How Students Wrought For Freedom: A Collection Of Documents

Will depoliticiation of the campus of schools and colleges solve all problems besetting the educational sector> Is the overdose of politics in the campus responsible for all the maladies in the academic fields? These questions have seized the mind of the academicians, administrators, social workers, writers and political leadersall over the world for quite a long time, and the debate on these questions still constitutes. Debating societies and college unions in the colleges of imperial England were nurseries in which the English student was nurtured, preparatory to his entry into national politics. In India, the same rulers warned the students against mixing up with the political problems of the country. The protective posture on the part of the Indian politicians with regard to the rights of the students helped them to tap the growing spirit of nationalism at its most vital point. But the interpretation by the politicians on the role of students in politics had been inconsistent throughout the course of the national movement. The views on this question expressed by Annie Besant are unique which as a social rock deserve to be appreciated all the time to come. She held that the practices of politics was for the elders and that the young boys were only to study them. In the post-Independence days, Gandhiji remarked in a similar vein ?Power politics should be unknown to the student world. Immediately (when) they dabble in that class and work, there ceases to be a student?s will, (and) therefore they fail to serve the country in its time of crisis.? But in carving out a role for themselves, making and unmaking governments, students strove to tread the political path. As a result the claim academic atmosphere, most essential for the students to carry out their studies, has become a casualty. Speeches and writings made by Annie Besant in the wake of Home Rule movement, documented in this book, deserve to be read and discussedby all who are concerned about this problem today.