The Story Of Student Struggle: Talking To Biman Basu
Biman Basu, Shuvajit Sarkar
Biman Basu was elected the General Secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) at the organisation’s first All India Conference held at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, in December 1970. In 1973, Basu became the first ever Editor of Student Struggle. In this interview, Shuvajit Sarkar, an Editorial Member at Student Struggle today, speaks to Basu about the formative years of the journal.
Shuvajit Sarkar (SS): Please tell us about the birth of Student Struggle. Why did the SFI think it should have a journal, and how did it materialise?
Biman Basu (BB): After the formation of the SFI in the All India Students’ Conference held at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala in 1970, progressive students in the country felt the pressing need to be able to communicate with each other. India, of course, is a vast country with enormous diversity, especially in linguistic and cultural terms. Students from the different parts of India – Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and the like – had started to be organised under the banner of the SFI, and this led to an urgent need for a single platform for communication and ideological exchange between leaders and activists from every region. In 1970, we did not think of a national journal, because the organisation was still at a nascent stage. Yet, in most states, the organisation existed at the college and university levels, and in Kerala, organising began in schools. I have been to Kerala several times and have witnessed how they have built the SFI brick by brick from the school level, and to college and university levels. All this news needed to reach our activists across the country, so that all of us could collectively learn from each other.
As far as I can recollect, we began publishing the Student Struggle in 1973. I remember that a crucial aspect about organising at the time was that students from across the world were mobilising themselves, fighting all odds, and striving for democracy. In various countries like France, Germany, and England, students were fighting authoritarian regimes. For eg: In France’s Sorbonne University, they occupied the campus for eleven days. News from these places was important and inspiring, and it had to be decimated in such a manner that students became a part and parcel of the democratic educational movements and became the torch bearers of new ideas in society. For this, they had to be mobilised – this message was best carried forward by a journal. Student Struggle was a vital tool for students in India.
In its initial days, the journal was not in good shape. We reported on the student movement and on issues of education in the country, but not properly. Its publication standards were poor and printing mistakes aplenty. Nonetheless, we soon rectified as and when we realised the true potential of Student Struggle as a repository of all our struggles across the years, as well as of our vision for the future. We tried our best to cover the SFI’s activities and campaigns everywhere in the country, and the project grew rather substantially in the years that followed.
SS: Who were the main organisers of Student Struggle in its initial years?
BB: I could not do much justice to Student Struggle when I was its Editor as I was also the General Secretary of the SFI. There was no Editorial Team as such. However, I must take the name of Prabir Mitra, who was the Editor of the SFI’s mouthpiece in West Bengal, named ‘Chhatra Sangram’. Many other patrons of the movement certainly contributed to building the journal. However, as we were busy building the organisation itself, we could only focus very little on editorial matters. People often say “old is gold”, but this cannot be applied to 1970s Bengal. It faced semi-fascist terror and our headquarters was in Calcutta was clamped during the Emergency in 1975. It was extremely tough to build the organisation brick by brick. We had problems with space and insufficient activists working on publishing. Students could be mobilised for rallies, sure, but it was a great challenge to push activists and members to write and publish, that too for an English journal.
SS: What were the journal’s contents and areas of focus like?
BB: We published content on the students’ movement, our calls for protests, and so on. We also printed reports about the struggle, and articles on education in general. However, due to a lack of enough student activists carrying out editorial tasks, such things were hardly done properly.
SS: What challenges did you face while organising?
BB: The 1960s was a period of great churning and crisis. The policies of the Congress government at the centre were undemocratic and chauvinist in multiple ways. They attempted to impose Hindi in the country, and the student community were at the forefront opposing it. During those days, I used to see graffiti and posters that declared “WE OPPOSE HINDI IMPERIALISM” in South India. On the other hand, English had become an accepted language of communication across the country, given the colonial history. After Independence, the Government of India constituted the Radhakrishnan Commission, which gave recommendations to Higher Education. The recommendations of this Commission were taken by commissions that followed. The recommendations of the Kothari Commissions were not implemented properly.
SS: What is your take on the country’s situation today and the role of Student Struggle in it?
BB: The policies of the Government of India are extremely problematic. For example, with the implementation of the New Education Policy-NEP 2020, they are shifting the responsibility of providing quality education from the state to corporate houses. They are busy transforming education into a business. These activities need to be highlighted by Student Struggle.
The journal has done extremely well in the last 25 years. I believe it must also focus on the different movements related to education, not only on the student movement. English is a language by which people from all states can communicate. This task might be challenging, but it must be done to build networks in all parts of the country.
This is part of a series of articles by and interviews with former Student Struggle Editors.
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