‘Campus protests have a bearing on public psyche too’

Lit Fest talks draw parellels between conflicts on campuses across country

Kozhikode: “I see Rohit (Vemula) in my mirror”. This conclusion of an analysis of the Rohit Vemula episode by Kozhikode-based student activist K. Dinu could be one of the most profound soliloquies that any Dalit student in this country could empathise with.

A discussion on the recent episodes of conflict on campuses across the country at the Kerala Literature Festival drew parallels between the mass student uprising at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, and Hyderabad University and many protests of lesser magnitude including the recent one at Law Academy, Thiruvananthapuram.

“This is the for first time a student body in the country is protesting in a way that threatens governments. There is a radical change in the nature of the protest too. From movements within the student entity, these protests have gone out of campuses and have started interacting with the public psyche,” said B. Arundhathi, activist, actor, and research scholar at Hyderabad University.

However, the panel had to admit that campuses in Kerala had not caught up with the movement spreading in other parts of the country. “Even the Students Federation of India (SFI), the so-called most progressive outfit, does not feel that the principal of Law Academy addressing students based on their castes was a problem,” said Dinu. He also blamed the credit-based semester system for nipping protests in the bud and converting the student body in Kerala into an irresponsive mass. Dinu stressed the need to create awareness among students about their rights and the need for SC/ST grievance cells on all campuses.

Founder of the Dalit Student Movement in Kerala O.P. Ravindran pointed out that even starting the movement was an act of protest for him. “In other parts of the country, the Ambedkarite movements on campuses were suppressed by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishath (ABVP), calling them anti-nationals. But in Kerala, the SFI was keen on wiping them out, claiming that they were Maoists,” he said.

Ms. Arudhathi said there was a defined attempt to eliminate all thinking brains that may later turn out hazardous to regressive establishments. Attempts to instil fear on campuses have backfired, and protests have spread out of campuses. “And they have been successes too. That we are protesting is the biggest success,” she concluded.

The panel welcomed the most recent government decision to ensure students unions on all campuses and hoped that the decision would make a major change.