Building ABVP in Raisoni Campus Chapter III – The Year of Total Revolution संपूर्ण क्रांति (2015 - 2016)
“Replacing the silent suffering of the masses by the spirit of a revolutionary uprising against injustice” was the thought deep in our souls when the year began. We knew that this year would be an all-out battle to actually witness the student movement that we have dreamed of all this three years. We could not visualize the way to go ahead even after series of discussions in the beginning of the year itself. We knew that after two years of efforts, our team was full of passion and diversity. We were very glad by the additional strength that we gained by the new entrants. Aman, first year student and a technocrat powered our social media presence. Ashish, who had friends in each department, had deepened our roots in the college. Jagdeep would bring in the aggression and enthusiasm that we always needed. And lastly, after two years of discussion and deliberation, Kapil had finally decided to work with the organization.
We all had a challenge in front of us. But none except us would let us believe that we can take on that challenge. We were not sure that whether it is the right time to take it on or to wait for another year. The college administration was charging ‘late fine’ from every student who could not pay the entire fees in the first month since the academic year began. It was completely unjust to take upto Rs. 10,000 more as ‘late fine’ from the student who were unable to pay Rs. 1 lakh as college fees at one stroke in the first month. It was painful to see our campus director humiliating parents in front of their children who would plead to pardon the ‘late fine’ and give them more time to pay the college fees. The director would yell at them questioning them the reason for taking admission in a private engineering college. The scene of parents with their eyes filled with tears was now unbearable to us. We were deeply hurt and frustrated for not able to do anything to stop this. When we tried to approach the office staff, we were told that it is according to the rules. No student was ready to raise their voice as a protest of a student organization on the same issue two years ago had failed to make any impact. Many of us wanted to protest, but we were afraid that we would receive the same fate due to lack of mass support. A revolution is what we believed was needed to wake up the conscience of the students facing injustice. In the past ABVP protested on similar issues in other colleges, but majority of the students were not ready to participate even after knowing that they are suffering, as they feared vendetta politics from the college after the protest. We knew how D.Y.Patil Lohegaon College Administration had physically attacked ABVP activists of the same college for protesting against them and JSPM College Administration tried to isolate and harass an ABVP activist who had exposed stationary corruption of Rs. 5 crores. With all this things in mind, a small protest would not do much, and a thought of Total Revolution संपूर्ण क्रांति had hit our minds!
The sword of our revolution had to be first sharpened by the whetting stone of new ideas. We discussed each day, with everyone possible, on how could we affect the conscience of the affected 900 students so that they would spontaneously come forward and lead this fight against injustice till the end. Inquilaab tab hotahai, jab kaum jaagti hai! We wanted to awaken the masses as our effort was to not leave anyone who was affected. After a series of brainstorming meetings filled with heated arguments, we decided a few things to begin with. Aman was given the task of building an independent Whatsapp group network of the 40-odd classes of various departments. For that to accomplish, we would take efforts to recruit atleast one student from each class-room. Along with this, Abhijeet started studying all circulars, Government Resolution’s (G.R) and statutes on AICTE, DTE website to know the legal aspect of the ‘late fine’ issue. We declared 27-member college executive committee with Kapil elected as the Campus Incharge. He had a herculean task ahead to build a movement that still looked impossible to many!
In order for a time-bound execution of task, we decided to inculcate discipline in the functioning of our campus unit. Campus unit meetings were regularized, tasks were allocated and reports were presented on the progress regularly. We wanted us to get aligned in the position from where we would take this to the masses efficiently. We thought of two ways of taking it to the masses. In the formal approach, we organized group discussions on current affairs weekly, which would be followed by the discussion on ‘late fine’ issue. This discussion would help us to understand the mentality of the students towards the issue. We invited senior ABVP activists like Kiran, Abhishek, Nikita and Pravin to regularly visit the college and moderate such discussions. The informal way was to introduce this issue into class-room discussions through our friend’s network. My own class-room proved out to be very helpful in this task as most of them were ABVP members while some were even part of the college unit. Ashish was visiting hostels in the evening to interact with students. As the semester ended, we were disappointed that we could not take a formal step, but we knew that the ground was getting ready for the revolution!
