IN pre-independence India, student politics was largely driven by national parties and its inception was caused by a movement run outside the walls of campuses.

In India, student protests first erupted on campus against the British Simon Commission (1928), which visited India to address the self-government formula. These protests contributed to a wider interaction among students and culminated into the establishment of the All-India Students Federation (AISF) in 1936.

The AISF held a nationalist agenda and was solely dedicated to the idea of independence of India from British rule.

This core agenda of independence consolidated the organisation of students, however, it was segmented by the formation of the All-India Students Congress (AISC) on the question of participating in the Second World War.

Communist students supported the decision of the Soviet Union to enter into war, while  socialist and Gandhian students opposed joining it. It was ultimately the AISC that led the independence movement.

Muslims in India diverged into another direction and demanded a separate state. This was manifest through the

formation of the All-India Muslim Students Federation (AIMSF) in 1937. This student body was an affiliated subsidiary of the All India Muslim League and its goal was a separate homeland for Muslims, which was ultimately achieved in 1947.

The AIMSF's role was so crucial, according to Sharif-ul-Mujahid, as it practically served as a substitute to the provincial Muslim Leagues, which were ridden with personal and factional feuds among their leaders.

The AIMSF was a perpetual balancing and pressure group vis-a-vis the provincial leaders to not cross the lines and compromise the organisational agenda, particularly in regard to the allotment of party tickets for the 1946 elections. Their significance also rose because Quaid-i-Azam listened to them as he did to no other organised group.

Students were also instrumental in shaping a progressive face of the Muslim League. For example, they staged a demonstration in favour of the abolition of zamindari (absentee landlordism) when the UP League Working committee was meeting at Allahabad in 1945. They also influenced the Punjab League to draw up a progressive manifesto.

The AIMSF was a communication link between the Muslim League leadership and the masses. The organisation groomed its volunteers by establishing training camps for election campaigning in Aligarh, Dhaka, Kolkatta, Lahore and Peshawar. Only in Punjab there were over 2,000 trained volunteers (1945).

The success of the civil disobedience movements during early 1947 in Punjab, the NWFP and Assam are largely attributed to the AIMSF. In short, it was the student power on the streets that presented the mass face of the Pakistan movement.

The AIMSF achieved its single most important goal Pakistan. When it was done and the politicians became the authorities in the new state, the student body also began to whither.

The demise of the AIMSF and its failure to convert into a potent and organised force in the newly-born Pakistan strengthens the impression that this body was carved out to facilitate the outreach of politicians who were least interested in democratic potential of the students. This was also a result of the death of its patron,  Quaid-i-Azam.

Excerpted with permission from
Revisiting Student Politics in Pakistan
(STUDENT POLITICS)
By Iqbal Haider Butt
Bargad, Gujranwala
180pp. Price not listed