Putting to rest the inner-party debate on whether or not students should resort to strike as a form of agitation, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) State committee has concluded that at a time when commercial interests are ruling the roost in the education sector, students should retain strike as one of their major weapons of resistance.
The CPI(M) committee, which held a detailed discussion on the issue on the second day of its meeting here on Sunday, virtually rejected party Central committee member E.P. Jayarajan’s stand that students should not resort to strikes. His position, first articulated at the Kannur district conference of the Students Federation of India (SFI) over a week ago, was that students must focus more on studies and not on agitations that affected normal functioning of educational institutions.
His comments, however, evoked a sharp response from the student leadership and sections of the party. Notable among those who opposed him was CPI(M) Kannur district secretary P. Jayarajan, who felt that strikes were inevitable and it would be wrong to argue that strikes had become obsolete. At the State committee meeting too, the weight of arguments was against the Central committee member’s stand and he finally made it clear that as a disciplined party worker, he would go by the party stand.
However, even as he did so, Mr. E.P. Jayarajan stood his ground at the State committee meeting and explained that student strikes for silly reasons would prove counter-productive in the long-run. Explaining the context of his original remark in Kannur, he said he made the statement against the backdrop of an agitation launched by the SFI in a college in the district. The agitation was over a minor issue relating to the college canteen, but it soon flared up into a strike forcing closure of the college, he said.
According to party sources, the State committee, however, concluded that strike should remain a weapon in the armour of the student movement, though it should be used only sparingly.