 Welcome to the second edition of Talking Breadbooks, the monthly conversation series by Left Word in collaboration with NewsClick. For today's episode on Students and Struggle, we have Shadruba Chakraborty and Pindiga Ambedkar. Editors of Students won't be quiet and Nitish Narayanan and Deep Siddharthar, Editors of Education or Exclusion, the plight of Indian students in conversation with Vikas Raabal, author and professor of economics, Jarlal Nehru University. It's a pleasure to be here to discuss these two very interesting books, both of which deal with the problems that students and the whole system of public education has been facing over the last few years. These problems have originated from a systematic assault on democratic functioning of higher education institutions, on particular assault on public education designed to be inclusive, on the inclusive character of public education in reaching out to the students in particular from marginalized sections of the society. The assault on the system of public education has many dimensions and these books are an extremely important record of the struggles that students have fought valiantly. These two books provide both an analytical discussion of the struggles that have happened but also of the issues. Now I suggest that we start with Shadruba Chakraborty. Let me first ask you to give us a brief of what this book is about and why did you get into this writing of this book? I would first like to highlight the fact that you have such a title called Students' Own Be Quiet and it itself is a kind of drawback and probably today we don't have many publishers who would be comfortable to publish a book like this with such a title. So here comes actually the kind of politics that we all have been into and we want that politics to extend for the future generation also to take up. Now coming to this book, all of us know the kind of situation in which we have been going through particularly after 2014 when there was a change in the power in center and it was said at that point of time that the aspiring youth is basically have been the backbone of the change of this power. But when it comes to the change and the result of the change, we see that the first attack happens on the students and it was in a manner in which it actually fundamentally stopped many of the students from even aspiring to come to higher education. So the first attack really was on the fellowship and then we see the series of attack continues on key height and the larger agenda of privatization creeping into the public institutions and so on. Now one of the major factor during this change is that how this agenda, which was basically an agenda that could not have given any benefit to the government, was actually turned against the students with the issue of nationalism and at this point of time they actually tried to make it almost like that students have never been into the frontal struggles. Students have not done anything to save their education, which was basically like bringing the falsehood that students were never a participant in the student politics and so on and so forth. So this period we identify through this book as assault really on reason and thought, on knowledge, on public education and on various issues that actually enhances institutions and institutions where the students and teachers and the whole academic community are to participate to take part in this system of knowledge. So we have highlighted many issues that have come during this particular period where the attack was there with systematic exclusion of students from the marginalized communities. There was large scale violence on many women students who were in different public institutions and there was no sort of institutional mechanism to deal with those issues and so on and so forth. But the main point is that if we as a student or if we as students we are not organized to fight for our issues, our basic rights like peace, like fellowship and so on, the nature of campus itself gets highly depoliticized and the democratic nature of campus just goes into it all. So it is in a way that the students in this particular period have really put up their fight to save the democracy and what is there in the country's constitution. So to begin with I would say that this struggle was very important that occupy UGC which continued for 90 days and where we know the nature of the government, how adamant the government was and so on. But this student struggle have kind of put the government into back foot and that was the I mean we know recently the farmers agitation has happened and it has kind of put up that sort of a challenge before the government. But before that if we can really recount that the students were actually one of the major counters for the kind of policies and the kind of actions that the government has taken. So occupy UGC of course and then this whole narrative around the period of 2016 when the student community and the universities were highly criminalized through by use of false narrative, by use of the Godi media and all sorts of machineries that the state had. The students really stood up and when it comes to say universities like Hyderabad Central University, JNU, Jadapur and many of those universities during that particular time all the students have actually rallied on their demands and it was not a easy fight because when you go to the street and you know you get branded as anti-national by you know the so-called common people it's not a easy fight. The students were being beaten up on the streets on those you know false narratives but the kind of struggle that was built up through you know various dialogue the process that has happened taking along the larger society, the teachers, the you know the Karamchari associations and so on and so forth. I think that it sets an example of our time that the united struggle the nature of the struggle that it was united it kind of opened up newer and more possibilities for you know defending democracy and constitution which was under attack and the public university and public education system. May I now sort of request Ambedkar if he can come in and talk about particularly about you know how what was the importance of issues related to exclusion in particular in these struggles you know how you know the Rohit Vemula thing happened, Najib disappearance of Najib happened in JNU and in many other institutions there were there have been specific cases of problems faced by students from the the marginalized sections of the society and the book actually quite does a very good and