"Our coming generations will ask us for an answer, they will ask us, where were you when new social forces were being unleashed, where were you when people who live and die every moment, every day strived for their rights, where were you when there was an assertion of the marginalized voices of the society. They will seek an answer from all of us…"
– Comrade Chandrashekhar, Former JNUSU President, martyred in Siwan in 1997.

We are living in the midst of twin assaults: growing unemployment and economic crisis  on the one hand, and a massive assault on constitutional values and democratic structures on the other. Ideas of liberty, equality, fraternity and secularism are under threat. Students are losing access to affordable education, and farmers their livelihoods. What would  Chandrasekhar Prasad, who was twice elected JNUSU President and who was shot dead in 1997, have to say to us now? He would ask us to fight for students’ and farmers’ rights, against the fascist and authoritarian assault of the current Modi regime. He would ask us to defend our constitution and its egalitarian values.

Since its inception in the early 1990s, AISA has reimagined student politics in terms of new ideas, idealism and initiative. AISA has always fought against commercialisation of education and politics of hate and communalism. We stand for social justice and gender justice. We stand for quality, affordable education, for employment with dignity, for rational, democratic values and secularism, for freedom, justice and equality.
We believe that the progressive ethos and spirit of our anti-colonial freedom struggle has to be upheld and expanded. Today, the Modi government is decimating social justice, reservations and public-funded education and Universities through the NEP 2020 and the push for unplanned, ill-equipped online education where vast majority of students have no resources to access it. We are seeing increasing attacks on constitutional values of freedom and justice, on women and all deprived sections. There is a culture of Islamophobia, mob lynchings of minorities and dalits and attacks on interfaith relationships in the name of ‘love jihad’. Draconian UAPA and Sedition acts are being used to witch hunt students, activists and intellectuals who are defending democracy in these dark times. Indeed, we are seeing a re-enactment of the British policy of divide and rule and corporate loot; divisive communalism 2.0 and company raj 2.0 where the nation’s resources and destiny are being handed over to communal hate mongers and handful of corporates like Adani-Ambani.

It is time to resist this onslaught and reclaim our country from rising communal hate and company raj. Let us unite to reclaim and rebuild India of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar’s dreams.

Join the movement! Join the Resistance to Divisive Communal Raj and Company Raj 2.0!