As the next semester began,Abhijeet was ready with the documented evidence which could prove that the ‘late fine’ was illegal. This gave us the confidence to convene an open meeting of students on the 4th of January, 2016. There was a great amount of excitement in the campus unit. After working silently in building base for an entire semester, we will be revealing our plans for the coming days. We all worked day and night to inform maximum number of students about the meeting. The meeting was a grand success as ‘ABVP Raisoni Late-Fine Virodhi Sangarsh Samiti’ of 55 members was formed with Kapil as the convener. We had students questioning about the probability of attaining success but Kapil’s reply of ‘ABVP Raisoni Unit Ki Pukar, Bina Lade Nahi Manenge Haar’ was cheered by all! Abhijeet explained the legal side in detail which was appreciated by everyone. The committee decided to submit memorandum on the next day and give 15-day deadline to the college administration to roll-back the draconian fees. The committee selected three ABVP activists who would accompany Kapil while submitting the memorandum to the campus director.
The memorandum was prepared, with all required documents attached. As all the students that attended the meeting knew about the time when the memorandum had to be submitted, they gathered near the office building along with their class-mates. We informed the administration that we wanted to meet the campus director to submit the memorandum, but they replied that the director didn’t wishes to meet us. Hearing this, a spontaneous protest broke out within the office building echoing with slogans against the college administration. We didn’t realized what to do next as this was never planned. We asked Kapil to address the protesting students and continued protesting for 90 minutes after which the director arrived and accepted the memorandum. We were amazed to see this natural reaction which signaled the building-up of movement for which we were working tirelessly. Aman ensured that this incident was broadcasted to our social media network which created a huge buzz amongst the students. We were glad that the college administration themselves provided us the spark we needed!
We increased the magnitude of our campaigning. Each day we would broadcast facts or documents related to the issue. But an equal level of rumor mongering was started by the college administration. We decided to counter all such rumors through our Facebook Page and weekly meetings. Various baseless charges were leveled against us that we could dare to imagine. Still we continued taking on each one of them. We expected the college administration to call us for discussion, but instead they would talk with our unit members individually through professors and HOD’s. A large number of us grew impatient as there was no official communication even after 10 days of submitting the memorandum. When we finally decided to protest on 20th January and started preparations for it, we received a call from the college management for discussion on the 21st of January. Some of us saw it as an attempt to stall our preparations. But we wanted to hear the view of the college management. Along with that, we also wanted to explain them the legal side so that they can be convinced that the ‘late fine’ is illegal.
On the day of discussion, the campus director gave us documents supporting their stand. Immediately, we pointed out the discrepancies and highlighted the same points in the documents submitted by us. The college management offered us an alternative to pardon few students from ‘late fine.’ But we were adamant on our point of view that when the ‘late fine’ is itself illegal, there is no question of pardoning it off. We had two hours of heated discussion which ended in no conclusion. At the end of the discussion, the campus director arrogantly blasted at us saying that ABVP won’t be able to abolish the ‘late fine’ completely and we should not demand something which is impossible to fulfill. This made us clear that for the deaf to hear, the sound has to be very loud!
When we convened our meeting the next day, there was growing impatience to protest as quickly as possible. But we were not sure of the level of penetration that we wanted to achieve by which each one of the affected students would stand with us on the judgement day. To gauge this, we decided to undertake a mass signature campaign. We would first ask them that whether they knew about the issue along with their opinion on the issue and finally the question of whether they would be the part of the protest. The response that we received was not as expected. We realized that still a lot of students were not confident enough to be a part of the protest. For a total revolution to take place, the last standing student should feel the same strength, the same zeal, the same anger that we, the ABVP activists felt. We surely required more activists to put in more efforts. Kapil, Jaydeep and Ashish worked to expand the college executive committee and distributed additional work to the new entrants. Kapil created a working committee that would convene daily to take follow-up. Along with that, Aman worked to develop an independent social media team that would bombard social media with the protest content. With this planning and our calculations, we announced 9th February 2016 as the judgement day!
