All India Students Federation (AISF) is the first student organisaton of India
It was founded by students on 12 August 1936 with the banner Freedom Peace Progress, with the guidance of indian revolutonaries. At that time, it worked for the independence of India. The organisation now works for the betterment of students. It believes in peace, progress and scientific socialism. The students in India
have been in the front ranks of those who fought for the freedom of this country. Inspired by the call of nation to rise against British imperialism and liberate the country from the colonial yoke, the students plunged headlong into the freedom struggle. In the heroic battles for independence glorious chapters were written the young blood of student martyrs. And in the furnace of this anti-colonial struggle was born the All India Students Federation at Lucknow in August 1936. The Indian students did not see their struggle for independence in isolation from the worldwide struggle against imperialism and colonialism. Even in its formative stages the AISF was part of the entire strength was behind the mighty war of the patriotic forces, with the Soviet Union in its lead, against, the demon of fascism. After the defeat of fascism, the AISF joined other anti-fascist student and youth organisations all over the world in founding the International Union of Students and the World Federation of Democratic Youth to carry forward the struggle against imperialism, for a better life for the young people. The actual development following the achievement of freedom belied these fond dreams of the young people. The new state power which emerged after independence was that of the bourgeois class with all its limitations. They set out to build capitalism in the country even while exhorting the students to shun politics and take to the road of constructive activities in the name of nation-building. Careerism was encouraged and a section of the students fell into this trap, forgetting the ideals for which their elders in their student days had so valiantly fought. But this phase was not to last long. The student community as a whole began to see the evils of the capitalist system from its own experience. Growing unemployment, rising cost of living, spiraling prices, misery of the people, hunger, starvation, famine deaths-all these forced open the eyes of the students, as of other sections of the people. The students were drawn into many of these battles, becaus
