---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sukla Sen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "Soumitra Bose" Lathir badale gaaner sur : Dekhiye dilo Jadavpur. The students have won a spectacular battle. Students of Jadavpur University unanimously boycotted their semester examinations and classes in support of the demands to the authority against the promulgation of suspension notice meted out to five student leaders. The students sat on a fast-unto-death-strike. The authorities retaliated by police baton charge, thrashing fasting students in make- shift concentration camps within the hospital premise, molested women protestors and beat up whoever they could lay their hands upon. The students exploded. The entire West Bengal rose up in wrath, indignation and in revolt. The students of all major colleges in North and West India roared. Even students abroad lodged their protests. An epic movement started. For about 3 odd months the movement went on un-deterred. Students called off the regular classes, exams and all kinds of academic activities. The final year students, who were all ready to jump into very lucrative salaried engineering and other jobs, called off their final exams and plunged into the uncertainty of a limbo. The general students took it even further than that, they did not agree to any conditions and carried the movement much beyond what the organization leaderships were prepared to. It was an upsurge, a veritable rising up against all kinds of injustices. The so-called Left government meted unprecedented police brutality to the students, and the more they did so, the students joined in increased numbers. The authorities could never think things would take this turn. Thanks to the social democrats the present government is totally alienated from the general mass of educated and skilled students of the state. After all these, at long last the suspensions were revoked. The authorities demanded unconditional apology from the students showing some flimsy unaccounted and un-supported claims of misdemeanors. Students did not budge, they showed a two-year-old leaflet where they expressed their displeasure in general terms if some untoward event unrelated to the movement occurred, and stuck to their guns. The authorities construed that as an apology more to save their own faces and then on pressure of the movement revoked all punitive measures. The students won clearly. The movement was clearly spectacular in nature, richness and style! Every day, Jadavpur campus became a Mecca for all those who wanted to take some energy to live, some elixir to fight. The campus was an open-air incessant convention of students with Guitar, singling, snuggling, protesting, dancing, acting for street dramas, reciting, and composing poetry, painting and what not. Hordes of intellectuals poured in to empathize with the students, they came, they discussed, they met the press, they delivered speeches. It was a Woodstock where revolution was being sowed every minute, every moment. When the authorities were trying to penalize the students in various extra- institutionalized ways, the students were composing lyrics and songs. They were in a festival of protest. " Lathir badale gaaner sur, Dekhiye dilo Jadavpur". [ Our Rhythms for your batons, that's what Jadavpur reckons]. The force of creativity was manifested by the zeal of protest against misrule, against institution, for values, for justice. The students created moments, moments of protest, moments of camaraderie, moments of shared values, moments of pride among the people. Students created songs, created poetry. Students are preparing for bigger battles, for deeper values, for increased commitment and are definitely proving to become conscientious and conscious citizens. Students again are forming our consciousness, leading us! Creation is much stronger a force than any force on the earth! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If we fight, we may not always win, but if we don't fight, we will surely lose." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SAVAD RAHMAN subeditor,MADHYAMAM daily, pooppalam, perinthalmanna,kerala, india cell:(91)-9846085873
