On 9th August, 1990, in the Union Hall of Allahabad University, the All India Students’ Association (AISA) was born. Confronting the twin challenge of the neoliberal assault on people’s rights and livelihoods and rise of communal fascism that marked the dawn of 90’s, AISA established itself as a revolutionary student organisation that has taken forward the struggle for student rights and also allied itself with democratic movements across India and the world.
On 9th August this year, to mark the twenty years of AISA movement, an All India Student Convention was organized at Allahabad University with the call to resist corporate loot of resources and education and the assaults on democracy in campuses and the country. Delegates from sixteen states attended the Convention, along with over two hundred students from Allahabad itself. Despite the fact that the Allahabad University administration refused to open the premises of the student union hall for the Convention, AISA activists in Allahabad, defying the orders of the administration, successfully managed to hold the convention outside the Students’ Union hall.
The Convention paid tribute to Comrade Chandrashekhar, AISA leader and twice JNUSU President, who was martyred in Siwan as a wholetime activist of the CPPI(ML), at the hands of the mafia RJD MP Shahabuddin. The first session of the Convention had former leaders of AISA movement reflecting on the legacy of the past two decades as well as the current political situation. The guests included Prashant Shukla, one of the founding members of AISA, currently a faculty member in BHU; Sunil Yadav, student leader in BHU in the 1990s and subsequently National General Secretary of AISA; Girija Pathak, former President of the Kumaon University students’ Union in 1993; Kumudini Pati, one of the key activists of the Progressive Students’ Organization(PSO) which preceded AISA and Vice-President of the Allahabad University Students’ Union in 1983-84; Mohammed Salim, National President of the Revolutionary Youth Association; Pranay Krishna, President of the JNU Students’ Union in 1993 and presently General Secretary of the Jan Sanskritic Manch; V Shankar, AISA’s national president in 1997-98; Indresh Maikhuri, former national president of AISA; and Ramji Rai, former student leader of PSO and now Polit Bureau member of CPI(ML) Liberation.
A booklet entitled ‘Chhatra Andolan ke Pramukh Padav’ (‘Important Episodes in the Student Movement’) was released commemorating the occasion. It examines and offers a critical evaluation of the students' movement in India, from the time of the freedom struggle to the present day.
From the afternoon onwards, the second session of the convention saw cultural performances by Hirawal, Bangal Sanskritic Gana Parishad, a dance group from Karbi Anglong and a theatre group from Jamia Millia Islamia on the premises of the Nirala Delegacy. The programme concluded with an evening of poetry marked by the presence of a range of poets including Sahitya Akademi award winner Viren Dagwal, revolutionary poet Ramashankar Vidrohi, Pankaj Chaturvedi, Rajendra Kumar, Harishchandra Pandey, Priyadarshan Malviya, and Ashutosh Kumar.
