Long beforehand Indian political parties had youth wings, its universities were producing leaders. From the struggle of freedom to contemporary debates over caste, free speech and citizenship student politics has operated as a training ground as well as a barometer of India’s ideological battles. To understand this trajectory, it is needed to trace how movements born in hostel common rooms and lecture halls somehow spill into national streets and back to Parliament.
The student activism in India goes back to pre-independence era, during the early twentieth century students actively participated in Swadeshi Movement (1905), boycotting British institutions and goods. During the 1920s and 1930s, Indian students were core participants in the Quit India and Non-Cooperation movements, often rebelling against colonial administrators and university authorities alike to join Gandhi’s call for civil disobedience. This timeline creates a template that would recur for decades: students as morally charge, relatively fearless vanguard willing to disrupt institutions and court arrest in service of a bigger cause.
After independence in 1947 the student politics did not fade but it did become more institutionalized. Major political parties recognized the importance of campus organizing and established affiliated student wings that still exist today such as “The National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) which is linked to Indian National Congress, The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and All India Students Federation (AISF) that are affiliated with Left wing parties and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) linked to the Rashtriya Swayammsevak Sang and by the extension the BJP. Such bodies turned student union elections at universities such as the Delhi University or JNU into miniature versions of national political contests, complete with alliances, ideological slogans and canvasing. For years student union presidencies have served as launchpads as significant number of Indian MLAs, MPAs and party general stepped into their careers after campus politics.
The most notable eruption of student politics came in 1974, when protests cover inflation and corruption in Bihar, which were initially led by students that later grew into a broader Bihar Movement under the leadership of veteran socialist Jayaprakash Narayan (JP). What started as a frustration against the central government turned into a call for total revolution against the central government led by Indhira Gandhi. Student unions from all across northern India mobilized in large numbers and this movement is highly credited with setting the political stage with imposition of the Emergency in 1975 and the electoral defeat of the congress party in 1977. The JP movement remains the classic example for how student politics reshapes national government.
From the 1980s certain campuses such as the JNU associated themselves with distinct ideological identities mainly due to strong left student presence and vigorous debate culture. This reputation attracted national attention in 2016, when a JNU student union event triggered a sedition case and ignited a debate on nationalism, the limits of dissent and free speech. This controversy split public opinion sharply with critics of student event calling it anti-national whereas defenders framed arrest as a assault on free expression which is supposedly protected by the constitution.
Student movements have also been central to India’s ongoing issues with caste discrimination in higher education. The 2016 suicide case of Rohit Vemula and PhD, Dalit by caste at University of Hyderabad, following his suspension after a dispute with ABVP linked student wing provoked protests nationwide and renewed the scrutiny of institutional discrimination against Adivasi and Dalit students. The Rohit Vemula Act was demanded by activist to protect students from caste-based discriminations in educational institutions.
The 2019-2020 wave was marked by most geographically widespread student mobilization following the passage of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December 2019, students from Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Milia University led early protests which were responded with police action on campus that attracted widespread condemnation and sympathies.
The story still continues with the establishment of Cockroach Janta Party by Abhijeet Dipke, and their on-going protests, demanding the resignation of Education Minister, Dharmendra Prabhan following the NEETs exam leak and weak educational scrutiny. The response by the government and law enforcing bodies also remains same where protestors are met by sever shelling, tear gas and lathi charge and the situations seems to worsen day by day. The resignation and accountability of the government still remains a questions however the youth and Gen Z protestors are not ready to back off as of yet.