STUDENT POWER IN NORTH EAST INDIA I Editor APURBA K. BARUAH SEP - 4 2DD2 Stpdent Power in‘"North-East India UNDERSTANDING STUDENT MOVEMENTS Editor Apurba K. Baruah ¥ Regency Publications New Delhi 3¿/í> © 2002 Editor No part of this book may be reproduced, except for reviews, without written permission from the publisher. ISBN 81-87498-50-1 Published by Regency Publications, 20/36-G, Old Market, West Patel Nagar, New Delhi 110 008 and printed at Radiant Printers, New Delhi 110 008, Phones: 574 0038, 571 2539; Telefax: 578 3571. Email: [email protected] For My Best Friends Mano (Manorama) Bubula (Satyakam) Baptu (Pritam) Preface Politics of the students' movement has been one of my obsessions since the days of the All Assam Student Union (AASU) led Assam movement of the late seventies and early eighties of the twentieth Century. As a student of political theory, I have always been interested in the process of political mobilization and during the course of my work on the concept of political system and its ideological implications, I became aware of the fact that the mainstream political science did not really explain the process of political mobilization because it ignored the social forces that generated the motive force of such mobilization. This realization led me to the Marxist approach to the study of political power. But orthodox Marxism seemed to leave a whole lot unexplained, particularly when I tried to understand the politics of the Asomiya society. From the late seventies, my continuous interaction with my wife Manorama Sharma, a historian, gradually opened my eyes to the processes through which dominant sections in societies come to facilitate a smooth exercise of power. From history of other societies I could see a pattern which was explained by Antonio Gramsci. Late seventies was also the time when some young leftist social scientists of India were discussing Gramsci seriously. Debates in leftist Journals, like the Frontier and Economic and Political Weekly quickly drew me to the literature on the concept of hegemony. The concept seemed to explain how in a state like Assam educated young people could exercise so much power. Discussions on the history of Assam was beginning to convince us that the concept of hegemony if modified to suit the relevant conditions may be of great help in our attempts at understanding the societies of northeast India. Manorama was already into a major project of examining vi Student Power in North-East India the ascendance of Assamese Middle class to hegemony. Working on similar lines, by nineteen eighties, I could develop a rather crude framework of analysis for studying student movements in Assam. This was published as a part of a book on Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast India, published by Dibrugarh University in 1985.1 I kept thinking about this framework and wanted to apply it to the other student movements in Northeast India. In nineteen ninety-five on the occasion of the Annual conference of the North East India Political Science association I organised in NEHU a Seminar on Student Movements in North East India. Some of the papers presented generated considerable interest. I therefore proposed to bring out a volume with those papers which threw some significant light on the issues involved in the study of student movements and the student politics of the three states which experienced major student movements during the twentieth Century, namely, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, and Meghalaya. But an unforeseen, unavoidable problem delayed the publication. I am grateful to the authors for sparing time from their busy schedule to revise the papers. Three of those papers were virtually re-written by the authors. Others have made some changes. I must admit that all the papers presented here do not come close to the theoretical frame I had in mind. The varied ideological positions and academic convictions have left their mark on the papers. My own paper discusses the major approaches to the study of student movements and presents a framework for the study of this phenomenon in North East India. I have argued that hegemony holds the key to our understanding of these movements. The second paper by R.L. Walli discusses some issues besetting the student movements in contemporary world. The third paper by Manorama Sharma uses the concept of hegemony to understand the politics of Assam Chattra Sanmilan. The seventh paper by Samir Das also makes an effort at theorization of politics of the Assam Movement from a left political perspective. Das in a sense critiques my observations on hegemony. The rest of the papers by Shiela Borah, Meeta Deka, Arunima Dey ‘A.K. Baruah, 'Regionalism and Student Power in Assam: A Framework of Analysis', in K.M. Deka (ed.), Nationalism and Regionalism In North- East India, (Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh, 1985) pp. Preface VÜ Bhattacharjee, Pascal Malngiang, R.N. Moshahary and S. Dutta, give detailed information on some aspects of student movements of the three states mentioned above. The attempts at explanation in these papers remain at the level of, what is known as, political history in this part of the country. Methodologically, this history remains near Ranke, and reflects a theoretical innocence.2 But the rich information provided by these papers do have theoretical possibilities of a significant nature. Despite the differences in approach the papers presented in this book should help us understand the complex realities of student power in the region. It is this belief that motivated me to work on this volume even after five years. 1 must admit that had it not been for the reminders received from Dr. Joshua Thomas of ICSSR, NERC and Mr. Arun Verma of Regency publications, the publication of the volume might have been further delayed. I am grateful to both of them. I must take this opportunity to thank Dr. Goel also who took the trouble of word processing parts of this manuscript. September, 2001 Apurba K. Baruah North-Eastern Hill University Shillong Tor a discussion of such writing see, Apurba K. Baruah ' On Approaches to the study of 1 listory', Proceedings of North East India History Association, Eighteenth session, Shillong 1998 pp. 21-25. <