Students and Politics

There is a great clamor these days about the idea that young students should not participate in political activities. The Punjab Government’s position on this is particularly peculiar. Before being granted admission to a college, students are required to sign a declaration that they will not participate in political activities. To our further misfortune, Manohar—a representative elected by the people, who now serves as Education Minister—has issued a circular to schools and colleges stipulating that neither students nor teachers shall take part in politics. Just a few days ago, during the ‘Students’ Week’ organized by the Students’ Union in Lahore, both Sir Abdul Qadir and Professor Ishwar Chandra Nanda insisted that students ought not to participate in politics.

Punjab is said to be the most politically backward region in the country. Why is this the case? Has Punjab not sacrificed enough? Has Punjab not suffered enough? Then what explains our lagging so far behind in this arena? The reason is clear: the officials of our Education Department are complete blockheads. A reading of the Punjab Council’s proceedings today makes it abundantly clear that the root cause is an education that is both useless and inert—with the result that the student community, the youth, takes absolutely no active interest in the affairs of their own country. They are entirely ignorant of such matters. Though only a handful of them pursue higher education after finishing their studies, they speak with such naivety that one is left with no recourse but to sit back and feel sorry. The very young people who are destined to take the reins of the nation into their own hands tomorrow are being deliberately intellectually blinded today. We must ourselves reckon with what will come of this. We recognise that a student’s primary duty is to study, and that they should devote their full attention to it—but does true education not also include an understanding of the country’s condition and the cultivation of the capacity to think about how to improve it? If not, then we consider that education utterly worthless—an education acquired for no purpose beyond becoming a mere clerk. What use is such an education? Those who fancy themselves cunning argue thus: “My dear boy, by all means read and think about politics, but take no active part in it. Once you become more qualified, you will prove beneficial to the country.”

The argument sounds appealing enough, but we reject even this — it is nothing more than a superficial platitude. Its hollowness is illustrated by the following incident. One day a student was reading ‘Appeal to the Young’ by Prince Kropotkin. A professor came up and asked, “What book is that? And that name—‘Kropotkin’—sounds like a Bengali name to me!” The student replied: “Prince Kropotkin is quite a famous figure—he was a distinguished scholar of economics. Every professor ought to know his name.” He could not help laughing at the professor’s “competence.” Then he added: “He was a Russian gentleman.” That was enough. ‘Russian!’—and all hell broke loose. The professor declared: “You are a Bolshevik, because you read political books!”

Behold the competence of this professor. What, then, are those poor students to learn from such a man? What can young people possibly acquire under such circumstances?

The second question is this: what, precisely, constitutes “political action”? Welcoming Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Subhash Chandra Bose and listening to their speeches counts as political action—but what does welcoming a Commission or the Viceroy amount to? Is that not the other side of the same coin? Since anything pertaining to the governance of governments and nations falls within the domain of politics, does this not qualify as politics too? It will be said that the former displeases the government while the latter pleases it—so the whole question reduces to the government’s pleasure or displeasure. Should students, from the very moment of their birth, be schooled in the art of sycophancy? We hold firmly that as long as foreign dacoits rule over India, those who profess loyalty are not loyalists but traitors—not human beings but animals, slaves to their own gluttony. How, then, could we possibly urge students to study the lessons of loyalty?

Everyone acknowledges that India today needs patriots willing to dedicate their body, mind, and wealth to the country—people who, like madmen, would unhesitatingly sacrifice their entire lives for national freedom. But can such people be found among the senile? Can they emerge from those already entangled in the complexities of family life and worldly affairs? They can only come from among the youth—those who have not yet been caught in these snares. And before being caught in them, students and young people can only develop this kind of thinking if they have acquired some measure of practical knowledge, not merely crammed mathematics and geography for the sake of examination papers.

Was it not politics when the students of England abandoned their colleges en masse to go and fight Germany? Where were our moralizers then—why did they not go and tell those students to return to their studies? Will the students of the National College in Ahmedabad, who are today assisting the Satyagrahis of Bardoli, remain fools for it? Let us see how many capable individuals Punjab University produces by comparison. It is the students and youth of a nation who have always been the ones to win its freedom. Can the youth of India preserve their own existence—and that of their country—by remaining divided and aloof? The youth cannot forget the atrocities inflicted upon students in 1919. They also understand that what they need is a revolution. Let them study—yes, they must study! But alongside their studies, let them acquire political knowledge; and when the moment demands it, let them plunge into the fray and give their lives to this very work. Let them offer up their lives for the cause. Otherwise, no path to survival is visible.