People's Democracy

STUDENTS and youth belonging to the SFI and DYFI, organised 24-hour dharnas on November 27 at district headquarters all over the country, to protest and build public opinion against the attacks on education and employment by the NDA government. Giving this struggle a slogan of "Vajpayee Govt. stop commercialising education or quit" the DYFI general Secretary Tapas Sinha led the dharna in Delhi and hundreds of students and youth sat at Jantar Mantar near the Parliament House to expose the hollow policies and promises of the Vajpayee-led NDA government.

The union government is betraying the younger generation by destroying even the existing employment opportunities through the policies of ban on recruitment, disinvestment of government and public sector and wide scale privatisation, in order to please the WTO and World Bank controlled by the American imperialism.

The policy of the NDA government to commercialise education goes against the interest of poor and middle class sections. Only the rich will be able to enjoy the fruits of higher education due to this policy. The government abdicating from the responsibility of spending for education will be detrimental for the future development of the country and the people, hence must be fought tooth and nail.

P Krishnaprasad, president SFI said that the BJP led Union government is destroying the secular education system of the country in order to infiltrate communal poison and prejudice in the young minds so that to pave way to the establishment of a Hindu Rashtra. The decision to introduce Vedic Astrology, Karmakanda, and Vedic Arithmetic and the censorship imposed on school textbooks were part of the agenda.

Tapas Sinha, general secretary of DYFI said that the Talibanisation of Indian education is a challenge to the legacy of our great national movement against British imperialism that reject the slogan of Hindu Rashtra raised by the then Hindu communal forces led by the RSS, won independence and established a secular nation state. Any effort to destroy the secular character of Indian society should not be supported by the patriotic and democratic forces. He said that SFI and DYFI strongly demand the secular political parties, which are constituents of the NDA to come out of the government immediately if they are committed to secularism and democracy.

Mahesh Kumar, Secretary Delhi of DYFI and Member C E C in his report said that over a lakh youth were sitting on Dharna at 500 district Head Quarters all over the country. Pushpender Tyagi, Siddhewar Prasad Shukla, Anurag Saxena, Presenjit Bose, Albeena Shakeel also addressed the dharna. (INN)