In mid of the rigorous preparations, we got information that MNVS which had protested two years ago, has also decided to protest. We didn’t wish to lose the unity of the movement which required a lot of efforts. After long marathon meetings of convincing every unit member about the need for us to take them onboard, we finally approached Yogesh who was the Assembly-Constituency President of MNVS. He readily agreed and became an active part of the committee that was driving the movement. We were two student organizations with different ideology, but still we got all the required support from MNVS.
We continued the campaign as we entered the penultimate day. The campus was turned into a ‘kurukshetra’ of student movement as our activists were seen at every part of the campus in the campaign blitzkrieg. 31 class-room meetings and 2 mega public meetings were addressed by a dozen activists. After every alternate hour, we would run into a heated argument with a professor or security guard, while the rest continuing the campaigning. We would stand at the gate and explain each and every student about the need of the protest till we feel that they are convinced. The final college unit meeting transformed into a public meeting as it was addressed by ABVP State Secretary Ram. He spoke so loudly that the entire college was able to hear his speech. Everybody was assigned various tasks such as crowd management, drafting of the final memorandum, police permission, media co-ordination and arrangement of posters, banner and flags. A fiasco occurred in the night before,as a Whatsapp message went viral that the protest has been postponed, but we ensured that we used our network well to broadcast the reality. Ashish ensured that the hostel ABVP team worked in the night time to stick posters on all walls besides roads leading to the campus. Yes, we were ready and excited for the judgement day!
‘Ho Jao Taiyaar Sathiyo, Ho Jao Taiyaar’ was the song that we had chosen for the working committee meeting that commenced at sharp 7AM inside Abhijeet’s room! As we were ensuring through the checklist that all preparations were made, Kiran quickly analyzed the additional security arrangements standing at the campus gate. Abhijeet draw the college map and reminded us of our positions while Ashish made the final campaign in the college hostel. Senior ABVP activists Ram, Pradip, Sagar, Raghav, Parimal, Sudarshan, Kirti and Pravin arrived at the campus. We secretly handed over the material required for the protest across the college wall. Most of us were tensed speculating the number that would turn out, waiting for the scheduled time of 10am.
I can never forget this moment in my entire life when Kapil informed me that the time was 10am and I looked around the campus. Almost the entire number of students that were attending classes walked out spontaneously with the slogans of ‘We Will Fight, We Will Fin’ and assembled in front of the porch of the GHIET building. The porch could only accommodate maximum 1000 students, and hence the rest of them assembled near the playground. The expression on their face clearly revealed the story that would unfold as the day progressed. The movement that we had dreamed of went ahead of our own imaginations! Even the last standing student was shouting slogans in broad day-light for hours. The college management locked down the GHRIET building for us to not enter the building which would isolate us from those who were protesting inside the GHRIET building. But this made no effect on us as both the sides continued protesting. The college management panicked and sent professors who would ask us to suspend the protest. But we would humbly respond them by raising the slogan of ‘No Suspension, No Discussion, We Want Decision’ as we had already given the college management enough time to think and decide. Nearly 30 ABVP activists addressed this ‘Vishwa Swarup’ of student movement and covered every aspect of the issue. The college administration repeatedly offered us solutions like decreasing the late fine percentage or forming a high level committee, which was instantly rejected by us.
Finally the college administration called police force. We explained to them the entire ensure and were adamant on our ‘Right to Protest.’ The police warned us that they will arrest us, but failed to do so, considering the number of protesters! Three hours were completed since the protest began, but still the college management was not ready to accept its mistake. We realized that their strategy was to waste time for the students to get tired and finally get dispersed. We made repeated appeal to student asking if anyone wants to leave the protest mid-way, to which they would respond with a big ‘NO!’ The students were so determined that they informed their professors that they will not leave their positions, even if they have to stay here the whole night. As four hours were completed, the throats of students who were continuously shouting slogans soured. Few got up and volunteered to ensure that water is available for everyone protesting. Most of them were empty stomach since morning, but continued singing the ‘songs of protest,’ while Ram was in touch with the college management for them to announce their final decision.
