9th National Conference, 9 – 10 November 2019, Hyderabad

Education and Jobs – Not Mobs!

Harmony – Not Hate!

Constitution – Not Manusmriti!

Policies for People’s Need – Not Corporate Greed!  

Unite and Resist!

Friends,

The 9th National Conference of All India Students Association (AISA) is going to take place on 9 – 10 November in Hyderabad. We appeal for your support for the National Conference. We have a vision for education, society and country and we have continuously strived for that: inclusive and quality education; and a just and equal society. AISA has consistently expanded the grammar of student politics and student movement, connecting it with the people’s voice, aspirations and struggles. While fighting for education, employment and campus democracy, we have also participated in the struggles of peasants and workers, in the people’s movement to safeguard democracy and constitutional values. Today, AISA is the most prominent fighting voice of students’ movements across different states of the country. 

Friends, our National Conference is going to take place in an extraordinary situation when the ruling regime is hell bent to destroy our education system, employment opportunities and democracy and constitution. The Modi 2.0 has unleashed a slew of anti-people and anti-democracy legislations and changes – dilution of the RTI Act, dangerous changes in the UAPA and NIA, abolition of Section 370 in Jammu Kashmir bulldozing country’s federal structure, constitution and the voice of the people, fear mongering and imposition of NRC targeting one particular community and the introduction of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) to define citizenship on the basis of religion. RSS – BJP is desperate to control all constitutional bodies and media houses and unleash lynch mob madness replacing all democratic values. BJP is indulging into shameless horse trading of elected representatives across the country. The language of hooliganism has become the new normal in our Parliament. While the Government offers only jumlas to fight against corruption, we have witnessed unbridled corporate loot. Murders and rapists are getting patronage of the ruling regime, when there is an all-out attack against dissenting voices. Our time is more treacherous than the time of Emergency.

The Sangh brigade has let loose the policies of “divide, divert and rule” by spreading the poisons of communalism, hatred, violence and frenzy to divert attention from people’s issues. We are witnessing atrocious incidents of casteist communal mob lynching every day.

BJP Govt’s Intensifying Assaults on Higher Education – We all have seen the continuous attacks on the sphere of higher education by Modi Government in the last 5 years: war against universities, fund cut, financial autonomy, seat cut, fee hike, scholarship cut, reservation cut and policies of saffronisation and privatization.

To institutionalize the assaults on education system, Modi Govt has recently introduced the Draft National Education Policy – 2019 (DNEP 2019). This is nothing but a blueprint to destroy accessible and inclusive Government educational institutions to benefit private schools and universities. The Government is shamelessly proposing to shut down public schools and colleges in the name of ‘merger’ and ‘multiplex education system’. On the other hand, the DNEP 2019 talks about how private institutions will be completely free from the Government control to determine their fee structure.  We all know how the Jio University got the “Institute of Eminence” status even before its existence! Benefitting private and foreign institutions at the cost of public funded higher education will dangerously push India’s youth, especially those from marginalized backgrounds, out of accessible and quality higher education. On behalf of AISA, we strongly reject the DNEP 2019 gameplan of push-out students and dismantling of public funded education.

Economic Crisis and Skyrocketing Unemployment – The disastrous policies of demonetization and GST have destroyed the backbone of Indian Economy and small and medium enterprises, pushing crores into unemployment. On the other hand, the Government is destroying the very few remaining avenues of employment. The unemployment rate has broken all previous records, drastically reducing the purchasing power of the vast majority of the people of our country.  That’s why; today India is going through a severe economic crisis. The GDP growth has officially come down to 5% and if it is adjusted to inflation it will virtually come down to zero. Automobile sector and textile industry are facing massive crisis. Even Rs. 5 Parle G Biscuit is not selling! Companies and showrooms are getting closed down; lakhs are losing their jobs every month. And the Government is making announcements of 1.45 crore tax-cuts for the super rich. Not only that, Modi Govt has intensified the all-out sell of public sector undertakings to private hands.

AISA opposes the destructive policies leading to massive economic crisis and unemployment and demands for ‘Bhagat Singh Rozgaar Guarantee Yojana’ – dignified employment for all!

ASIA’s Struggles for Campuses, Education and Country – In the last three decades, AISA fought and won several significant struggles to make the education system more inclusive and our campuses democratic. When just after coming into power, Modi Govt launched policy level assaults on the sphere of higher education and declared war against universities – AISA stood steadfastly in resistance across campuses.

AISA spearheaded the ‘Occupy UGC’ movement in 2015 when Modi Govt decided to scrap the Non NET Fellowship and planned for massive budget cut in higher eduction to undermine India’s autonomy in higher education at the WTO. The consistent struggles of AISA forced to scrap FYUP (Four Year Undergraduate Program) in Delhi University. Against the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula in HCU, we launched a campaign ‘Arise My Country: March Forward for an India of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar’s Dreams’ to resist caste discrimination in campuses and to demand for Rohith Act. In November 2017, AISA held Student – Youth Yatra from Chandigarh to Calcutta with the slogan – “Education not Hate, Jobs not Mobs”. Against dismantling of GSCASH in JNU and police repression on women students protesting against sexual harassments in BHU, we have demanded the formation of autonomous gender cell across campuses.  We have united different movements across states fighting for employment in Railways, Banking and SSC in a platform ‘Rozgaar Mange India’. On 7th February, 2019, AISA along with more than 80 student organizations, unions and movements organized ‘Young India Adhikar March’ from Lal Quila to Parliament Street demanding accessible education and dignified employment for all. Thousands of students and youth participated in the Adhikar March.

AISA is committed for

• Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar’s vision of an egalitarian India – not Golwalkar-Savarkar’s model of communally divided India
• Policies to serve people’s need not corporate greed
• Democracy and secularism, against lynching and communalism
• The Indian Constitution which stands for all, protects the marginalized and the minorities – against the Manusmriti which oppresses & excludes them
• Affordable education against privatization, commercialisation and fee hike
• Rational, scientific, humanist education – against saffronisation and obscurantism
• Right to Employment with dignity
• Students rights against administrative autocracy
• Reservations and deprivation points against social discrimination and exclusion in education and jobs
• Freedom and equality for women and LGBTQI people, against patriarchy, gender discrimination, homophobia, moral policing
• Freedom of expression against censorship by Government or street mobs, freedom of press against manipulations and silencing by the people in power

We invite you to engage with ASIA’s campaigns, to ask tough questions and join the movement for a better campus, a better India and a better world. Let us unite to defeat all regressive ideologies and religious fundamentalism. Let’s unite to uproot caste and patriarchy. Let’s not accept the ever-widening inequalities in our society. When politics decides our future, let’s decide what our politics will be.

We once again appeal for your wholehearted support in ASIA’s 9th National Conference on 9 – 10 November in Hyderabad.  

To support AISA, Click here to donate.