PaRCha - JNU - DSF SFI-JNU - 2012 ID-57156

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to initiate politi .

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SFI units acrass th llfl'lrft th c e .

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Petore the end of the 2012 ...After due .

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larger organizational oUdaritv from SFI units of the JNU Urlt1 .

the decision. .

rity message from .

saying: "If you have .

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of your cherished the way to face the .

go ahead. h has .

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sufferings...By an .

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in the exchanges lrmd breach come -rf ~tiVUIU be a/fowed the fratemallinks but you the purity of the ~.""'""/ is bound to be .

fual, whom even the it within the Left that considers all this as tical bankruptcy and .

.OGRfSSIVE AND .

rder to understand the .

U. AISA needs to loOk r(Jus and substantiVe 1e in the cyberspace .org. "The leadershiP the forthright manner lll ost critical issues tnat .

tile at this juncture to sked of people who?.

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uanot speak up ea !Bf: , WhY did you not qu1t is no correct and proper ~t is. There is a.'rHa'jS, .;1 i dissent and ~s mitl .

. takes a1009· lon9 .t-~~~VS consileratiOflS of .

aside ..onole whO are oning tor .,.--· .

See!lla Mustafa wrote in the Statesman: "The strongest youth unit of the party protested and demanded a level of decision-making autorromy and instead of accepting the well-reasoned arguments \l"ley were thrown out and the entire unit in Jawaharlal Nehru University dissolved...The young people who tried for a change from within found tjlemselves unable to cut through the impenetrable walls that the party has built around itself, where the benefits and advantages of discipline and consensus are being fast turned into a disadvantage by those who have decided they will not listen.'' .

AISA in its pamphlet dated 27.08.2012 has raised questions vis-a-vis SFI-JNU's relationship with the CPI (M). SFI-JNU reiterates what it had stated in its pamphlet dated 9 07.2012: "SFI-JNU believes that CPI (M)'s positions on the events surrounding Singur-Nandigram, the murder of RMP leader TP Chandrashekharan or the recent support extended to Pranab Mukherjee in the presidential elections have neither been correct nor have they helped in strengthening the Left and democratic movement. Wh1le criticising these positions, however, SFI-JNU duly acknowledges the track record of the CPI .

(M) in playing a leading role in the fight in defence of India's democracy, secularism, social justice and economic self-reliance and the radical initiatives of the Left Front governments in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura in the field of land reforms, panchayati raj, mass education etc. SFI-JNU will also not hesitate to express solidarity with all the present day pro-people initiatives of the CPI (M), like the peasant struggles of Rajasthan, the untouchability-eradication movement in Tamil Nadu and Andhr a Pradesh, against Khap Panchayat in Haryana or the national movement for food security etc. SFI-JNU will also stand in solidarity with all other genuine peoples' movements, from the anti-POSCO movement led by the CPI; to the struggles of tribal organisations against forcible displacement and corporate takeover of forests for mining; the anti-AFSPA movements in Manipur and Kashmir; and also the struggles waged by the CPI (ML) Liberation against the landlord armies like Ranvir Sena in Bihar. In sum, SF!-JNU will on the one hand resolutely avoid the trap of sectarianism and embrace all that is progressive and pro-people within the Indian Left. On the other hand, SFI-JNU will not flinch from adopting firm positions against opportunistic and anti-people trends within any section of the Left. SFI-JNU believes that the way ahead lies in such a non-sectarian .

and open-minded praxis.· .

In keeping with this approach of non-sectarian praxis .

representatives from SFI-JNU participated in the programme .

organised to demand "Justice for Bathani Tola" in July 2012 at the .

invitation of the AJSA and the SFI-JNU also condemned the police .

lathicharge against the AISA activists during their recent .

par1iament march. However, when the SFI-JNU mobilised JNU .

students for the Left Parties' dharna for food security and .

universal POS in August 2012, AISA maintained its sectarian .

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distance. .

JNU STUDENT MOVEMENT: SETIING THE RECORD STRAIGHT .

