India – RSF: Condemn the Expulsion of Six SRFTI Students!
We hereby share a statement published by the Revolutionary Student’s Front (RSF), on October 23.
RESIST THE FASCIST ASSAULT ON CAMPUS DEMOCRACY!
We, the Revolutionary Students’ Front (RSF), strongly condemn the expulsion of six students from the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), Kolkata, and stand in complete solidarity with their resistance. On 27 September, students were attacked by goons of the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat (ABGP) and other RSS-BJP-linked organisations during a programme held inside the campus. The Hindutva-fascist goons assaulted students, injured several with sharp weapons and harassed women students. Subsequently, they mobilised reinforcements from outside and pelted students with stones, bricks and bottles. The university administration failed to protect the students. Instead of holding the attackers accountable, the administration has expelled six students, falsely accusing them of assaulting the Vice-Chancellor and vandalising his office. The students have rightfully challenged these false allegations. The administration has also suspended academic activities, ordered students to vacate the campus at short notice and restricted access to essential facilities such as the mess.
This is not an isolated dispute but part of the systematic political assault on educational institutions, campus democracy and organised student resistance. The Brahminical Hindutva-fascist BJP-RSS combine is pursuing a drive to capture educational campuses, crush student organisations fighting against its terror and impose its complete domination over education. This agenda operates through both institutional mechanisms and organised mob violence. When Hindutva-fascist goons fail to intimidate students through physical attacks, the administrative machinery is deployed to suppress student resistance from within. At SRFTI, when students demanded security and accountability for the attacks, the administration turned its disciplinary powers against the students instead.
Expulsions, the suspension of academic activities and restrictions on essential facilities are being used to isolate protesters and break their collective struggle. When the attacks from outside failed to silence the students, the university administration took up the task from within. This incident, like many others, clearly exposes the nexus between the Hindutva-fascist BJP-RSS and institutional authorities. The expulsion of six students who were resisting fascist goons is an attack on the entire student community and a tactic designed to intimidate students by demonstrating that anyone who resists will be punished brutally. This is part of the broader attempt to dismantle democratic student representation, eliminate spaces of dissent and bring educational institutions under the complete political control of the RSS-BJP. The prolonged suspension of student union elections in West Bengal, the weakening of representative student bodies and the imposition of centralised anti-student policies have further eroded campus democracy. Students who resist these undemocratic policies are being targeted precisely because their resistance challenges the political project of the BJP-RSS.
Only an organised, militant and united student movement can defeat this systematic assault. Isolated protests and appeals to the very authorities implicated in repression cannot suffice. Students across campuses must unite, build collective resistance and refuse to let any section of the student community be isolated and victimised. RSF demands the immediate withdrawal of the expulsion orders against all six students, an impartial investigation into the 27 September attacks, accountability for those responsible, and the immediate restoration of academic activities and essential facilities. RSF calls upon all anti-fascist, democratic and progressive student organisations, mass organisations and individuals to unite in solidarity with the resisting students of SRFTI and build a united, militant student movement against the ongoing fascist attack on education.