important documentation of how these have been an integral part of the struggles that that in fact perhaps the most important part of of the the issues that struggle the students were fighting. So Shatrupa had given a context of how we thought about this book and the reason why different universities were up and protesting because the conditions were so bad that the government was clamping on critical voices and where funds were required it was not releasing fellowships on time and there was a massive fee hike and also the government proudly used to say bachao beti padao but if you see in this book that it is the administration itself was complicit in seeing that the issues of gender discrimination were prevalent and there were no measures that were taken by the administration to arrest those problems faced by women students. So in this book we have covered about the issues of fee hike, the issues of fellowship, the issues of first generation students facing discrimination in universities, the issues of women students facing discrimination or harassment while going to their classes and also we have talked about the struggles that students led for having necessary infrastructure so that they can pursue their higher education with dignity. Yeah like Professor Vikas talked about that I should focus on or touch upon the issues of social exclusion faced by first generation students from marginalized backgrounds. See everybody is aware of the problems and the conditions that students in Hyderabad Central University especially Rohit Vemula and others were put which ultimately led to the institutional murder of Rohit Vemula. Why we thought that it is an institutional murder? Shatrupa and why felt because if you see the conditions there was a classic example of how the administration had passed a circular that students, the suspended students were not supposed to have access to their hostel and were not allowed to have access to any interaction with the rest of the students. That was nothing but caste dictar that happens in rural areas where the Kaaf Panchayat, the processor resolution stating that a so and so family is boycotted and all the social economic relations are to be cut off which way pushes them to the starvation. Similarly in HCO the Rohit Vemula agitation was precisely that that students voiced their opinion against the RSS kind of educational interference in the higher educational institution and the ABVP students, violence on students from the Ambedkar Students Association and also screening a documentary about the issues in Muzaffar Nagar that happened and what did the administration do because of complaint lodged the administration from the Ministry of Human Resources which was then called MHRD, sent a circular to the vice chancellor stating that anti-national activities were happening. What were these anti-national activities? Students were engaging in critical knowledge production. Otherwise what is the purpose of a higher education other than talk about issues that affect our society and how to make our society better but the ruling dispensation didn't like it and through the ABVP its student wing of the RSS clamped and created violence and the administration was used to suspend the students. It was in this background that the students had to face a lot of hardships but we must remember that if you see in this book that students fought bravely and countered the administration point by point and ensured that the voices of social justice and access to quality education with dignity was preserved in Hyderabad Central University and if you see all the students they successfully finished their higher education most of them have joined as faculty so we know that if given an opportunity students from marginalized backgrounds thrive well and that is one prime example another struggle I would want to talk about on fee hike because we all are talking I mean we all are aware about how neoliberal policies have affected even the higher education system but I just want to highlight about the issue in Tata Institute of Social Sciences one of the premier institutes for masters and undergraduate students where students were provided till recently good education with very subsidized education fees however because of the UGC cutting down on the funds to the Tata Institute students from SEST OBC background and even from the general category background who used to get student aid were put under a lot of hardships but the students were not quiet rightly they did very important thing about studying the fee hike the background of it and how and did provide a solution the students analyzed and found that if the government supported them with about 100 1 crore to 3 crore rupees per year the problems of the fee hike that was severely affecting the students from deprived economically deprived and socially deprived backgrounds could have been sorted but that was not the case the administration did not listen to the students they severely clamped on on the students in Bombay campus in Hyderabad campus and they went to such an extent that they had to discontinue certain programs because they felt that the students were not being disciplined so-called disciplined enough because they were watching their problems what else will students do if if you are not given an opportunity to sit in a classroom and study first thing you will ask is give me a right so that I can go and study in the hostel every time you hear in the news media the students are unruly they are making noise without studying but if you see if you read the document if you see this agitation you will see that the first thing the students of the student federation of India did was every hostel they went in the state they studied the problems faced by students and as a first measure they petitioned the district collectors they didn't go on strike they petitioned the district collectors stating that these are the problems please ensure that these issues are sorted out but we know that the governments which are functioning under neoliberal dictates don't care for providing facilities so that the students can pursue their education but the students were not quiet then from each district they mobilized and on one final day in the capital city of then undivided on the pradesh above with thousands of students protested at the assembly that protest was so huge that different sections of the society came forward to give their solidarity with that massive struggle and the support of the general population the students achieved a massive victory the government was forced to increase their