Writing after a long long time......I was thinking about one particular thing last night after watching a debate in a Bengali news channel about the chaos in Jadavpur University. I am a former student of JU and there is an allegation about me that I always support JU. But here I am not supporting JU but just making my viewpoint clear about why students are attracted towards so called 'left' politics. From the time of French Revolution in 1790s when for the first time the word 'left' was used, the word has seen many modification starting from Marx to Mao. But the essence of left wing politics, be it moderate socialism or extreme naxalism, has remained the same. The essence is to stand by the poor, to stand by the farmers and workers who are underprivileged. And this is a big truth in a third world country like India.
Generally in JU students come from all over Bengal, specially from small towns and villages and they see a lot of new things in their new world, one of them is 'student politics'. Mainly a student will see three roads, in broad sense Socialism, Capitalism, Nationalism. Now for nationalism,I personally don't think that all those students who are opposing some particular groups in JU are anti nationals. India has been freed from British bondage almost 70 years ago. Now there is no scope to show our nationalism each and every day. Now regarding capitalism, college life is a life of romanticism. No one cares much about how much they earn or what they save and what they invest. We will all become capitalist when we will have our own family, when at night from office we have to bring medicine for our ailing parents and babyfood for our newborns. Now what remains is Socialism.
During these turbulent years, when we are changing ourselves from children to citizens, socialism easily attracts us. Because it is a truth in our country that there is a big difference of income level, of living standards of people in our country. We can easily relate ourselves with this. Whenever a person is supporting a socialist agenda that doesn't mean that he or she doesn't love his or her country. It is only, for the time being, that person has found something which according to him or her is much more closer to their heart.
Generally in JU students come from all over Bengal, specially from small towns and villages and they see a lot of new things in their new world, one of them is 'student politics'. Mainly a student will see three roads, in broad sense Socialism, Capitalism, Nationalism. Now for nationalism,I personally don't think that all those students who are opposing some particular groups in JU are anti nationals. India has been freed from British bondage almost 70 years ago. Now there is no scope to show our nationalism each and every day. Now regarding capitalism, college life is a life of romanticism. No one cares much about how much they earn or what they save and what they invest. We will all become capitalist when we will have our own family, when at night from office we have to bring medicine for our ailing parents and babyfood for our newborns. Now what remains is Socialism.
During these turbulent years, when we are changing ourselves from children to citizens, socialism easily attracts us. Because it is a truth in our country that there is a big difference of income level, of living standards of people in our country. We can easily relate ourselves with this. Whenever a person is supporting a socialist agenda that doesn't mean that he or she doesn't love his or her country. It is only, for the time being, that person has found something which according to him or her is much more closer to their heart.
