The man behind the historical farmers’ march towards Mumbai from neighbouring Nasik district is none other than Vijoo Krishnan, who is the youngest member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) as an invitee. More than 50, 000 farmers marched for six days in the blazing heat to put forth their demands before the Maharashtra government, headed by CM Devendra Fadnavis.
Vijoo Krishnan hails from a hamlet in Kannur, who went on to become a firebrand leader of the Students Federation of India but not before quitting his teaching profession. Before becoming the great source of inspiration to the millions of Communists in the state, he was the Head of the Post Graduate Department of Political Science at St Joseph’s College in Bengaluru.
Krishnan completed his doctoral programme on the changing Indian agrarian economy and joined the college in Bangaluru to teach. He was also President of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU). It was during his tenure the administration was forced to rent a hotel outside the campus and also pay the students for their transit facing a protest over the issue of hostel fee hike. It eventually became his source of inspiration for the farmer’s march in Mumbai.
However, a couple of years in teaching, he became a full-time activist. He is the leader of the Students Federation of India (SFI) and the Joint Secretary of All-India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), the largest farmers’ organisation in the country that led the ‘Long March’ from Nashik to Mumbai this week.
The 44-year-old, Vijoo Krishnan is probably the youngest member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) as an invitee.
Vijoo Krishnan was also a member of the first Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) after the union amended the JNUSU constitution for the first time since 1978.