At 1:30pm, the college management accepted our demands of abolishing the ‘late fine’ forever! ‘Jeet Gaya Re, Jeet Gaya! Humara Sangarsh Jeet Gaya!’, ‘ABVP Zindabad’,’Students Power – Nations Power’ echoed over the entire campus! Each one who had worked day and night was in tears as we hugged each other. ABVP flags were waved in the campus as the protest broke into celebrations. We knew that we have achieved the unbelievable. The face of each student had the same expression that ‘Yes, Injustice can be defeated and we have very well defeated it!’ The management had learned the lesson of a lifetime that they can no longer continue treating students as customers, whom they could loot anytime without the education they promised ruining their careers. We thanked each and every student who decided to hear his conscience and omit fear of consequences as he had chosen to fight for his right!
Friends, this was the same day of 9th February 2016, on which few students from another campus situated in the capital gave slogans against the same nation which ensured that they study in a prestigious institute. While the nation debated the entire episode, we were satisfied by the fact that we have been a catalyst in unfolding an incident that could change approach towards life of a thousand students. We were frankly just curious to know that can we create an environment, a force where the conscious mind could take a decision of selecting the right path and not staying neutral, leave alone choosing the wrong path. We are happy that we have got our answer, so did the protesting students who would now never remain silence in any part of their life and build a movement of righteousness. We could be idealists dreaming of this, but we have just tried and achieved success!
We all had a challenge in front of us. But none except us would let us believe that we can take on that challenge. We were not sure that whether it is the right time to take it on or to wait for another year. The college administration was charging ‘late fine’ from every student who could not pay the entire fees in the first month since the academic year began. It was completely unjust to take upto Rs. 10,000 more as ‘late fine’ from the student who were unable to pay Rs. 1 lakh as college fees at one stroke in the first month. It was painful to see our campus director humiliating parents in front of their children who would plead to pardon the ‘late fine’ and give them more time to pay the college fees. The director would yell at them questioning them the reason for taking admission in a private engineering college. The scene of parents with their eyes filled with tears was now unbearable to us. We were deeply hurt and frustrated for not able to do anything to stop this. When we tried to approach the office staff, we were told that it is according to the rules. No student was ready to raise their voice as a protest of a student organization on the same issue two years ago had failed to make any impact. Many of us wanted to protest, but we were afraid that we would receive the same fate due to lack of mass support. A revolution is what we believed was needed to wake up the conscience of the students facing injustice. In the past ABVP protested on similar issues in other colleges, but majority of the students were not ready to participate even after knowing that they are suffering, as they feared vendetta politics from the college after the protest. We knew how D.Y.Patil Lohegaon College Administration had physically attacked ABVP activists of the same college for protesting against them and JSPM College Administration tried to isolate and harass an ABVP activist who had exposed stationary corruption of Rs. 5 crores. With all this things in mind, a small protest would not do much, and a thought of Total Revolution संपूर्ण क्रांति had hit our minds!
The sword of our revolution had to be first sharpened by the whetting stone of new ideas. We discussed each day, with everyone possible, on how could we affect the conscience of the affected 900 students so that they would spontaneously come forward and lead this fight against injustice till the end. Inquilaab tab hotahai, jab kaum jaagti hai! We wanted to awaken the masses as our effort was to not leave anyone who was affected. After a series of brainstorming meetings filled with heated arguments, we decided a few things to begin with. Aman was given the task of building an independent Whatsapp group network of the 40-odd classes of various departments. For that to accomplish, we would take efforts to recruit atleast one student from each class-room. Along with this, Abhijeet started studying all circulars, Government Resolution’s (G.R) and statutes on AICTE, DTE website to know the legal aspect of the ‘late fine’ issue. We declared 27-member college executive committee with Kapil elected as the Campus Incharge. He had a herculean task ahead to build a movement that still looked impossible to many!
