RAWALPINDI, March 30: Speakers at a seminar organised by the Student Action Committee (SAC) Rawalpindi/Islamabad vowed to hold the new government to its commitment to restore student unions and asserted that substantive democratisation of the state will take place only if and when the youth of the country, and particularly students, are mobilised to play their role within educational institutions as well as at the national level.

The seminar was held at the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Press Club and was attended by students from colleges and universities in the twin cities as well as a handful of political activists and lawyers, a press release said on Sunday.

Speaking on the occasion, Aasim Sajjad of the People’s Rights Movement (PRM) pointed out that students played a vital role in Pakistani politics until the 1980s when students unions were banned by Gen Ziaul Haq.

He said the establishment feared student unions because of their power to mobilise numbers for agitation, as happened in the student-led movement to topple Ayub Khan, adding that this was why it had to ban unions.

Speaking on the occasion, District Bar Association (DBA) Rawalpindi secretary Sajid Tanoli said the movement of lawyers that had rocked the establishment was incapable of fomenting substantive change in Pakistan on its own and required the support of a mobilised youth.

He said the bar associations were the only grass-roots organisation which the establishment had been unable to undermine, and if students were able to reorganise themselves and act in unity as the bar associations did then it would be impossible to stop the wave of change.

Mr Tanoli said lawyers and students along with other democratic forces must make the newly-elected government accountable to the people. He urged students to play their role in this regard.

Speaking on the occasion, SAC convenor Alia Amirali said the students played the role of society’s conscience and in the aftermath of the November 3 emergency, students’ mobilisation seriously undermined the moral legitimacy of the regime.