Campus and Politics?

That was the subject line of an email I received a couple of weeks ago from a shocked Canadian lab-mate with the following attachment. 

 

As you can see the image is a paper clip from a Malayalam language paper. For those who can't read Malayalam, here and here are some links to the news in English. While my colleague was shocked that an academic campus could become the playground for the mainstream political organizations to the extent that it could even result in bloodshed, the news didn't even surprise me. So much that, I didn't even bother reading beyond the headline (and I searched for the English news stories just for this blog). And my guess is that even in the printed papers, this news was probably in some interior nook amongst the matrimonial and obituary sections. That's how common such incidents are in school, college and university campuses of Kerala. I do not know much about student politics in many other parts of India but I have studied in two other neighbouring states of Kerala, in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. In both these states, though there are student organizations affiliated to mainstream political parties just like in Kerala, their activities are pretty mellow and very rarely lead to violence, if ever at all. 

There are two major students' organizations in Kerala. SFI is affiliated to CPI(M) (and the now opposition LDF) and the KSU is affiliated to Indian National Congress (I) (and the now ruling UDF). Of these, SFI generally tends to invoke violence at the slightest provocation (here is an example). There are students' organizations affiliated to other political parties such as the BJP and IUML but are not as strong as these two which mainly derive their strength from the support of the consecutive LDF and UDF governments that change every 5 years. As the report in the above link points out, these organizations tend to function in consonance with the unions of teaching and non-teaching staff which themselves have political affiliations. Students are often forced to donate money and participate in their activities such as strikes and processions/marches which often turn violent resulting non-activist students getting injured and sometimes, even worse, getting killed. Since both the major political formations in the state have a vested interest in ensuring that these student orgs so that they can have a constant supply of fresh man power, no state government has ever tried to regulate their activities. 

The influence of vested political interests is not, however, limited only to the student bodies. It extends all the way through the teacher and staff unions up to the Vice-Chancellors (VCs). Most VCs are appointed not because of their academic or administrative accomplishment but due to their political and social affiliations. And these VCs don't even remain coy about their political links and often openly show off their political patronage even after assuming office. I know a person who is currently working as a Reader at the Calicut University (which, incidentally, is shut down due to competitive strikes by the SFI and KSU, one opposing the VC and the other supporting). This person had returned to India after two post-doctoral assignment, one in the US and the other in Germany. He had joined the Calicut University despite attractive offers from other private higher ed institutions. A few days after his appointment, he was approached with a membership by the staff union affiliated to the then ruling LDF. Since he was mostly bothered about doing research and teaching and wasn't even inclined towards a leftist ideology, he turned down the offer of membership. This set in motion a series of steps to harass him ultimately ending with termination of his appointment. The poor man had to go for a lengthy and costly legal battle with the University to get his job back, that too only after a change of government following state elections. This example is to demonstrate how the political-staff-student union nexus works in our academic campuses. They break anyone who is not ready to bend to their wishes, sometimes literally. 

All this is not that difficult to fix. As I said, there are states adjacent to Kerala where the politics of student and staff bodies is conducted without resorting to violence. It is also time to rethink if our academic campuses really require political activity at all. I am one of those who believes the primary purpose of universities and other academic establishments is to generate and disseminate knowledge. And the primary duty of the students is to learn as much as they can. Development of politically aware citizens can be restricted to the activities and organizations outside the campus. We can certainly design some other means to ensure student participation in the running of our institutions but that certainly should not be in anyway influenced by the vested interests of the political parties. Elimination of political interference is one basic and simple step that can have a cascading effect on the quality of our universities. Instead of ensuring that, our government keeps spending thousands of crores of taxpayer money to start more higher ed institutions that will all be plagued by the same problems and will ultimately fail to provide quality education to our students. It just saddening and infuriating at the same time.