RAZE THE
PRISONS TO THE GROUND
I am not from Jadavpur
University – I am a pure Calcutta University product. Yet my relationship with
JU runs deep. My grandfather, who I never knew, was an engineer from
JU. Neither my father nor my uncles went to Jadavpur. My brother did, and a lot
of my very close friends.
I know JU in general and
the student politics as it was in the 1980s like the back of my hand. I want to
tell you some of the stories of that time, from the point of view of a sister
who lived through those tumultuous days. My brother was an early initiate into
student politics – he became a member of the FETSU probably in the first few
weeks he joined the university. Between 1979 and 1982, he was first the AGS and
then GS of the FETSU. He later became the Vice Chairman of the same union and
between 1983 & 1984 was the elected student member to court.
Our home was like an
open hostel those days. People came and went, stayed the night, ate the frugal
meals my mother prepared. My brother and his comrades (yes, I shall use the
word, because it is true) held their study circles in our house. I was
mobilized to make tea and serve them snacks while they debated and argued
behind closed doors. I was in Presidency College at the time - ruled by the
then Chatra Parishad, there was no opposition to speak of. Students steered
clear of the ‘Chaap’ members, and that was that. An apolitical student
organization raised its timid head, the ‘Steering Committee’ but that was a
very token protest…. In short, I was not part of student politics like my
brother was.
This tale is about what
happened in 1983 in Jadavpur. I was out of university at that time, working in
Reserve Bank of India. I think it was around the month of September that
trouble erupted at JU. The then rulers, the CPI(M) were unable to get a toehold
in the FETSU, and what resulted should be a black chapter in student politics
in West Bengal. I don’t know the inside story, but one day my brother did not
come home from the university. We got a phone call that the FETSU members were
being hounded by the police and the goons alike. No one knew where they were
The campus was closed off, and there were protracted battles between students
and the ‘outsiders’. Yes, the outsiders were there even then, with or without
political etiquettes..
Now, I come from a
family populated by members who would rush in anywhere and everywhere in any
given situation – without much concern about consequences. So my father and my
uncle set off in search of my brother in Jadavpur, determined to bring him back
to safety. Never ever sparing a thought about their own safety, or how it may
put my brother in an impossible situation.
I don’t have the full
details of what happened that day. I only know that when my father and my uncle
landed up in front of the closed gates of JU, quite a few of my brother’s
comrades had to risk their own lives to escort them back to safety. I know that
my brother did not come home either that night or the next day, busy as he was
organizing the protest movement.
In yet another instance,
the JU students were protesting against the brutal and unprovoked police firing
in Durgapur which resulted in the death of two students of the Regional
Engineering College – Arnab and Tarachand. A massive protest erupted in JU, and
the students took to the streets. On the day when the students were marching to
the Jadavpur Police Station to mark their protest, my brother was in the very
front row. I know that while the windows of the police station shattered and a
chance missile hit the OC who was standing in front of the station and he
started bleeding, he took the safety catch off his revolver. I know that my
brother who was right in front told him ‘you shoot me first, and then the
rest.’ It was a different epoch – the OC never pulled the trigger. It may have
been different today.
I am telling you this
story because maybe a lot of you do not know what happened in your University
before, when those like you risked not only their careers but their lives to
protest, to ask for justice. To let you know that your university has always
had this culture, that the students did not back out fearing individual harm.
These guys are still around, they are behind you. They will support your
movement, because you protest, not because of any party color.
I had a very long chat
with my brother last night. He and his friends are no longer in organized politics
– in fact, they have, as a group, become resigned to the bleak student politics
in general. They had lost hope. But no more. You who braved the inclement
weather to participate in the protest rally, you who made sure that there was
not ONE untoward incident that could have tarred your protest, you who replied
with songs and hope against oppression, you who proved once again, and after a
very long time that a protest can cut across petty party lines and lead to the
mobilization of the normally faceless individual student– you have earned their
respect, the respect of these hard boiled activists who braved every storm.
They are behind you, as
individuals, just like I am, just like a lot of my friends and acquaintances.
We who believe that no one should touch the students - our children, our
future, our hope. Do not give up your sense of justice, do not give in to fear,
do not give in to political manipulations. The whole country is watching you,
maybe the whole world. Fight, dear students and see if you can end the reign of
mediocrity, of injustice, of oppression, of fear.
Long live your protest. Long live the revolution.
I could not resist from quoting a poem by Bertolt Brecht, read
long long back, which came to my mind all of a sudden as I was watching the
developments unfurl in JU. The context is entirely different, yet there is a
thread that connects this movement to Brecht’s poem:
During the war
In a cell of the Italian prison in San Carlo
Full of imprisoned soldiers, drunks and thieves
A socialist soldier, with an indelible pencil, scratched on the wall:
Long live Lenin!
High above, in the semi-dark cell, hardly visible, but
Written in large letters.
As the warders saw it, they sent for a painter with a bucket of lime.
And with a long stemmed brush he whitewashed the threatening
inscription.
Since, however, with his lime, he painted over the letters only
Stood above in the cell, now in chalk:
Long live Lenin!
Next another painter daubed over the whole stretch with a broad brush
So that for hours it disappeared, but towards morning
As the lime dried, the inscription underneath was again conspicuous:
Long live Lenin!
Then dispatched the warder a bricklayer with a chisel against the
inscription
And he scratched out letter by letter, one hour long
And as he was done, now colourless, but up above in the wall
But deeply carved, stood the unconquerable inscription:
Long live Lenin!
Now, said the soldier, get rid of the wall!
#hokkolorob
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