?Vidyarthi Parishad seeks to develop transformative leadership for Nation?: Sunil Ambekar

 

The journey of the student movement called Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) started on July 9, 1949 from Mumbai. Today, it is the largest student organisation in the world. This cadre-based mass movement has motivated countless students to play an active role in national reconstruction and provided credible leadership in various spheres of societal life. Organiser editor Prafulla Ketkar and Chief News Coordinator Dr Pramod Kumar discussed various issues related to youth and education including the new Education Policy with national organising secretary of ABVP Shri Sunil Ambekar in New Delhi. Excerpts:

 

 

 

Overall, It was a grand success. As I said, this was not our first event in Tamil Nadu but organising a national event definitely help in galvanising the organisational machinery there. This happened in case of Tamil Nadu also. We comprehensively discussed the youth aspirations, analysed their emerging expectations and also listed our priorities. We also discussed the next level of activities which can be taken up in college and university campuses. ‘Revisiting and rethinking our curriculum’is one of such activities. In this curriculum review process, the ideological as well as current issues will also come up. We want there should be real-time reflection of those issues in the curriculum. Apart from this, the youth participation in the transformative activities of the nation was also deliberated upon. It could be an agenda to be taken up by the Karyakartas in their respective campuses. This will be the next level activism.

 

 

Massive ‘Chalo Kerala March’ by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in Kerala in November 2017 

 

For example, we have told the students to go through their complete syllabus and discuss it openly with fellow students and teachers. It will be an Open Debate. We will also motivate the students to ensure their positive intervention in environmental issues and policy formulation process. Similarly, rural development, problems of urban areas, new employment scenario, etc are some of the activities which will be taken up. A comprehensive resolution has been passed in Chennai on such activities. During the ‘Selfie with Campus’ campaign, we reached up to 52,000 campuses across the country. As a result, our units have increased from 6,700 to more than 18,000. The next phase of that campaign is “Selfie with Campus Unit”. So, we have planned to expand units in all 50,000 campuses, including colleges, plus-two schools, polytechnics, etc.

It is because of the Mission Sahasi, the girls’ participation in ABVP has increased impressively. It ensured their natural participation. There are about eight states where the number of both boys and girls is equal now. We can see its reflection at the ground level.

 

Sometime back we started ‘Anubhuti’ campaign which motivates the workers to go to villages and visit the SC/ST hostels. Now we wish to take up both these activities at a mass level. We have started a programme, Campus to Community, in Bangalore as a pilot project. Under this project, the students studying in colleges engage themselves in over 50 types of activities. It will be started during the second semester this year. We want to strengthen the actual mass participation of youth for a change in the country. A reflection of it was recently witnessed in Odisha where, after cyclone Fani, the youth from Bhubaneshwar, Puri and other areas cleaned the college campuses. More than 300 youth joined that activity and about 50 of them were non-ABVP cadres.

ABVP March in Kolkata against the killing of Rajesh & Tapas 

 

Anubhuti demonstrated the huge potential that exist in villages. It also acquainted us with the skills and enthusiasm of rural youth. Yes, they do not have adequate opportunities and direction. We tried to know how much the rural youth know about government schemes. We found there is a gap between the opportunities which can be created through the schemes like Mudra Loan etc and the youth. Reducing this gap is a challenge before us. The quicker we reduce this gap, the faster we will be able to change the situation. We are trying to connect the different channels which can help the rural youth and requesting the government institutions to initiate the same. We need to positively engage the youth, the largest asset of Bharat through such activities as the government machinery alone cannot fill this gap.

 

 

Girls who received self-defence training under ‘Mission Sahasi’ campaign displaying their skills at a public function in Jaipur 

 

Students Experience in Interstate Living (SEIL) has been a very successful and effective project to connect the people of the North East with the rest of the country. Sometime back we had started a youth centre in Guwahati. It works on twin objectives—to explore the opportunities within and outside the northeast for the students pursuing higher education, and to connect the tribal organisations of students and youth. We had organised Students Parliament in New Delhi in 2015. The youth connected to SEIL are now working to curb violence and playing a positive role to make northeast a development hub. Last year when the Citizenship Amendment Bill was introduced, some people tried to misguide the people on this issue for their vested interests. But the people associated with SEIL visited all the districts on their bikes and explained the people the reality. As a result, nobody could draw undue political benefit out of it during the recent general elections. Because of SEIL, we have been able to counter the elements who wanted to push the entire northeast into cycle of violence and fear. Youth are the trigger for any violence in northeast. But the communication built through SEIL has been very effective. We are further expanding it. Till now two or three groups used to come, but now 15 groups will come and those groups will now be sent to every state including Ladakh, Andamans and Sikkim.