In order for a time-bound execution of task, we decided to inculcate discipline in the functioning of our campus unit. Campus unit meetings were regularized, tasks were allocated and reports were presented on the progress regularly. We wanted us to get aligned in the position from where we would take this to the masses efficiently. We thought of two ways of taking it to the masses. In the formal approach, we organized group discussions on current affairs weekly, which would be followed by the discussion on ‘late fine’ issue. This discussion would help us to understand the mentality of the students towards the issue. We invited senior ABVP activists like Kiran, Abhishek, Nikita and Pravin to regularly visit the college and moderate such discussions. The informal way was to introduce this issue into class-room discussions through our friend’s network. My own class-room proved out to be very helpful in this task as most of them were ABVP members while some were even part of the college unit. Ashish was visiting hostels in the evening to interact with students. As the semester ended, we were disappointed that we could not take a formal step, but we knew that the ground was getting ready for the revolution!
As the next semester began,Abhijeet was ready with the documented evidence which could prove that the ‘late fine’ was illegal. This gave us the confidence to convene an open meeting of students on the 4th of January, 2016. There was a great amount of excitement in the campus unit. After working silently in building base for an entire semester, we will be revealing our plans for the coming days. We all worked day and night to inform maximum number of students about the meeting. The meeting was a grand success as ‘ABVP Raisoni Late-Fine Virodhi Sangarsh Samiti’ of 55 members was formed with Kapil as the convener. We had students questioning about the probability of attaining success but Kapil’s reply of ‘ABVP Raisoni Unit Ki Pukar, Bina Lade Nahi Manenge Haar’ was cheered by all! Abhijeet explained the legal side in detail which was appreciated by everyone. The committee decided to submit memorandum on the next day and give 15-day deadline to the college administration to roll-back the draconian fees. The committee selected three ABVP activists who would accompany Kapil while submitting the memorandum to the campus director.
The memorandum was prepared, with all required documents attached. As all the students that attended the meeting knew about the time when the memorandum had to be submitted, they gathered near the office building along with their class-mates. We informed the administration that we wanted to meet the campus director to submit the memorandum, but they replied that the director didn’t wishes to meet us. Hearing this, a spontaneous protest broke out within the office building echoing with slogans against the college administration. We didn’t realized what to do next as this was never planned. We asked Kapil to address the protesting students and continued protesting for 90 minutes after which the director arrived and accepted the memorandum. We were amazed to see this natural reaction which signaled the building-up of movement for which we were working tirelessly. Aman ensured that this incident was broadcasted to our social media network which created a huge buzz amongst the students. We were glad that the college administration themselves provided us the spark we needed!
We increased the magnitude of our campaigning. Each day we would broadcast facts or documents related to the issue. But an equal level of rumor mongering was started by the college administration. We decided to counter all such rumors through our Facebook Page and weekly meetings. Various baseless charges were leveled against us that we could dare to imagine. Still we continued taking on each one of them. We expected the college administration to call us for discussion, but instead they would talk with our unit members individually through professors and HOD’s. A large number of us grew impatient as there was no official communication even after 10 days of submitting the memorandum. When we finally decided to protest on 20th January and started preparations for it, we received a call from the college management for discussion on the 21st of January. Some of us saw it as an attempt to stall our preparations. But we wanted to hear the view of the college management. Along with that, we also wanted to explain them the legal side so that they can be convinced that the ‘late fine’ is illegal.
On the day of discussion, the campus director gave us documents supporting their stand. Immediately, we pointed out the discrepancies and highlighted the same points in the documents submitted by us. The college management offered us an alternative to pardon few students from ‘late fine.’ But we were adamant on our point of view that when the ‘late fine’ is itself illegal, there is no question of pardoning it off. We had two hours of heated discussion which ended in no conclusion. At the end of the discussion, the campus director arrogantly blasted at us saying that ABVP won’t be able to abolish the ‘late fine’ completely and we should not demand something which is impossible to fulfill. This made us clear that for the deaf to hear, the sound has to be very loud!
