#FeesMustFall: Shaeera Kalla offers support to India's JNU student protest

#SOUTHAFRICA: Shaeera Kalla is a name synonymous with the historic Fees Must Fall movement of South Africa.

Now, Kalla has aligned her support to the Fees Must Fall protest that is underway at Jawaharlal Nehru University in India.

The protest has sparked further civil disobedience in the goal to bring education closer to the masses of India’s nation.

HIGHLIGHTS

FeesMustFall: South Africa’s MP Fasiha Hassan cry of ‘Amandla Awethu!’ rattles Jawaharlal Nehru University
Jawaharlal Nehru University teachers condemned the vandalism over fee hike
Students are trying to politicise everything, the teachers said
Chief Proctor Office will take stringent action possible against guilty, they said

JNU Student Union president Aishe Ghosh is leading the movement with massive support from the public. In what can be described as a constant onslaught of sit-in’s, marches, placard demonstrations against the university and government, India’s youth are rising up.

Kalla in an email to Aishe Ghosh wrote,

View this post on Instagram

Inquilab Zindabad! Long live the revolution #StandWithJNU via @umar_khalid87

A post shared by @ shaeera_k on Nov 20, 2019 at 7:31am PST

President Aishe I send you love and strength, I know thing must be very difficult but I trust you are leading
to the best of your ability. Please let me know what the best way to send out solidarity is so that we can put out heads together and come up with something that assists the movement.
As a first step I am keen to write up a letter of solidarity. If you would like to be connected to media in South Africa I can also arrange that.
Shaeera Kalla

The email from Kalla has been warmly received by JNU Student Union president Ghosh who commented on social media

Shaeera Kalla has sent love, strength and solidarity to JNU students for the ongoing movement.
Shaeera was the President of the Students Union when the historic #FeesMustFall movement was going on in South Africa.
#FeesMustFall was a student-led protest movement that began in mid-October 2015 in South Africa. The goals of the movement were to stop increases in student fees as well as to increase government funding of universities.
Thank you Shaeera ❤️
Aishe Ghosh, JNU Student Union President

The students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have been demanding withdrawal of service charges of Rs 1,700 (349,09 ZAR) which were introduced from next semester and the one-time mess security fee, which is refundable, has been hiked from Rs 5,500 (1,130 ZAR) to Rs 12,000 (2,460 ZAR).

Shaeera Kalla is the former Wits SRC President, she holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics and an Honours in Political Science from Wits University as well as an MSc in African Studies from Oxford University.

She is the co-founder of a start up focused on ideation incubation called The Mbegu Platform,