India – bsCEM: Statement in Solidarity with JMI Students Fighting for the Reinstatement of Union
We hereby share a statement by the Bhagat Singh Student Union Platform (bsCEM) published on their Instagram on October 18.
Students at Jamia Millia Islamia have been protesting for their democratic right to a Students Union which has been denied to them for nearly two decades now. Instead of addressing the students, the administration at JMI guided by the Brahmanical Hindutva Fascist ideology under the RSS-BJP stooge VC Mazhar Asif, brutally assaulted and manhandled the students as the state machinery extended unequivocal assistance. On the 17th, at around 5:30 AM, students sitting on a hunger strike were subjected to severe assault by the university guards and evicted from their own campus for demanding their right to a union. The students have been subjected to and further threatened with disciplinary action.
It has been observed that Jamia has been the choicest of the fascist state’s repression because of what it stands for as a muslim minority institution. This was seen during the protests against CAA-NRC in 2019 as well, whose wounds are still afresh in the student community. The RSS has planted Mazhar Asif, who parrots the Brahmanical Hindutva agenda with sheer discipline, quoting how “Mahadev’s DNA resides in all Indian” all in an attempt to dilute Jamia’s position as an institution that is constitutionally also recognised as a Muslim Minority Institution.
The students have been largely deprived of liberty as the whole of administration and the state are actively hostile towards any line of dissent, as was also observed when the administration exposed personal details of protesting students on the University gate. Why must then students not demand for a representation to fight against such an autocratic administration? The RSS_ brutality against minorities, especially Muslim minorities isn’t an argument, it is a reality for the majority of Muslims, especially the working class. We see the curfews and surveillance and fear mongering by the state machinery in areas around Jamia as well, as was also reported during the protests against paper leak during which the Muslim majority areas were targeted. That’s also because the state fears them collectivising, because it knows what it subjects them to on a regular basis.
The protests demanding for a students union were also observed in the Aligarh Muslim University where the students snatched away their rights from the hands of the anti-student university authorities, and JMI is enroute the same path which the admin fears. It is to be noted how dialogue isn’t even in the books of the JMI governance, which tells us how a peaceful protest can only be peaceful from the students purview, the state doesn’t shy away from dehumanising and brutalising its own students sitting on a hunger strike, asking for the basic right to unionise.
Then we must cease it ourselves, respond militantly to state sponsored violence and have a dialogue on our own terms. So far it is clear that the VC Mazhar Asif would rather bite on gold coins provided by his RSS-BJP masters , than come down to have a dialogue with the students he claims to be the Vice Chancellor of. Once again, we condemn the violence unleashed on the protesting students sitting on a hunger strike in JMI and extend our solidarity to all the progressive students and organisations in their struggle against the fascist administration for a students union. We call forth the progressive students of JMI to build a body of students that would actually represent the interests of the students and stand in solidarity in their struggle for it. We demand that the protestors’ demands be fulfilled, and all state forces deployed to curb protestors in JMI and around campus be immediately removed. Their struggle for a democratic campus is linked with the struggle for a democratic society, and we urge students across campuses to hold hands and build a broader struggle against this rotten society, to build a new democratic society.
SMASH BRAHMANICAL HINDUTVA FASCISM!
BHAGAT SINGH CHHATRA EKTA MANCH (bsCEM)
Bhaago Matt, Duniya Ko Badlo
