People's Democracy

26 Years of The Democratic Youth Movement

Tapas Sinha

YOUTH is an important part of the society; they want to surge forward with many thoughts and dreams Not representing any specific class of people – in the life span of a person, at a particular age, he or she is termed as a young man or a young woman. From childhood to adolescence and stepping from adolescence to youth, human minds are full of colourful dreams, dreams of building the future, dreams of building the society and of patriotism. It has been noted all over the world that during the young age two specific trends emerge, one, which is involved in constructive activities while the other is involved in criminal activities. For example when Lenin gave the call of revolution for building a beautiful society keeping Marxism as the ideal in the Soviet Union, millions of youth responded, some sacrificing their lives in that movement. Or when Hitler unleashed death all over the world many youth joined him in that mayhem. Similarly many youth sacrificed their lives during the Indian independence movement, while a few worked as spies for the British administration. Even in today’s society these characteristics of youth can be seen --- some engage themselves in killing, while the others come ahead to save the lives of people; some want to tear apart the country while the others come forward to build the country, some preach in favour of superstitions, while others get involved in the struggle for removal of the superstitious beliefs, some develop as a self-centred person, while others dedicate themselves in the service of society. 

Precisely as youth are very sensitive in nature, reactionary forces are always active to channelise their frustrations into divisive activities. In our country isolating the youth from the workers, peasants and people who are struggling their frustrations are used to lead them astray under the poisonous environment of fanatic nationalism to mislead them from the democratic movement. 

In these conditions the Democratic Youth Federation of India has grown with the goal of involving youth in the democratic struggles and developing leadership among them in solving their day-to-day problems on education and employment issues. With the goal of organising youth all over the country, irrespective of their class affiliation, the DYFI has a specific political ideology of scientific socialism which helps in identifying real reasons behind any problem, and at the same time helps in finding the route of solution to that problem. Without this ideological basis, it is impossible to organise youth in the right direction. Our progress in these years has been the result of remaining steadfast in this goal. On November 3, 2006 our organisation DYFI has completed 26 years of its existence.

When endeavours were first being made at the international level to organise the students and the youth, the freedom movement to get independence from the colonial rule was in progress, and our youth plunged into that struggle. Efforts were first made to build the student youth movement during the days of the freedom struggle, and in 1925, under the leadership of Bhagat Singh a youth organisation by the name of Nawjawan Bharatsabha was formed, influencing the youth in the freedom struggle. 

In 1936, an all India student organisation came into being in Lucknow, the All India Student Federation. While in this conference youth also took part, a separate youth organisation did not come into existence. In 1946, during a conference of AISF in Andhra Pradesh, the question of the formation of a youth organisation was first discussed. After independence in 1953, while the West Bengal Youth Organisation, and then, in 1959 an all India level youth organisation came into being, they did not spread to other parts of the country to direct the movement in a systematic manner. Ideological differences began to crop up, and organisationally efforts to build more revolutionary youth organisations manifested themselves in separate states directed by the situational demands. 

Ultimately, in 1980, state-level youth organisations met in a conference on November 1-3, and with scientific socialism as its ideal, the Democratic Youth Federation of India was born. At the time of formation, membership was 15,43,400. Now, twenty-six years later, it stands at 1,53,57,257, with DYFI present in every state of the country, from the icy mountain peaks of Kashmir to the beaches of Kanyakumari on the Indian Ocean. Today, you can see the white flag with the embedded red star, in the streets of Andaman too. 

DYFI has achieved this growth since it had established itself as an important constituent of the struggles of the common man, including youth. The path has been difficult, with many activists becoming martyrs in the struggle. This self-sacrifice has made the organisation proud of itself. With swiftness in intervention and seeking solution for the urgent issues facing our youth, supporting the demands of the democratic movement in the country for the economic, social cultural and political rights of the people, is the basis that made the DYFI the prime organisation of the youth of this country. 

WE FIGHT & WE GROW

However, the development has been very non-uniform across the country. The organisation has developed well in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. While in Tamil Nadu , Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Delhi ,U.P, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka the progress is good, substantial progress has also been reflected in Jammu & Kashmir. There are many reasons for this non-uniform development of the organisation. The lack of experience in building and running such an organisation, lack of clarity with regard to immediate demands, and insufficient emphasis on purely local issues are some of them. 

A major obstacle in the path of development – has been the extensive influence of superstitions all over the county – especially in some states of northern and southern India there are great influences of ill effects of casteism like the inability to draw water from the common well, or having different tea cups for different communities, existence is support for the ill practices like the sati early marriage and the dowry system. 

Whatever movement we undertake –unless these ill practices are fought against no revolutionary organisation can develop and the social reform movement is not just a reform movement per se – it is an integral part of the democratic movement. 

CENTRAL PROBLEM IS UNEMPLOYMENT

The political and other struggles have attracted many youth to the banner of DYFI. One of the biggest obstacles is the question of unemployment, particularly intensified by the imperialist globalisation. The consequent dissatisfaction of unemployment is being utilised to channelise them into divisive activities and the DYFI has a great task to show a positive action against this, against efforts to make the youth self-centred. Thus we have the toughest conditions before us as compared to other times. Our efforts are concentrated on the positive facets, having a massive impact in this situation. Primarily the anti capitalist globalisation movement in the world has reached a stage where it is changing the face of the whole of Latin America under progressive outstanding leadership. Even Europe is beginning to shudder. In this multi people multi faceted movement youth everywhere is engaged and our organisation is no exception. 

Campaign is an important tool in politically winning over the youth. We have to build up many more campaigns in order to struggle on the issues that affect youth. We will have to endeavour to usher newness in our existing programmes and inspire the common youth. 

Working in a revolutionary youth organisation, we may in some ways at times express our vanity and arrogance. Thus we have to remain ever vigilant. We must display a good behaviour that will increase our acceptability and consequently the acceptability of the whole organisation. 

Our political ideology not only gives birth to political consciousness, but also gives birth to developed values, so we have to prove to the common man and the youth of the country that our values are the best. We have adopted the principles of scientific socialism as our ideal, not by taking refuge to any kind of blind faith or dogma. We have chosen scientific socialism as our ideal because in the struggle for freedom, the ideology and practice of scientific socialism has proved to be the best historically, about which we must read and educate ourselves. 

If the ideology of the rulers and the oppressors are not defeated then it is not possible to establish the victory of humanity and morality. For that we need scientific ideologies. We have to comprehend the essence of the youth movement of the world and of the country. On the occasion of the 26th year of our existence, let us acknowledge that the most precious wealth of human being is its life; right to live will not come again. So we have to live in such a manner that we don’t rebuke ourselves of the cowardice and die a slow death, live in such a way that year after year aimless confusion cannot burn us slowly. We have to live in such a way that at the end one can stand up and say as so many of our compatriots did during the freedom struggle, – “I have given all my strength for the great ideals of the world. The freedom of humanity.”