The universities are supposed to be places of higher learning, but in Banaras Hindu University (BHU), students are having to take on an extremely insensitive and brutal administration to fight for the very right to study and access library facilities. Students in BHU have been fighting for the right to study 24/7 in the BHU Library. By curtailing the hours for which the library is accessible to the students, the university has engaged in a direct assault on their right to study. The students even launched a long hunger strike to ensure that their demand is met. The university authorities – as has become the norm in the Modi regime – have chosen to respond by brute oppression. The protesting students have been ruthlessly assaulted and several of them rusticated. ABVP goons too were witnessed brutally beating up protesting students including female students. Though the hunger strike was subsequently lifted due to tremendous pressure exerted by the university administration by way of getting striking students arrested and the failing health of students, the movement continues.
Expressing solidarity with the struggling students of BHU, AISA national president, Com. Sucheta De, AISA leader Com. Shweta Raj, and AISA leader and ex JNUSU Vice President, Com. Anant Prakash also visited the BHU campus to provide support to the movement. Comrade Sarita, a senior leader of AISA from Banaras, also visited BHU. The AISA leaders participated in a protest where the circular notifying the rustication was burnt. They also appealed to the students, youth and progressive individuals throughout the country to rally behind students of BHU and send postcards to the VC of BHU in support of the students’ demands. AISA activists in Patna also staged a ‘rail roko’ protest to express solidarity with students of BHU, demanding revocation of rustication and fulfilment of their demands pertaining to library access. The leaders addressing the protestors said that while the Prime Minister talked of ‘Mann ki Baat’ (speaking his mind), he had shown complete disdain when it came to the ‘Mann ki Baat’ of students and youth who are being beaten up, rusticated or jailed for demanding their right to education and employment.
The coming together of students across universities should send clear message to the university authorities that instead of using university premises to organise propaganda sessions by members and sympathisers of the Sangh Brigade, they better respond to the real issues confronting the students.