When we convened our meeting the next day, there was growing impatience to protest as quickly as possible. But we were not sure of the level of penetration that we wanted to achieve by which each one of the affected students would stand with us on the judgement day. To gauge this, we decided to undertake a mass signature campaign. We would first ask them that whether they knew about the issue along with their opinion on the issue and finally the question of whether they would be the part of the protest. The response that we received was not as expected. We realized that still a lot of students were not confident enough to be a part of the protest. For a total revolution to take place, the last standing student should feel the same strength, the same zeal, the same anger that we, the ABVP activists felt. We surely required more activists to put in more efforts. Kapil, Jaydeep and Ashish worked to expand the college executive committee and distributed additional work to the new entrants. Kapil created a working committee that would convene daily to take follow-up. Along with that, Aman worked to develop an independent social media team that would bombard social media with the protest content. With this planning and our calculations, we announced 9th February 2016 as the judgement day!
In mid of the rigorous preparations, we got information that MNVS which had protested two years ago, has also decided to protest. We didn’t wish to lose the unity of the movement which required a lot of efforts. After long marathon meetings of convincing every unit member about the need for us to take them onboard, we finally approached Yogesh who was the Assembly-Constituency President of MNVS. He readily agreed and became an active part of the committee that was driving the movement. We were two student organizations with different ideology, but still we got all the required support from MNVS.
We continued the campaign as we entered the penultimate day. The campus was turned into a ‘kurukshetra’ of student movement as our activists were seen at every part of the campus in the campaign blitzkrieg. 31 class-room meetings and 2 mega public meetings were addressed by a dozen activists. After every alternate hour, we would run into a heated argument with a professor or security guard, while the rest continuing the campaigning. We would stand at the gate and explain each and every student about the need of the protest till we feel that they are convinced. The final college unit meeting transformed into a public meeting as it was addressed by ABVP State Secretary Ram. He spoke so loudly that the entire college was able to hear his speech. Everybody was assigned various tasks such as crowd management, drafting of the final memorandum, police permission, media co-ordination and arrangement of posters, banner and flags. A fiasco occurred in the night before,as a Whatsapp message went viral that the protest has been postponed, but we ensured that we used our network well to broadcast the reality. Ashish ensured that the hostel ABVP team worked in the night time to stick posters on all walls besides roads leading to the campus. Yes, we were ready and excited for the judgement day!
‘Ho Jao Taiyaar Sathiyo, Ho Jao Taiyaar’ was the song that we had chosen for the working committee meeting that commenced at sharp 7AM inside Abhijeet’s room! As we were ensuring through the checklist that all preparations were made, Kiran quickly analyzed the additional security arrangements standing at the campus gate. Abhijeet draw the college map and reminded us of our positions while Ashish made the final campaign in the college hostel. Senior ABVP activists Ram, Pradip, Sagar, Raghav, Parimal, Sudarshan, Kirti and Pravin arrived at the campus. We secretly handed over the material required for the protest across the college wall. Most of us were tensed speculating the number that would turn out, waiting for the scheduled time of 10am.
I can never forget this moment in my entire life when Kapil informed me that the time was 10am and I looked around the campus. Almost the entire number of students that were attending classes walked out spontaneously with the slogans of ‘We Will Fight, We Will Fin’ and assembled in front of the porch of the GHIET building. The porch could only accommodate maximum 1000 students, and hence the rest of them assembled near the playground. The expression on their face clearly revealed the story that would unfold as the day progressed. The movement that we had dreamed of went ahead of our own imaginations! Even the last standing student was shouting slogans in broad day-light for hours. The college management locked down the GHRIET building for us to not enter the building which would isolate us from those who were protesting inside the GHRIET building. But this made no effect on us as both the sides continued protesting. The college management panicked and sent professors who would ask us to suspend the protest. But we would humbly respond them by raising the slogan of ‘No Suspension, No Discussion, We Want Decision’ as we had already given the college management enough time to think and decide. Nearly 30 ABVP activists addressed this ‘Vishwa Swarup’ of student movement and covered every aspect of the issue. The college administration repeatedly offered us solutions like decreasing the late fine percentage or forming a high level committee, which was instantly rejected by us.
