[Reader-list] Statement of JNU Students on Pro-posco hooliganism in JNU

[Asit asitreds]

*Statement of JNU Students on Pro –POSCO hooliganism in JNU*

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*Condemn hooliganism justifying corporate rule!!*

Long live student’s unity and democratic ethos of the Campus!



On 19th October, a group of apparently non-political, non-party students of
Korean Centre barged in, in the public meeting organized in Tapti mess, in
support of the mass resistance anti-displacement, anti-POSCO movement in
Orissa.  Exhibiting complete hooliganism, man-handling, abusing, they yelled
slogans in support of the South Korean Steel Company.  The speaker, Abhay
Sahoo of the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, which has been leading the
unrelenting struggle against the anti-people Corporate-State nexus for the
last four years, was heckled along with students and supporters of the
movement led them out, and later jointed by hundreds of students who were
marching against the fee hike in the hostels, had spirited debate outside
and inside Tapti.  The meeting continued with renewed vigour.



The incident makes us ask some inescapable questions: *How are a South
Korean Company, the State and movement in Orissa, and the students of JNU
community interwoven?*

*How do we understand ‘education’, ‘employment’, ‘development’ and how are
our own immediate personal lives connected with these?*

*What does this speak of a democratic, progressive space that students have
struggled to build in JNU?*



The immediate implications of this form of ‘protest’ (which they called it)
are a direct attack on any democratic ethos that the JNU community has
struggled to build up all these years.  It was a blatant exhibition of
hooliganism, inflicting abuse and man-handling those supporting the
anti-displacement anti-POSCO mass movement in Orissa.  The group of students
from the Korean Centre was mis-*led by the now ‘famous’ (sic) ABVP cadre
Vishaal of the Love Jihaad fame.*  But what is of concern is that most of
them were self-professedly non-political not belonging to any Party which
might have sectarian interests.  It was ‘non-political’ action, as far as
they were concerned.  It is just that POSCO gives them scholarships and
subject to the MNC coming to Orissa, their jobs were at stake.  The slogans
yelled were of “Anti-POSCO Down Down”, “Student Politics Zindabad” and
‘nationalist’ slogans of “Bharat Mata ki Jai”



The *South Korean Company POSCO is out to destroy the homes and livelihood,
smash the local economy, raze down the fragile ecology and culture of over
30,000 people in 6,029 acres, will leave thousands of workers in Paradeep
port and fisher-people unemployed, will capture 1000 million tons of iron
are at Rs. 24/ton (market price $180) in Orissa’s coastal Jagatsingpur
district.*  Companies like POSCO and Vedanta seem to dole us jobs, better
living conditions, promise us ‘development and progress’ and fulfill dreams
of class-jumps.  But these are the very Corporates which are out on a
brutal, violent drive of profit maximization over the natural
resource-capture, aided and abated by the policies of SEZ Act 2005, Land
Acquisition Act 1894, and numerous Mous of a subservient State.  *The
notorious POSCO itself has been thown out of Vietnam in November 2008
following protests by local residents.*  In Orissa, they have bought
pro-POSCO supporters in the BJD-BJP, Police and goons who have let out a
continuous reigns of terror and siege through armed and bomb attacks, then
slapping over a 1000 protestors with 200 false cases each, surrounding the
entire area, stopping flow of medicines and food since 2005.  *Is this in
the national interest? Is this guaranteeing employment, development and
progress?*



When we as students of JNU say we are ‘non-political’, that we are only
talking about our innocent jobs as the logical end of our education, what we
mean is a mere blind service to these very powers.  But this kind of an
incident is far more than just building new technologies for them and
translating Korean for them.  *This marks a naked assertion of justification
for the same company which has so much blood on its hands.*  In return the
Company will throw some scholarships and jobs to their faithful agents.



But we refuse to accept that spines of students are so cheap, and know that
most of the students of Korean Centre and others are sensible enough to read
behind the designs of these corporate games, and isolate the agents of
multinational-profit-hunters in disguise of students seeking ‘development’
and ‘employment’ Lastly *we uphold the continued resistance given by the
progressive students in this incident against the lumpens, and seeing to the
continuation of the democratic ethos of the Campus. *

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*Signed: Amit, Nayan, Ramanand, Usman, Manbhanjan, Gyan, Anil Pushkar,
Prakash, Shashank, Alok*