"...I n the words of Shahid Bhagat Singh, `a powerful explosion is required to make the deaf listen’. To fulfill the need of our times, leave your career, leave the campuses and march on the streets!"... Comrade Vinod Mishra began his address with this clarion call to the students and youth of the state in a thousand-strong parallel student-youth Assembly held at Patna on Nov.27. The programme was jointly organised by AISA and RYA. The parallel Assembly marked the resurgence of student-youth politics in the state.
It was an interesting coincidence that the programme was organised right under the statue of Jaiprakash Narain, who was the chief architect of the student-youth movement against corruption and for democracy in 1974. The movement now being launched by AISA-RYA is also against the scams of Laloo regime. Bihar remains the forward post of AISA’s all-India initiatives for a countrywide student movement for national resurgence. Recalling the JP movement, Comrade VM said in his speech that the present movement is a continuation of the positive legacy of the JP movement and stressed that we also stand for uniting the movements of students-youth with the struggles of peasants-workers.
Bihar is the state which best exemplifies the state of affairs of the whole country. The multi-crore fodder scam is only the tip of an iceberg. Commenting on it Comrade Mishra said, "Fodder scam has erased all caste divisions. Jagannath Mishra, Jagdish Sharma, Dhruv Bhagat, Laloo Prasad Yadav — all are involved in this scam. The division between forwards and backwards has ended here. All of them stand together. Their ideologies and their politics have become one. Although the leaders of these parties instigate riots from below, practise the politics of religion and caste, all became one at the top level."
In the context of growing judicial activism, there are tall talks of such activism curing the maladies of the system. Although some exposures can be made by them which can certainly be used in the popular campaigns, nobody has ever heard of revolution being accomplished by judges and investigators. Hence, the student-youth assembly proclaimed that it is only mass movements, the movements of the students, youth and basic masses, that can be a fitting response and gave a call for a militant March to Vidhan Sabha programme on Dec.23. The anti-corruption campaign preceding the march also witnessed a successful effigy burning programme by AISA which invited the wrath of JD goons. One such programme organised by AISA at Sahebgunj near Patna on Dec.19 was attacked by JD goons and 9 of our activists suffered injuries.
In this situation, every organisation, right from BJP to MCC, wants to champion the cause. While the left parties in Bihar blunt the edge of the whole anti-corruption struggle with the CPI(M) general secretary’s open declaration that they are not against Laloo (in spite of their call for a state-level bandh), there are certain anarchist lefts who take to isolated acts like blowing up the house of a corrupt MLA to end the corrupt system, which is nothing but an infantile disorder. Because, corruption, as an indication of deformity of the whole system, needs lakhs and lakhs of people’s participation to wipe it out from society.
Challenging days lie ahead of AISA which is the only left opposition in student politics. As Comrade VM concluded his speech with a stirring call, "...`a powerful explosion is required to make the deaf listen’...When you are back home, mobilise the mass of students and youth and return to Patna in large numbers — like a powerful explosion. To make the `deaf’ sitting inside Vidhan Sabha hear your voice, come out on to the streets of Patna like an explosion".
—Shankar
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