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The JNU student movement has a glorious legacy of four decades, which the SFI-JNU inhertts. Numerous struggles have been waged under SFI led JNUSUs; from the struggle against the draconian Emergency imposed by the Indira Gandhi regime in the 1970s to challenging the reactionary anti-Mandai wave and fighting against the communal offensive of the RSS-BJP in the 1990s. AJSA has always hesitated to acknowledge this legacy of the SFI in JNU and of late has started distorting the history of the JNU student movement since the 1990s for narrow sectarian purposes. ln order to set the record straight SFI-JNU wants to clarify the following facts: .

! AISA won the post of the JNUSU President for the first time in 1993 and held it till 1995. A.r1 agitation to restore the 20 deprivation points system in admissions -which was scrapped .

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after the sine die in 1983-was started in 1994, but the AJSA-Ied JNUSU compromised with the JNU administration and finally agreed on a maximum of 10 deprivation points, which was a betrayal of the aspirations of the students from the socially deprived sections. The AI SA-led JNUSU led a successful agitation against efforts to introduce privatisation in JNU in 1995. .

! AI SA conceded space to the communal forces in JNU and in 1996 JNUSU electionsAISAcame 310 on all central panel posts. ABVP won 3 posts in the central panel and a maJority in the Council but the SFI won the President's post by a slender margm .

of 4 votes. .

! SFI held the President's post and led the JNUSU .

continuously from 1996 to 1999. AISA did not have any JNUSU .

office-bearer during this period. The JNU entrance coaching .

classes for the students from the depnved section were started .

dunng this phase. Massive student agitations were launched on .

the issues of new hostels, against sexual harassment and .

discrimination against students from socially depnved sections. In .

October 1999, 63 students were arrested and 14 student leaders .

includmg JNUSU office-bearers were sent to jail. The major .

achievements of the student movement of this period were the .

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construction of 8 new hostels (from Tapti onwards), the formation of the GSCASH (which was the first such institution in any Asian university at that time) and the institution of the Equal Opportunity Office to prevent caste-based discrimination. A.r1 initiative to introduce 27% reservation for the OBC students in JNU admissions was undertaken during this period through the Progressive Admission Policy but could not succeed due to resistance from caste1st forces, who resorted to violence. .

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ABVP won the JNUSU President's post defeating the SFI candidate by one vote in 1999. SFI ted the secular resistance against the communal and reactionary politics of the RSS-ABVP n JNU. Not only did the AISA have no role to play in the struggle against the communal forces. it came up with a grotesque theory of "fascism out of power IS more dangerous than fascism in power", which was rejected by the JNU students. .

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SFI won back the Presidents post m 2001 and held It till 2003. During this per10d a major struggle was won by the JNUSU against the JNU administration forcing it to abandon the infamous Xlh Plan, which was pushed by the BJP led government to saffronise the curriculum in JNU. Major achievements of the student movement were modernisation of library facilities, massive purchase of new books, and providing computer and internet facilities for students across schools. Massive mobilisations against communalism and imperialist wars were undertaken by the SFI-Ied JNUSU during this period, against the anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat in 2002 and the wars against Iraq and .

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Afghanistan..

! Once the ABVP was completely routed in JNU by the SFI, AI SA made a comeback and won the JNUSU President's post in 2004 elections. where all other central panel posts and majority in the council were won by the SFI-AISF alliance. In January 2005 a UGBM was held on the issue of a Nestle outlet which was opened during the earlier SFI-Ied unions tenure. AI SA's position of closing down the Nestle outlet was upheld in the UGBM, while SFI's position of reta1ning the outlet with certain conditions was defeated. The SFI accepted the UGBM mandate and later self-critically noted in its February 2005 Delhi State Conference Report: "We could not gauge the mood of the student community on this issue and ignored dissent wffhin our own ranks. leading to misplaced political positions which caught us wrong footed on the .

issue." .

! AISA won the JNUSU President's post again in October 2005. The JNUSU President from the AISA first agreed to a visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to JNU in November 2005 and .

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