fellowship of recruit hostel wardens across the state have special hostels in different areas provide for engineering students higher education degree students so and so forth so the students federation of India has a golden victory in form of studying and struggling and that's one struggle that we had documented in the book it's an interesting point you made about how some of these very important and crucial things of student life you know access to education access to to facilities to live fellowships to cover books and and your basic minimum needs and so on which one would take for granted are actually things that have been achieved through struggles and these are not things that have just been handed by the state at this moment can I since dipshita is with us only for a brief file can I call upon her to give us a quick sort of overview of of the other book the the the subtitle of the book is the plight of Indians to what's the plight about what are the key key factors so I just briefly talk about what I was talking about that and what actually Ambedkar was talking about that how the policy how the neoliberal policy how this government has ensured through the new education policy and the kind of policy that they were coming up in it before the new education policy that primarily a cartels down educational right and makes it a commodity you're going to look into the new education policy the draft policy and after the revision does the law that has come up with by finally telling me that education is not to be considered as right it is going to be considered as something that people can buy so just like how you go to a market and the person with more money can buy a better good and the person with lesser money is going to buy you know a commodity or a good which is not as great quality as the one that reaches by their education the same commodity if you're going to look into all the regime all the government that came post 90s all of them were built upon this idea that the government the state is not going to see that education is my responsibility state responsibility they want to slowly give it up to the market if you're going to look into the first five you know the five years planning we will see somehow the new government the new state the independent India then was trying to tell that education some of it going to be a state response will be we'll see the kind of funding that they were putting in education we are seeing at least in paper the government is coming and saying about universal education and some of this vision has there since India has been under the colonial where education again was not something which was universally available only the elites only the people whose money could get into the modern education before that India was a feudal a caste society where education was nothing but only a social capital that could be owned by the people from the upper caste and the male from the upper caste so when the new India was formed when the modern India was formed somehow this idea was there that you have to decentralize you have to democratize education as a social capital so that the kind of discrimination that has happened for last centuries can be tackled I think the idea was also there because since we are talking about a modern state this is not a princely state this is not a not a religious state this is the modern state which brings in the idea of a modern citizen a modern citizen can be only built if he or she or if they are given the right to education the right to universal education or the right to equal access to education so from then from from from thinking education not only as a about knowledge production but also facilitate democracy to now in 2019 when there is the education as nothing but a tool for further suppression if you're going to look into the education policy that we're talking about you know from the classics onwards there is going to be vocational training. Professor Sachidan and Srinav who has also written a chapter in your article that this is nothing but new capitalism who are going to take part in this vocational activity the people of the working class who are predominantly the working class they should ask they were the ones who could do the physical labor if they are children it's a good family sending children to school because they're aspiring for a mobility a mobility which is operational a mobility in just societal a mobility which is economic as well so when you go and say that from classics onwards you have to do the vocational work who are going to take all those vocational you know all those vocational practices at the upper class at the upper class they're going to do or again these people will be working cast for whom education was nothing but a tool for mobility and a change they are again forced for the similar kind of job that their parents are going for centuries so I think it is very important to locate the new education policy and its fallouts are not only with the neoliberal regime are not only have it found it but also how it affects the people who are already with it the people who are already being marginalized if you're going to look at the national education policy they're talking about you know curtailing down the funds for the SDSD hotel for the girls hostel scholarship for the SDSD scholarship for SDSD scholarship for the woman they have put down the scholarship for the SDSD girls they have put down the postdoctoral scholarship for the woman and there are one chapter that we have written with our fellow Indian researcher comrades torch time for whom when you're seeing that how due to this lockdown the women were affected most because when a woman leave their home and they come to a hostel for the first time they're considered as individual till the time she's in our room she's part of her family unit her gendered role are very specific but domestic roles are very specific but the moment she's in university the moment she have her own space in form of a hostel from our unit of her family from a gendered labor unit from her family she's becoming an individual where she don't have to do a certain kind of work where men and women both have the similar kind of job description inside the hostel so when the hostels were closed down during the pandemic a lot of women were sent back to their home a lot of women were married off a lot of women had to you know but they got pregnant as they became mother in very early age so the problem the fallout of national education policy is multi-pronged because it has been the experience of this regime that is