SFI@50: Solidarity, Support And Praise From Palestine
Student Struggle Editorial Team
The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) today completes fifty years of study and struggle. From across the world, the organisation has received messages of solidarity and support for their relentless fight for India’s student community. Below are some from Palestine:
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) National Committee
The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) National Committee, the largest coalition of Palestinian civil society that leads the global BDS movement for freedom, justice and equality of the Palestinian people, applauds the Students Federation of India for having completed half a century of struggle for social and economic justice.
On this 50th anniversary, we salute your Federation and its more than 4 million members for being at the forefront of the progressive students movement in India. In a country as vast as India, you are fighting nationwide for democracy, against privatization and against right wing control of knowledge production in India, while also aligning with wider social struggles in the region and taking a stand against racial discrimination and oppression globally.
We appreciated in particular the principled and practical solidarity with the Palestinian people which you have expressed by endorsing in 2018 our call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until it respects international law and Palestinian human rights, and by joining various BDS campaigns to end complicity in Israeli colonialism, military occupation and apartheid, especially the boycott of HP companies. As Israel plays an ever bigger role in exporting its methods and technology of racist violence, militarization, profiling, mass surveillance and repression to India and across the world, we believe it is more important than ever to end ties with Israel’s deeply complicit academic institutions and keep Indian universities free of Israeli apartheid and all other forms of racial discrimination.
On the occasion of your anniversary, we reaffirm our commitment to our joint struggle, together, until freedom and justice will prevail.
sd/-
Palestinian BDS National Committee
General Union of Palestine Students
From Palestine, we congratulate the Students Federation of India for having completed 50 years of commitment and struggle towards your guiding vision of “Independence, Democracy, Socialism”.
You have been at the forefront of campaigns against privatization of education in India, steadfast in the defence of universities as a space for critical, progressive thought and fighting against right-wing efforts to crush dissent and militarize campuses. You have also stood up for internationalism and global struggles against imperialism, including the Palestinian struggle for freedom from Israeli settler-colonialism, military occupation and apartheid.
You have worked towards raising awareness and taking action in solidarity with the Palestinian people, most recently through joining the Palestinian civil society-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. As Palestinian students, we see your and our struggles against imperialism, racism and neoliberal control of public institutions and resources as connected. On your 50th anniversary we reaffirm our commitment to struggle together with progressive Indian students until we realise our visions of justice, truly decolonized universities and meaningful internationalism.
sd/-
General Union of Palestinian Students
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