Finally the college administration called police force. We explained to them the entire ensure and were adamant on our ‘Right to Protest.’ The police warned us that they will arrest us, but failed to do so, considering the number of protesters! Three hours were completed since the protest began, but still the college management was not ready to accept its mistake. We realized that their strategy was to waste time for the students to get tired and finally get dispersed. We made repeated appeal to student asking if anyone wants to leave the protest mid-way, to which they would respond with a big ‘NO!’ The students were so determined that they informed their professors that they will not leave their positions, even if they have to stay here the whole night. As four hours were completed, the throats of students who were continuously shouting slogans soured. Few got up and volunteered to ensure that water is available for everyone protesting. Most of them were empty stomach since morning, but continued singing the ‘songs of protest,’ while Ram was in touch with the college management for them to announce their final decision.
At 1:30pm, the college management accepted our demands of abolishing the ‘late fine’ forever! ‘Jeet Gaya Re, Jeet Gaya! Humara Sangarsh Jeet Gaya!’, ‘ABVP Zindabad’,’Students Power – Nations Power’ echoed over the entire campus! Each one who had worked day and night was in tears as we hugged each other. ABVP flags were waved in the campus as the protest broke into celebrations. We knew that we have achieved the unbelievable. The face of each student had the same expression that ‘Yes, Injustice can be defeated and we have very well defeated it!’ The management had learned the lesson of a lifetime that they can no longer continue treating students as customers, whom they could loot anytime without the education they promised ruining their careers. We thanked each and every student who decided to hear his conscience and omit fear of consequences as he had chosen to fight for his right!
Friends, this was the same day of 9th February 2016, on which few students from another campus situated in the capital gave slogans against the same nation which ensured that they study in a prestigious institute. While the nation debated the entire episode, we were satisfied by the fact that we have been a catalyst in unfolding an incident that could change approach towards life of a thousand students. We were frankly just curious to know that can we create an environment, a force where the conscious mind could take a decision of selecting the right path and not staying neutral, leave alone choosing the wrong path. We are happy that we have got our answer, so did the protesting students who would now never remain silence in any part of their life and build a movement of righteousness. We could be idealists dreaming of this, but we have just tried and achieved success!
 |
| Ram addressing the students |
In the next week after the protest, our campus unit had organized a study circle on the topic of ‘Nation, Society, State - Role of an Individual’ on the background of the 9th Feb incident. The point that was rigorously discussed is worth mentioning. Every day at 9pm we hear prime-time debates that criticize organizations, decisions or actions of the state or something we blame it on the society, but did we ever thought the accountability of YOU as a part of the nation? Did we ever try to take the responsibility on ourselves as an individual to change the actual situation to atleast a little? Did we care to actually step out of our comfort zone and fight for someone’s right when you realized unjust happening? A bureaucrat does corruption in funds for tribal education and deprives thousands from education. We want government initiated IIT for our children but don’t care if the children of the poor virtually end their career by enrolling in a corporation-run school. Do we care to fight against such individuals, such syndicate that have forgotten their responsibilities and have kept their character for sale? Are we not disturbed by the fact that still a lot our own brothers or sisters in some part of the nation are deprived by the basic ‘Right to Educate’ that we received without any struggle? Can we help those who are struggling for ‘food, clothing and shelter’ by ensuring that atleast they get an equal chance like us to improve their life and live with self-respect?Not thousands, but atleast one? You may think that we could have resolved a very small issue, but it was unbearable to think of our own friends dropping their education due to someone’s illegal act. We would continue our fight for ‘Quality Education For All!.’
जब काली घटा छाहे,
जब अँधेरा सच को निगल जाए,
जब दुनिया सारी डर के आगे सर अपना झुकाए,
तू शोला बन जा,
वो शोला बन जा,
जो खुद जल के जहां रोशन कर दें।
The nation wants to know,
WHAT YOU WOULD DO?
This article is a part of three-article series. You can find the first two chapters by clicking the below links:
Well done Aanand ji..!!
ReplyDeleteProud to be ur frnd..!!!
Thanks bro
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