food in particularly from the marginalized section of the working class when they came to the university they have started questioning their disability they have started questioning the state they have started questioning the discrimination that they're facing in the country for generations and it is those questions it is those thoughts it is those critical thinking that has been challenging the government again and again intellectually so if they can break down if they can capture the higher education if they can decide and dictate then what kind of resource are you going to do so what they will essentially do is actually stop is actually kill that critical thinking so by you know increasing the fee by ensuring that there are multiple entry points and exit points by ensuring there are multiple entrance examinations get into the higher education what they're trying to do is limit the education the higher education and that actually goes back to what Manu has taught Manu had believed that education has to be a very exclusive commodity for the upper class men Manu has taught that if education is the children and the women can hear of even a single word there should be more than lead to his or her ear because the Manu believes education or knowledge at the capital has to be a bullet it has to be captured by the ministry ministry privilege of this society so what the national education policy does is basically uh reassuring what the teaching of Manu is reinforcing the teaching of Manu is ensuring that education remains as an excluded exclusive knowledge which remain as an exclusive property and the democratization of knowledge and the process of you know the citizen making the process of democratizing this country which it passes with the PPR bus is stopped to uh stopping up higher education if I look at what so far Shatrupa Ambedkar and Deepchita I've talked about I think there are two sets of things that characterize the nature of assault and what the students have been fighting against one is the whole issue of uh undermining democratic character of public education in particular through sort of authoritarianism but in particular also through undermining access of underprivileged students the other is uh you know facilitating penetration of markets commodification of education uh undermining education as a right undermining subsidized or free public education and opening up spaces for privatization of delivery of education and delivery of education as a commodity through uh sort of uh spaces that are curated opened and curated for for private institutions private universities and and engineering colleges and and so on and so forth to to capture and that is sort of promotion of privatization of higher education has happened in just so many ways and so you know what started as an assault on democratic character of higher education institution has now gone into an assault that's actually uh you know an assault on their very existence or an assault on their their position in the whole system of education and creating spaces for private institution in this whole sequence as Deepchita pointed out is also the whole uh uh you know what happened during the COVID pandemic the way uh public universities and education institutions were kept shut for for such a long period of time in fact you know as all of us have have noticed uh you know markets and shops and cinema halls open but schools and universities were kept shut you know the impact that had on access of marginalized section of society to education and and the loss that has happened because that is is almost unrepairable now that has also sort of taken us into a phase where you know these glorious struggles that were happening prior to COVID pandemic uh there's perhaps some kind of a weakening that has happened and and in this I think the way the dynamics of student organizations works is somewhat different from others because you know students who were fighting and in fact continue to fight in fact a point that comes out quite vividly in in Shatrupa and Ambedkar's book is how some of those student activists continue to battle you know not only collectively but also in their personal lives so you know how while the earlier struggles continue collectively and individually there is some kind of an F1C so may I now call upon Niti to talk about what is the way forward what is it that that we are where is this going do you see the same kind of struggles continuing and if so what what is what can be done what is the potential for actually students coming together and mounting this resistance once once again actually India had a huge legacy of vibrant student movement which begins from the time of the national movement anti-colonial struggle itself so the student movement in India when we trace its history will see that in every step of the nation every juncture the students and campuses have also played a major role contributing to debates and also rallying students so mobilizing the public consciousness so awakening the public consciousness towards a democratic society or contributing to to make Indian society a more democratic war see we have seen from 1990s especially since the introduction of neoliberal policies to India that the students in India have been one of the the worst affected victims and the education sector to to to ensure that the students resistance doesn't happen or it doesn't become an obstacle for the government to pursue their extreme exploitative neoliberal policies to make education as a commodity instead of a right to ensure a right for the students but to make it as a commodity what the government different state governments and also central government in the union government in India from 1990s especially what they were doing was to to to curtail the democratic rights of students banning student union elections and banning student politics and all kind of things and we have seen for example there was a time in India in every university had huge presence of student movement but this was seen as an obstacle by the ruling class by the government to pursue their anti-student policies then they took all anti-democratic policies laws to ensure that this doesn't remain the same any longer in India that is how student movement was banned in Haryana that is how student politics was banned in Gujarat, Andhra, Himachal Pradesh and all those things for example to give one one example a university where students did not allow the administration to to increase the fee for almost three decades the the Himachal Pradesh university in Shimla the only option before the