been dismissed without any enquiry. At Tiruchy, three students were suspended for a week for participating in a rally on August 21. The government has issued instructions to all the schools directing the headmasters not to allow the SFI’s membership campaign. The managements of the schools where we had gone for enrolling the membership sought police protection. This is the fate of democracy under the Jayalalitha government.

The Tamilnadu state government is using the police to intimidate the student leaders. Three police inspectors directly met the principal of the Ambedkar government college at Chennai and took the address of Devi, SFI district joint secretary of Chennai, to intimidate her and her family for participating in SFI activities. The police are having a regular picket at several colleges and are standing with their jeeps at the college gates from morning to evening. They are befriending some of the students to spy on the activities organised within the college campus. The Jayalalitha government and the police have stooped down to such filthiest, low levels that they have threatened to file a false case against Punitha, SFI secretary of Perambur district, accusing her of prostitution in order to intimidate her and force her stop working for the SFI.

The SFI is carrying out a heroic and protracted struggle against the dictatorial, anti-student policies of the Jayalalitha government. A campaign exposing these policies of the state government has been planned from September 22-26, with statewide agitations on the last day. A state level convention has been planned on October 3 with an appeal to all sections of the people to save democracy and fight the authoritarian rule of the Jayalalitha government. A series of conventions involving various sections of students have also been planned.

It is foolish of the Jayalalitha government to think that it can cow down and silence the voice of the students. Student leaders and especially the girl student leaders remain undeterred despite severe intimidation. They are carrying on their work with double the vigour to expose the anti-student policies of the government and to safeguard the democratic rights of the students. History bears testimony to the fact that many a dictatorial regime fell before the mighty movement of the people for justice, democracy and egalitarianism. The sooner the Jayalalitha government realises this fact, the better. Students in Tamilnadu are marching forward without getting bowed down by the repression of the government, and the SFI has appealed to the student community in particular and the people in general to express their solidarity with the struggle for safeguarding the hard won democratic rights of the people in Tamilnadu.

(G Mamatha is joint secretary of the Students Federation of India’s central executive committee.)