Politicians, stay away from students

IN PERSPECTIVE

“It is not salt but disobedience that you are manufacturing,” said Rajaji to Gandhi during the famous Dandi salt march which began the collapse of the British Empire. This sage advice from the Mahatma’s “conscience keeper” was just one of many whose wisdom and forethought can be fully understood today. Again, when Gandhi announced the Quit India movement in 1942, it fired the imagination of young students to turn revolutionary at the cost of their studies, sometimes lives. The prestigious Presidency College in Madras witnessed a minor revolution with its students burning the British flag and distributing incendiary pamphlets inside the campus. The authorities were forced to expel their brightest students whose careers were abruptly halted.

Then again, Rajaji advised Gandhi not to involve young academicians in politics as it would lead to campus disruption in the distant future. The wisdom in these words echo sadly in the violence and savagery taking place in the best of college campuses today. Students who are supposed to pursue intellectual activities have turned against their own alma mater with acts of willful defiance and destruction.

RK Narayan translated this same idea into a humorous incident in his classic bestseller “Swami and friends” when the Civil Disobedience movement fired the imagination of schoolchildren who gleefully joined the movement. They shouted slogans and created mayhem on the streets. Did not Gandhi say, “Don’t obey your masters?” They obediently stoned and shattered the Headmaster’s windowpanes. Swamy burnt his own school cap because Gandhi said, “Burn foreign cloth.” His friends obediently destroyed the school property because Gandhi advised people to shun foreign goods!

The moral of this story stares you in the face. Gullible students used for political gains can turn into unruly gangsters. Today’s politicians are making use of them to play their dirty political games, and making them criminals. Inexperienced, they cannot comprehend right from wrong. They are easily impressed, hence easily manipulated, too. We are witnessing a grim situation today when politicians are inciting students to violence and arson in their own campuses. It is cleverly made out that the youth of the country is protesting and rising against bad governance, when all that is happening is a handful of misguided youngsters indulging in irresponsible acts of campus disruption. Indiscipline is not to be confused with patriotism. Nor can unruly behaviour be regarded as student activism. What we have witnessed in the past few weeks after Parliament passed certain Acts is a larger version of Swamy stoning his headmaster’s windowpanes without knowing why he was doing it.

Student activists must realize that Parliament is the people of the country elected to make laws. A Bill passed in Parliament —right or wrong —is therefore inviolable unless fought in a court of law and not on the streets. If they reflect upon the absurdity of their protest, students will realize that the politicians who incited them to violence have made use of them to promote their own agenda.

Each political party in India has its “student wing” in colleges. The idea is to groom young citizens to shoulder political responsibilities tomorrow. But, again, this concept has been misused to defy authority and create disruption of studies besides indulging in unruly behaviour on campuses. Gullible teenagers are encouraged to defy their parents and teachers; to take law into their hands and sacrifice their academic interests to become puppets in the hands of seasoned, unscrupulous politicians. The recent case of a teenaged student in Bengaluru shouting slogans in public at the cost of her own safety is a case in point.

On the other hand, if students are encouraged to fight for their academic rights like participation in educational planning, regulation of tuition fees or examination reforms, they will become activists with a positive agenda. There are many such movements that have achieved miraculous results in universities across the world. In India, student voices can be very powerful against the rising costs of education, poor quality of teaching in undergraduate colleges or transgressions in admission procedures to professional courses. These are issues concerning their own welfare and future prospects. Besides, they are academic issues that can be discussed across the table in a civilized manner.

Whereas, if student wings of prominent political parties misuse their power to bully college authorities into postponing examinations or disrupting academic schedules as we see happening in several universities, the college campus becomes a hub of criminal activities controlled by the mafia. Politicians have encouraged such activities to the detriment of other serious-minded students’ academic careers. Unless parents and other citizens —including distinguished scholars and public figures —fight these alarming trends, India will slide down badly in all respects.