the ruling class was to to ban student union election which was happening there for many decades for three three and a half decades that is how the the student union election was banned in Himachal Pradesh university in 2013 but interestingly when we look into the last one decade especially from the since the the Narendra Modi government the first Modi government came to power in 2014 we can also see a revival of student movement in India that Indian campuses which till then have seen no or no major appraisals became centre of struggles be it FTII or be it different IIT campuses and many central universities where even student union election doesn't take place but students are coming together and building a stronger resistance this is important for students because whenever democracy is attacked it is also an attack on the future it is also an attack on the campuses so that is how the students wage struggles not only on the the specific education related issues for example when the the anti-CIA protest period when the the CIA was passed and all the first person who was deported from India was not a Muslim actually and the first person who was penalized because of since the the the CIA came to being it was not someone who was it was nothing to do with the person's religious identity that was a student who came from Germany to IIT Madras to pursue post graduation in physics his name was Jacob Lindendair he participated in a student protest which was organized by the students in progressive students in IIT Madras he joined the and he held a placard in his hand where it was written from 1933 to 45 we have been there and don't do this so he was telling India from the experience of Germany that we have gone through such a darkest period in our history and don't you don't follow you don't do that mistake he was forced to to to to uh I mean discontinue his course and he was deported to Germany from here so what is the peculiar character of student movement going on now it has I think it is more larger and it demands a more united struggle united in the sense not only unity among different sections of students but the unity among different stakeholders of education students teachers staff and all not only that also a united struggle of students and the the farmers workers unemployed youth and all why because see there is a pattern of the the policies which are passed by Narendra Modi government in recent years you look at everything be it farmers law be it labor court be it environment law be it forest act be it the latest uh the the IT act handle you will see a kind of draconian character a colonial smell and content in all of this thing what was it it was to ensure that the the the people are denied their sovereignty and they are denied access to their resources the resources in their land and they are denied the right to politically represent themselves to and be part of policy making which will shape their future and their life farmers the farmers law in short it was that it denies the farmers right to decide what to produce how to produce work to sell and how to live their life labor court which scraps every single rights the the workers fought and won over the years in history and making them just means that the puppets own just kind of tools or just wage laborers for the market so this kind of policy we will see everywhere you look at the new education policy the aim was to create a new generation which will be trained in a way demanded by the market which was monopolized which was means the monopoly of that market is in the hands of the corporates because they are gaining everything so it it is a systematic plan to prepare a generation which will advance the interest of the big the corporate sections in India so this colonial character between the the the different laws past which affects different kind of people also pays a way pays a way for the people to come together and build a larger struggle which will highlight the anti-colonial spirit and which will also take India to a new future in simple the demand is we SFI students organization of India had organized last year an all-india jada which covered some 24 states and visited to hundreds of campuses met thousands of students and all throughout the jada we were telling that the the simple demand we are saying that during this jada is we deserve a better life we the Indian students deserve a better life when India stands at 107 in 127 countries in the global hunger index that you don't expect that parents send their children to school because they have nothing to eat and when everyone's out of four students who joins first standard drops out from education before reaching secondary level that the the number of students who reach higher secondary level in India is just 55 the number of students who reach higher education which is just after plus two is some 27 the total number of PhD scholars in India among the students in higher education is just 0.5 this has been the situation in India and there is nothing the new education policy over offered to overcome it but they intensify the the existing the they worsen the existing whatever little is existing in India now the question is to protect the future the question is to protect democratic rights the the question is to protect the right to live to to fight for a better life there the the possibility of a larger unity and struggles comes is that was very very well expressed i think that's really the crux of where we stand that we have these assaults on democratic character public institution we have this whole new assault in the form of new education policy which is aimed at you know a commodification of education creating an education system which is specifically designed to meet the interests of the the the corporate sector and the sort of big corporate interests but also to actually deny fundamental education to to marginalize sections in the society to to to the poor to people from socially deprived communities and to women and i think the importance of continuing the struggles against these assaults cannot be cannot be overemphasized so and as mithish pointed out that taking this forward strengthening these struggles requires building solidarities not only among students teachers and and staff of the educational institutions and and building solidarities across educational institutions among these stakeholders but also building solidarities with farmers that with with working people with with unemployed youth and and so on i think that's really the crux of where we stand and what we hope we will see going forward