Pamplet brought out by AISA, "Chandu Tum Zinda HO..." on the XIth Anniversary of Com.Chandrashekar's martyrdom,31 March 2008.
"...Future generations will ask us-where where you when new social forces of struggle where being unleashed, when the marginal voices of our society were asserting?...It's our duty to be a part of the struggle to make a truly secular, democratic, self-reliant, egalitarian India." -Comrade Chandrashekhar in JNUSU Presidential Debate 1994.
"...Future generations will ask us-where where you when new social forces of struggle where being unleashed, when the marginal voices of our society were asserting?...It's our duty to be a part of the struggle to make a truly secular, democratic, self-reliant, egalitarian India." -Comrade Chandrashekhar in JNUSU Presidential Debate 1994.
With his life, his struggles and his martyrdom, Chandrashekar reminded us that our campus can't simply be an academic enclave; it is bound by a thousand links to the heartbeat of India's struggling people. As JNUSU VP in 1993, as JNUSU President in 1994 and 1995, he led the successful struggle for restoration of Deprivation Points for students from deprived sections in JNU admissions, the historic movement against fee hike and privatization proposals and initiated the move for creation of an autonomous body in JNU to look into cases of sexual harassment. He resolutely resisted communal fascism and linked JNU with the people's movements all over India.
Many make the journey from the village to the city-Chandu chose to make the journey back: deciding to return to his hometown Siwan for a life of activism. This campus heared Chandu's voice resound often, raising bold slogans challenging the powers that be. On March 31 1997, exactly ten years back, while he was addressing a street-corner meeting at JP Chowk, Siwan, for Bihar Bandh against massacre of dalits, bullets sponsored by the local mafia-MP Shahabuddin sought to silence him. Following his martyrdom an unprecedented student movement led by the students of JNU rocked the national capital for over a month.
Throught the last decade, both the communal-casteist gang up as well as the corporate-dictated neo-liberal policies have intensified their offensive against people of this country. The Apex court of the land while endrosing the Brahminical meritocracy of corporate-backed anti-reservationists is turning a blind eye to the massive reservation of land and subsidies for the mega-corporates in the name of SEZs. But it is also the phase when people's resistance movements are scaling new heights: from the powerful assertion of North-East people against the draconian AFSPA following Manorama Devi's brutal rape and murder to the heroic resistance by the people of Kalinganagar and now Nandigram braving bullets against SEZs and corporate land grab.
Chandu's spirit was one of bold interventation in all the key political questions of his time: the communal campaign against Babri Masjid; the casteist frenzy against Mandal Commission reservation; the policies of privatization; a range of people's movements on the issues of caste, gender, class.
In our times, whenever students of JNU have boldly kicked out Nestle and defended the campus from corporatisation; joined the cry to scrap AFSPA, both on the streets od Delhi and Manipur; held hunger strike for over a month to defend OBC quotas from the elitist anti-reservationsist; waged and won battles to democratise JNU through increased MCM fellowships and recognition for Madarsa certificates; looked the Prime Minister in the eye to show him black flags;rallied with the protesting peasants of Singur and Nandigram, Kalinganagar and Khammam, and corporate land grab; risked rustication to protest when workers are denied minimum wages on campus; spoken out in solidarity with those being witch-hunted in the name of being Muslim or Naxalite; and resolutely resisted the communal lumpens on campus and beyond...their political impulses and struggles have kept alive Chandrashekhar's spirit and his politics!
Today on the XIth anniversary of Com.Chandrashekhar's martyrdom, AISA salutes the martyr of peoples' struggle and rededicates itself to carry forward their unfinished agenda both in the campus and beyond.