AISA president slams Karnataka Congress over FIRs on students; warns parties against 'lip service' to anti-BJP agenda
All India Students Association (AISA) national president Neha Bora on Sunday criticised the Congress government in Karnataka over the registration of FIRs against students who raised slogans demanding the release of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam. Speaking at the 'Gen Z on the March' programme in Bengaluru, she said political parties claiming to be anti-BJP must "lead by example" and demonstrate what pro-student politics looks like.
"Instead of providing mere lip service to this anti-fascist agenda, they must show what pro-student politics actually looks like," Ms. Bora said. She drew attention to what she termed an inconsistency: the Congress government had extended solidarity to student protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi against Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, but had filed FIRs against students in Karnataka.
Ms. Bora, who was addressing a gathering that included actor Kishore and musician T.M. Krishna, warned that if anti-BJP parties behaved like the BJP towards students and young people, "the young people and students of the country would treat them like the BJP."
She asserted that the "fear felt by the BJP-led Union government is not enough." She said, "What will be enough is when this government and the BJP-RSS system would have been uprooted from the soil of this country. Only then must we rest."
The AISA leader also expressed solidarity with students of Azim Premji University (APU), who, she said, faced a "complete crackdown" on democratic discussion on campus. She referred to students suspended for two years by the university over a discussion on the 1991 Kunan-Poshpora incident in Kashmir. She also extended solidarity to organisations opposing the forced closure of government schools and the establishment of centralised "KPS magnet schools."
Calling on people to "educate, organise and agitate," Ms. Bora said, "Rage does not mean violence or anarchy. It means asking yourself what this country needs from you at this moment, and putting your soul into building that country - into taking this country away from the fascists in a way that means the defeat of the BJP, not just in Parliament, but the defeat of the RSS and its ideology within our shared spaces."
She said the "Gen Z will fight with all the force of history and forge ourselves a future where there is no place for the RSS, where there is no place for the BJP – not just today, not tomorrow but never in the future."
Actor Kishore, addressing the gathering, said that while the movement focused on issues such as paper leaks, there seemed to be a reluctance to mention certain names, issues, incidents and parts of history. Referring to objections to taking the names of Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam and raising the slogan "Azadi," he said, "If our idea of unity requires us to forget certain people, communities, histories, then perhaps we need to examine what kind of unity we are creating."
He stressed that the movement should not lose sight of other injustices, including the deaths of Rohith Vemula, the suffering of children and civilians in Gaza, victims of the war in Ukraine and innocent people caught in conflicts and violence across the world. "We may not be able to solve every one of those problems, but we must retain the capacity to remember them," he said.
Mr. Krishna spoke about how young people have brought creativity into politics and challenged the notion that students should not engage in politics, arguing that "everything is political."
Background: Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam are in judicial custody in connection with a case related to the February 2020 Delhi riots. Their release has been demanded by various student groups. The Karnataka police have registered FIRs against students who raised such slogans at a protest in Bengaluru.
