For the past one month, AISA-RYA’s nation-wide Student-youth Campaign Against Corruption has been reaching out to people across the country. In this sweltering heat, when campuses are closed for the summer holidays, teams of students are busy campaigning in market places, in buses and railway stations, in coaching centres, hostels and rented accommodations. At a time when fresh scams are being unearthed almost every day, volunteers of AISA-RYA’s campaign are exposing the links between corruption and corporate loot in different parts of the country.

During the campaign, volunteers are collecting signatures from people, and are appealing to them to join the ongoing struggle against privatization and neo-liberal policies, against corporate loot of our resources, and against governments which seek to shield the corrupt. They are emphasizing the need to demand an end to draconian laws and to confront the repressive policies of governments.

Campaign folders and booklets are being distributed and through songs and speeches, volunteers are calling upon people to gather in Delhi on 9th August against corruption and corporate loot.

Throughout the country, the campaign is receiving enthusiastic response from people. Not just students and youth, but shopkeepers, small vendors and people from all walks of life are listening to our campaign and joining as volunteers. In Kalu Sarai in Delhi, children in the area sang with the volunteer team and local people gave speeches in support of the campaign. One person came forward to offer to donate a mobile mike to the campaign, and requested the volunteer team to visit again during an upcoming bhandara. In Uttarakhand, a student requested the volunteer team to come to his institute in Dehradun to campaign. Our volunteers often receive phone calls from people who have come across our campaign material and want to know more details.

Volunteer teams are regularly surrounded by large crowds – people ask questions, and express happiness and hope at the fact that students and youth of the country are running this campaign.

In Lucknow, the volunteer team was stopped by the UP Police, who claimed that the students did not have ‘permission’ to campaign, and that they were ‘disturbing the peace’ of the area. The volunteer team addressed the large crowd that soon gathered, and explained the intentions of the ongoing campaign – while also asserting that they had every right to take their campaign to every part of the country. Common people responded positively to the volunteer team’s arguments against the police.

Throughout Tamil Nadu, where the people have recently punished the corrupt DMK government, volunteer teams are receiving generous donations from common people to carry forward the campaign.

This campaign has reached far beyond the boundaries of colleges and universities. Campaigns in messes and rooms of hostels is not possible because of the ongoing summer holidays, but volunteers are conducting their campaign every day at bazaars, tea-stalls, dhabas and parks, in buses and railway stations, and are also conducting door-to-door campaigns in areas where students live in rented accommodation.

In the national capital, campaigns have taken place in Narela, Mandavali, Jamia Nagar, Patel Chest, Vijay Nagar, Mukherjee Nagar, Christian colony as well as in Munirka, Ber Sarai, Kalu Sarai and Katwaria Sarai in South Delhi. As admissions begin in Delhi University for the 2011-12 academic session, volunteers have set up booths and are distributing campaign material every day. Volunteers from Delhi also went to Khairpur in Ghaziabad, where a massive land acquisition drive for the Yamuna expressway is going on. The people in Khairpur, fighting a spirited struggle against corporate land grab, responded positively to the campaign. AISA activists from Delhi University also went to Bhind in Madhya Pradesh. After a convention in Bhind town, volunteers campaigned near the district court in Bhind, as well as in Bhup village.

In Bhubaneswar, a convention was held and AISA National President Sandeep also accompanied a CPI(ML)-led team to the anti-POSCO resistance site, where a brave struggle against one of the worst instances of corruption is ongoing. In Maharashtra, workshops and conventions against corruption and corporate loot have been held in Ahmednagar and Shrirampur, and the campaign has taken off in these places. In Uttar Pradesh, volunteer teams have campaigned in Lucknow, Allahabad and Benaras. The campaign teams also held press conferences in Allahabad and Benares, and in these cities, the campaign has also received good coverage by local media.

In West Bengal, AISA as well as RYA has organized meetings, conventions and workshops in Kolkata, Hoogly Siliguri and Dhaniakhali. Campaign has begun in these areas, and as the admission for the new session begins, campaign booths have been set up in front of the Kolkata University gate. In Tamil Nadu, campaign has begun in ten districts: Chennai, Tiruvallur, Coimbatore, Kanyakumari, Pudukottoi, Namakkal, Kadalur, Madurai, Kancheepuram and Thanjavur. There are plans to campaign in more districts in July. And in Uttarakhand, campaign has started in Srinagar, Garhwal and Rudrapur districts. In Bihar, conventions have been conducted in Bhojpur and Patna, and the campaign will soon begin in Darbhanga, Jehenabad, Bhagalpur, Purnia and Newada.

As the nexus between governments and mega corporations increasingly stands exposed as the main source of corruption today, and as a desperate government’s attacks on democracy become even more naked, the student-youth campaign gains in determination and energy. The campaign is all set to broaden and intensify as we approach 9 August – the anniversary of the Quit India Movement – when thousands of young Indians will demand that the policies that promote corruption and corporate plunder and unleash repression must Quit India!