AN EXERCISE IN WORLDMAKING 2009 - ISS

8 SANJUKTA CHAUDHURI
Indian National Movement – Role and participation of ‘Youth’
The nascent signs of ‘youth activism’ in India can be traced back to the period of Freedom
Struggle for Independence * . Certain landmark events in the countries freedom movement
witnessed a large scale participation of students. The dissatisfaction towards the British
system of education which aimed at providing basic knowledge and skills on the English
language focused at recruiting the ‘young Indians’ to clerical posts for civil services stimulating
student agitation. Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement (1920) mobilized the
students to participate in boycotting British colleges and universities. Students actively participated
in road demonstrations, protest marches and boycott campaigns (Altbach, 1970:
238).
A large number of youth conferences were held and coalitions, leagues, federations
formed both at the national and regional level e.g. All Bengal Students’ Association which
claimed a membership of 20,000 in 1929 (ibid). Similarly the Quit India Movement 1942
was regarded as a mass student upheaval where approximately 10 percent of the student
population participated; even those who were passive expressed their support in boycotts,
picketing of shops, staging street demonstrations against British administration, allied in
clandestine activities with nationalist leaders and also took up leadership roles. Although
the Quit India Movement remained unsuccessful in ousting the British, it laid the foundation
of ‘National Liberation Movement’ (Altbach, 1970: 241).
*
The history of Indian Freedom Struggle spans over the period from (1857-1947). However
for the purpose of this paper the time period from Partition of Bengal (1905) to the Indian
Independence (1947) has been taken into consideration.
portive role as compared to that of young men. The role of young women
was essential to build up mass movements and was more integrationist.
They too were swayed by the nationalistic feelings rather than rooting
their identity as ‘youth’ and as ‘equal participants’ to young men. This
was more so because of the male connotation in the perception of
‘youth’. It has been argued by some scholars that the traditional models
of ‘political behavior’ have been built on ‘androcentric model of the public
sphere’, ‘the political’, which predictably eliminate women and related
issues. Feminists on the other hand have also established that ‘personal is
political’, whereby it is the unequal status of women within the private
domain which transcends to define her position in the male-dominated