Provide Employment for All:
This slogan expresses a burning demand of the
student masses all over India. The student com-
munity must fight resolutely for the guarantee of
jobs --with salaries and allowances which pro-
vide a decent living-- after every stage of edu-
cation; till jobs are given. Unemployment relief
must be given.
These slogans express concretely the basic demo-
cratic attitude to education. We want students to
learn, and learn better, and to educate themselves
scientifically, not merely to get themselves jobs
and careers, but to fight for and get for them-
selves and of all the people of India the advantage
of an education which can be used as an instru-
ment of democratic and revolutionary struggle.
No mere Academic Campaign
In order to be able to grip the masses-the masses
of students and the masses of the people of In-
dia-the SFI’s resolution On Education must not
be allowed to be a mere academic scheme or an
approach of propaganda designed to impress stu-
dents or attract them some way or the other. You
must believe in it, you must take it seriously, and
you must be confident that the understanding it
expresses concretely will serve the revolutionary
purpose we are interested in. To start with, this
means that all SFI members must be clear on the
scope and purpose of the important resolution
On Education. The democratic and scientific al-
ternative to the present system of education that
the SFI presents do not represent a blueprint or
programme for a system of education which will
be implemented after a people’s democratic, or
socialist state, is established. At the same time,
the SFI should be under no illusion that the
democratic and scientific alternative it presents
will be implemented by the state of the Capital-
ists landlords, within the confines of the present
economic and political system. The SFI can win
these demands and implement its resolution only
to the extent that it is clear-sighted; take these
ideas effectively, and simply, among the masses
of students; mobilize them around these issues;
and succeed in unifying them in the fight for our
alternative. This, then, is a resolution of an im-
mediate and urgent campaign, a campaign here
and now around clearly defined and concrete is-
sues, a struggle for limited and partial demands
and the realization of a new perspective.I hope all SFI activists and members, the mem-
bers of other democratic student organisations,
and all democratic students will go through the
SFI resolution On Education carefully; will dis-
cuss and explain it widely among the masses of
students and the people; and will start campaigns
and struggles to implement this resolution. We
must invite workers-peasants, middle-class em-
ployees and other sections of the people to exam-
ine our democratic resolution and to give it their
wholehearted practical support. In the ultimate
analysis, the basic demands of the students can
be won only to the extent that the democratic
student movement links up with the democrat-
ic movement; integrates itself general with the
masses of workers and peasants and their prob-
lems; and approaches the fight for a democratic
and scientific education as an inseparable part of
the revolutionary people’s struggle to overthrow
the present exploitative order.We want
students to learn,
and learn better,
and to educate
themselves
scientifically, not
merely to get
themselves
jobs and careers
34 Student Struggle | June - July 2019