BackYouth movements across India must come together, says Jignesh Mevani
Youth movements across India should unite and form a loose coalition, says Dalit leader from Gujarat Jignesh Mevani
Premium
Hyderabad: Youth movements across India should unite and form a loose coalition, former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) vice-president Shehla Rashid Shora and Dalit leader from Gujarat Jignesh Mevani said on Tuesday in Hyderabad.
Only such a coalition can take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), they said.
“Whether it was JNU, Jadavpur University or the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), all the student movements there were being suppressed. All these movements must be linked, and a common platform must be launched," said Mevani.
He, Shora and Pratik Sinha, founder of altnews.com which works to dispel fake news, were speaking at a discussion, titled ‘Do we need radical youth movements for these times?’, during the annual Hasan Memorial Lecture in Hyderabad.
None of the existing political formations has what it takes to take on the BJP, Sinha said.
“There is a lot of resentment among the people against the BJP, but the Congress cannot even take out a rally of 1,000 people," he added.
Sinha said he is in the process of registering altnews.com as a not-for-profit organization and will also launch it in Hindi soon because “a lot of fake news is generated in that language".
“We are simply saying that ‘these are the facts, and this is propaganda. Now you decide what you want to believe," he said.
According to data from the 2011 census, youth (aged 15 to 24) accounted for 229 million out of a total of 1.2 billion people in India, or 19% of the population. A publication titled ‘Youth in India-2017’ by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation said that the country’s youth (15-29-year-olds as per the national youth policy) population is expected to constitute 34.33% of the total population by 2020.
Over the past few years, a handful of protests have taken place over various issues in campuses including JNU, Jadavpur University, University of Hyderabad (UoH) and FTII. The death of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula in January 2016 at UoH sparked a nationwide campaign to end discrimination, and protests rocked the campus for a few months after the suicide.
Around the same time, JNU witnessed protests for days after the arrest of research scholars Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar (who was then president of the JNUSU), on sedition charges over an event that was held on campus.
Similarly, FTII students went on an indefinite in June 2015, protesting against the information and broadcasting ministry’s appointment of television actor-turned-politician Gajendra Chauhan as the institute’s chairman.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