  

 

Students in North East posing for a selfie during ABVP’s ‘Selfie with Campus’ campaign 

 

 What are the plans for the World Organisation of Students & Youth (WOSY)?

There are two plans. One is to strengthen communication with foreign students coming to India. Second is to help such students to understand Bharatiya culture deeply and then explain Bharat to other people of the world. For the same we celebrate different festivals with them and arrange their stay in different families. They are being shaped as ‘young ambassadors’ of India. We are also trying to connect all the WOSY alumni with the Indian centres abroad so that this asset is used for Bharat in future.

 

Yes, we are visiting from campus to campus. Micro-level plans have been formulated for states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Kashmir Valley, north-eastern states, etc where we are still weak. In Tamil Nadu, some local youth are coming out as special ‘Vistaraks’ to cover all the districts. Last year, 50 workers from across the country visited Tamil Nadu and started organisational work in every district. There are plans to strengthen the connect with Tamil Nadu youth. Its impact will be visible shortly. The response is enthusiastic and efforts are on to clear the misconceptions, which have been developed among them about the ABVP. For some time, the number of full-time workers in ABVP has increased. At the moment we have 770 full timers and 63 of them are girls.“We want the South Indian languages should be studied in the north while the North Indian languages should be studied in the South”

We are yet to have a unit in Lakshadweep, which we will have this year. However, we have good contact with the Lakshadweep students studying in Ernakulam. We have contact with the Andaman students also studying in Port Blair. Recently, it was a Nicobar student associated with the ABVP who had first questioned the entry of American Evangelist in the restricted areas of Nocobar.

 

We had proposed integrated thinking in education. Till now we have been thinking in pieces about primary, secondary and higher education or faculty-wise education. Whereas we always advocated that our approach from pre-primary to the post-graduation should be integrated. By and large, this approach is being reflected in the draft National Education Policy. Our second suggestion was to think about the entire population of students who exit at any level and not just about the pass outs. Therefore, everybody who is exiting education should exit with some skill. Hopefully, the execution that the government will prepare for it will show the concrete steps in this regard.

 

 

Organisationally, we had countrywide network by 1968. The ABVP registered its strong presence in the agitations held prior to Emergency. In the fight against Emergency also, we were at the forefront. That agitation established the significance of students’ movement in democracy. It also symbolised the ideological contribution. Then the ABVP focused on consolidation and expansion up to 1990. The agitations like the fight against infiltration in the 1980s strengthened the organisation. By the 1990s the ABVP had assumed the form of a mass movement. Gradually, we turned into ‘cadre-based mass organisation’. After 2000, the ABVP took up agitation on Kashmir, etc. and started work on multiple dimensions. This helped us to develop leadership for every sphere of life. Then the expansion in IITs, IIMs also began. A leadership having ideological clarity was developed. Now the focus of ABVP will be to work for the change we wish to bring the society like rising above caste differences, fighting against corruption, changing mindset towards women, etc. Vidyarthi Parishad seeks to develop transformative leadership in tune with societal aspirations. We are debating all these issues at the university level. The growing participation of youth indicates that the young generation will initiate a big change in society in the coming days.

 

The ABVP in 2015 had come out with a document underlying the direction in the next five years. Defining our relation with the government we used a word ‘dialogue and agitation’ in that document. We have been able to ensure maximum good for the society, but if the need arises we can deploy the force also. We will constructively contribute to the development of the country. We want to work on promoting entrepreneurship.

 

We know that. Ideological clash is not an issue in most of the campuses. We have about 40,000 colleges and 900 universities and more than 90 per cent of the campuses are free of any such clash. Like any other citizen, affordable education, countries progress, national security, women security, etc are key concerns there. There are hardly 15 campuses where there is a machinery, which diverts the students’ energy by creating artificial debates. We are fighting against such debates and have successfully defeated them. The issue of Dalit and non-Dalit created in Hyderabad University was fully exposed. Now we have a unit in Jadhavpur University also. We are very strong in JNU. We are in favour of open debates but not at the cost of national interest and definitely not by supporting extremism and violence.

 

The activities that we take up are the medium of training. When we take up any issue or activity we plan it in a way that it helps the youth to get a direction. Apart from it, we have some special workers training camps. Literature, including Organiser, is also used extensively. It is a continuous process.