STUDENT MOVEMENT IN INDIA 67 education from the hold of profiteers who still control 75 percent of the colleges in the country^ how efficiently they have organised freely elected student unions and participated in the day-to-day management of educational institutions^ and above all, how firmly have they stood by the organised movements of workers and peasants in their struggle to overthrow the inequitous plunder and repression of the exploiting classes. At the same time we must see how far the student leadership is clear as to the different trends among the students. Can they distinguish between those disruptive factions of the ruling classes who proliferate student organisations owing allegiance to the same political party and hide their disruptive designs behind the mask of being apolitical or certain organisations of electoral opportunists which mushroom during union elections with exotic names like ^Campus Left^, ^Freethinkers' and so on, who are catspaws for any forces that care to jockey them to offices in students' unions, and those forces among the student community who are genuinely striving for a political solution to their problems? And among those can they distinguish between those who oppose the links of students with the organised working class and peasantry claiming to be a 'campus left' while in reality they isolate students from a genuine consciousness through the experience of the joint struggles of the toiling people and students for a better life and a better education? And even among those who have links with the organised mass of workers apd peasants in society, can they expose those who still purvey illusions about the concessions the ruling classes are willing and able to give the students, even in the face of the severe economic crisis that grips them and the country they rule?The student movement today must be clear on all these issues and link them with the wider issues faced by the toiling people of India through a practical programme of struggle, as Lenin pointed out, that will eventually lead to real freedom and a real public education. SUNEET CHOPRA 1 S N Banerjea, A Nation in Making, Calcutta 1925, p 35 (italics mine). 2 Mitra (ed) Indian Annual Register, 1939, II 503. 8 Probodh Chandra, Student Movement in India, AISF, Lahore, 1938, 54-55. 4 Mitra (ed.) op cit., p 508. 5 T B Bottomore, Critics of Society : Radical Movement in North America, London, 1969 pp 90-91. 6 J Dibona, Indiscipline and Student Leadership in an Indian University in Student Politics (ed) J Altbach, cited by Srivastava, op cit., p 16. 7 R S Srivastava, Roots of Discontent in Seminar 176 April 1974, p 15-16. 8 Programme of the Students9 Federation of India : pi, Calcutta, 1971, 9 Ibid., p 4. 10 Ibid., p 11. 11 Constitution of the All India Students' Federation : Article iv, clause 1. 12 Programme of the SFI, p 4. ^ Ibid., p 9. 14 See the pamphlet on 'Unemployment' by C K Chandrappan, p 10.