People's Democracy

We Shall Heal Our Wounds,

Collect Our Dead and Continue Fighting

Shatarup Ghosh

ON April 2, 2013 Sudipto Gupta, a 22 year old student had gone to participate in a rally in Kolkata. The rally was not meant to get access to the corridors of power. The students were not hankering for a life of 'milk and honey' flaunting hooters and red beacon lights on their cars, a lavish life for their generations to come. Angry and anguished students hit the streets in thousands demanding the restoration of their right to elect Students’ Unions, which was very much part of the university culture of West Bengal. We demanded Students’ Union elections in the college and university campuses across the state as they had been withheld by the Trinamul government.  We demanded restitution of democracy in the campus for all, not only for the Students’ Federation of India’s supporters, but even for those who hate and curse SFI. We believed that if we can use our minds rationally to study, then why can’t we use them to govern our day to day life in the campuses as well? In fact if an 18 year old can vote in a state or general election, so why can he or she not vote to choose their union representatives? 

Thousands of us marched on the streets to get back the distinctive atmosphere of participatory democracy that once prevailed in the state and helped create a meaningful role for all sections of the academic community in the decision making processes of educational institutions. We challenged the terror regime and stormed the barricades set up by the police. And with college satchels on our back, we were ready to be marched off to the Presidency Jail.

However, we all know that in the doomed state of West Bengal today, democracy is a prohibited word. And Sudipto had to pay with his life for saying something that should have never been said.

The death of Sudipto was so gruesome and the fact that it took place in police custody outraged the conscience of all the well-meaning people of the society. People came out in the streets to protest against this heinous atrocity perpetrated by the West Bengal government. They joined the clamour to demand an independent judicial probe into the death of Sudipto. But the chief minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee did not only obdurate the very justified demand but even went further to term the death of Sudipto as a ‘small and petty matter’.  It is shocking that an elected representative of the people should be so little concerned about the life and death of the people of the state. This attitude on the part of the government resulted in kindling the fire of discontent even further, and the waves of protests grew stronger throughout the country.

On the other hand, following the death of Sudipto, the corporate media waged a systematic campaign against the organised student movement. The diabolical apologists of neo-liberalism tried to portray Sudipto as a victim of ‘violent student politics’, thereby trying to utilise this opportunity to create a general antipathy towards the student movement, which has been their agenda since long. Their logic was simple. Had Sudipto not gone to a rally, he would not have died. Thus the student movement itself should be eliminated from the society to prevent further recurrences of such an unfortunate incident. As if, tomorrow if another Sudipto dares to stand up for his right, death will be a valid consequence that he will perhaps be facing. What the press refused to note was that many more people are dying in Bengal in the streets and villages defending their democratic rights. The student movement is only one part of what is going on in the state.

If we look back to July 5, 1975, to a conversation held between the then presidents of USA and Indonesia, Gerald Ford and Suharto, the latter said, “It is not the military strength of the Communists but their fanaticism and ideology which is the principal element of their strength. … Despite our superiority of arms in fighting the Communists… we lack this ideology to rally the people to fight Communism.”

Deep in their hearts, the ruling class know that without an ideology all their ideas are weightless. Therefore to sustain in the struggle against Left ideology, de-ideologisation often becomes the ideology that they preach. To put it simply, they prefer thoughtless actions to those that are rationally thought out.

Propagators of structural reform in education have always talked about the elimination of social inequalities through the ‘opening up’ of education to private players. According to them, to provide access to higher education to all the citizens of our country and to improve the quality of higher education, a large investment is required. But in India, lack of adequate funds remains one of the major hurdles. Owing to this factor, the government needs to be exempted from the responsibility of funding education. And therefore, in the given context, there is a pressing need for the Private Sector to pitch in.

As a consequence higher education has become the new business destination for the corporate elite. Governments are there only to facilitate the business takeover of education. Actually, the phenomenon of privatisation of education not only means inflow of private investment in education, it inevitably results in reducing education to a commodity to be sold in the market, something that can be availed only by the ones who can afford to pay for it.

And the forces who play the instrumental role in transforming education into a commodity will never want the students and youth to be aware of their profit orientation. Over the years, the agents of neo-liberalism have learnt from their experience that the organised students’ movement is the strongest barrier in the way of commercialisation of education, which they need to overcome. This has been noted in the Birla-Ambani Commission report of 2000, as well.

This is exactly where the necessity to de-ideologise the youth creeps in. The ruling class never wants the students and the youth to be conscious of their rights, since in that case the sabotage of these rights will enrage them and make them unite in resistance. When ideology grips the masses, it becomes a material force. So there has to be rampant de-ideologisation of the students, by fraud and by force, whichever is necessary. An individual without an ideology does not raise uncomfortable questions.

Bertolt Brecht had once said “The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.” The corporate media will always continue to be an apparatus to create such ‘political illiterates’.  Because what else can provide better comfort to the ruling class than a society consisting of none else but ‘obedient’ citizens?

Neo-liberal reforms were introduced in India in the year 1990-91. The entire generation of students who go to schools and colleges today in India are born in the post-reform years. And figures show that they constitute almost half of the total population of the country. They are the principle target of international finance capital. We know that globalisation is not only a socio-economic order. It spreads its hegemony over the entire psychology of the society. Neo-liberal India has taught the youth, “bigreduniya, bigar nebhi do; jhagre duniya, jhagr nebhi do; larejo duniya, larne bhido.. hum apni dhun mein gaye.” Limit your concern to your individual self, and do not bother about the rest of the world, is what they try to teach us. Because the rulers of the society know that until they atomise the people, they cannot exploit them. And when they see thousands of Sudiptos march for a cause, they realise that their dream of a neo-liberal young India, free from all traces of fellow-feeling and popular resistance, has been shattered to smithereens.

The arena of education has never been free from political ideas. Only, these ideas have always been the ideas of the ruling class, who have tried to shape education according to their class interest. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote, “The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class.”

Sudipto was not a ‘misguided student’ who became the ‘victim of violent student politics’. Sudipto was a warrior in the battle to free education from the monopoly of the ruling class. He continues to be the spearhead in the struggle to convert education from being the property of the privileged to the right for everyone. And therefore the saga of his sacrifice will continue to be dangerous for the monopolists in the market and their agents.

And there he lay in a bed of blood, the dark asphalt reddening in agony. Our comrade-in-arms lay senseless, our dearest brother’s blood marked one more step forward in the path of Nurul, Ranjan,Sudheesh, Abhijit, Swapan, Anish and many more martyrs who have died with the brightest hope in their hearts that the battle shall go on till victory is achieved.