In the final week of September, a group of students from the Sri Sairam Engineering College, Chennai, blocked the road outside Anna University and protested against what they considered was acts of moral policing, verbal and physical abuse carried out by their college management, specifically by its campus director Balu, over many years.
As news spread that the students would eventually be expelled, many other students joined the protests, with their faces covered. In a bid to put pressure on the authorities, the students protested inside the Anna University campus, to which Sri Sairam Engineering College is affiliated.
Social media campaign
The on-the-ground protest was complemented by a social media campaign launched by the college’s alumni and its current students. Many ex-students spoke up, accusing the management of engaging in what they alleged was “dictatorship”. One student even wrote that the floor supervisors and other staff were so powerful that they even fined a friend of hers for using “too much tomato sauce on a food item”.
A circular that, many allege, prescribed a dress code for women students of the college (the existence of which was subsequently denied by the college) could have triggered these protests, but students say that the college management has always adopted a Big Brother-like attitude and has sought to deny them even the basic freedoms, irrespective of their gender.
“The college imposes fines for everything: for touching the duck in the pond inside the college, for wearing a branded formal shirt with a logo or for speaking to a student from the opposite gender. We are abused even by the floor supervisors,” says a third year student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In the name of maintaining discipline, the students claim that they are subjected to ill-treatment on a day-to-day basis. A second year woman student of the college says that she has been subjected to comments laced with sexual innuendos from supervisors. “I have been ogled at by the male supervisors. They constantly keep tabs on how girls are dressed. It is disgusting,” she said.
The protesting students placed a total of three demands before both the Anna University authorities and the management of the Sairam college: a) set up an elected student union, b) remove the campus in-charge Balu, who they say had unleashed a reign of terror on the students; and c) reinstate the debarred students.
Officials from Anna University agreed to visit the campus and inspect the conditions. “But the management didn’t want the protesting students to explain our grievances to them. Instead they wanted the officials to speak to those students who could be threatened into saying good things about the college and its functioning”, said a student. Following protests and inspections, Sai Prakash Leo Muthu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), at the Sairam Group of Institutions, agreed to replace the male supervisors with women and remove the campus director, Balu, from his position.
When asked if the management really imposes restrictions on boys and girls interacting in the campus, Mr. Sai Prakash is reported to have said: “In the buses, boys sit at the back and girls at the front. It is only when we find boys and girls from different streams talking that there is some objection, because such talk cannot pertain to academics.”
Days after assurances were given by the CEO, the students claim that the college went back on their word. They say that the college management tried to get them to sign on a letter that declared that they don’t have a problem with Balu staying on as the campus director. “Some students were forced to sign it. The students hit out against the management,” said a day scholar. Subsequently, the college authorities sent the students home and gave them an extended study holiday.
On October 17, students from about 100 engineering colleges carried out a rally against excesses committed by the college to keep up the pressure. “All through these events, the college has constantly been calling our parents and threatening them that we will be expelled. Before the rally, they called our parents and said that we didn’t have the necessary permissions and that we could be shot at by the police,” said a second year student from the college.
This is not the first time that the students have rebelled against the college, says an ex-student of Sairam college, who claims that he had to leave college without even obtaining a degree after he was debarred for instigating the students to strike. “There have been three attempts by the students to strike against the college — in the years 2005, 2007 and 2010. But the college management managed to shut it down by sheer intimidation,” he says. When contacted, Mr. Sai Prakash, the CEO, said the ex-student was instigating protests when things were going smooth.
Support from students
The protests by the engineering college students have drawn widespread applause and support from the student community in Tamil Nadu, which has, so far, silently borne the brunt of many reactionary college managements over many years. Several engineering colleges have developed their own system of keeping the students on a tight leash. However, many college managements have actually projected these regressive rules as their unique selling points.
These events have attracted attention at a national level as well. Kavita Krishnan of CPI-ML strongly condemned the college authorities in the strongest possible words. Writing about the protests, she said: “They’re not protesting for privileges or at minor inconveniences. They are protesting because their safety, their dignity, their mental health and their very lives are at stake.”
However, despite their regressive mode of functioning, such colleges remain popular in the State. Students blame parents for enrolling their children in such colleges. How do these colleges entice the parents? They promise their children good grades and jobs at the end of four years. Once they are enrolled, they make sure that the students don’t ‘waste’ their time having fun or falling in love. The students, however, pass out at the end of the course with nightmares.
