POLITICS IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

The High Court of Kerala in an interim verdict, ordered to end campus politics in all educational institutions in Kerala. The court ruled that the students are coming to educational institutions for studying and not for indulging in political activities there. The management should have authority to throw out students who spoil the peaceful atmosphere in the educational institutions, the court observed.

While a great majority of the people including the students and their parents shall support to the observation of the honorable court, a lean minority from various political parties strongly refute this. Schools and colleges are the highly fertile land for the politicians to bring up the future followers for them. In order to strengthen their demands to keep the educational institutions open for all sorts of strife they put up certain irrelevant arguments. The most important of these is, they say, that schools and colleges are the places where parliamentary democracy is to be taught and practiced. While conceding to their demands, if we ask them to find out the actual number of students join schools and colleges to learn political ideologies and parliamentary democracy, they can find only a meager figure of 5% or even less who are intending to pursue political science as their career. They have all the liberties to pursue their subject and is available in many colleges. What is the need to force the remaining 95% to follow political activities for them? In fact, it is neither political science nor parliamentary democracy they want to take up in these institutions but sheer display of political strength by violent agitation to impose their demands.

If at all their demands are genuine to serve the people from all walks of life, by teaching practical politics, they are welcome to open a political university with affiliations to the required number of colleges. The students from these institutions may be allowed to have both theoretical as well as practical learning. This will certainly set aside their demands. Under the stipulations of their own parliamentary democracy they cannot insist unwilling students to learn politics that too with the help of strikes and other forms of agitation. It is like imparting practical sex before marriage. The intention is different and the people understand it. More than anyone else the judiciary understand this with all its consequences. If the judiciary remain stern in their orders we can have a disciplined political establishment for the coming generations.

KV George
kvgeorge@gmail.com