Kerala: Law soon to protect campus politics

Thiruvananthapuram: The state government will consider legislation to protect the freedom of students to engage in political activity, especially in colleges run by private managements. “It is undesirable to have a situation where a large majority of our youth are apolitical,” education minister Abdu Rabb said in the Assembly on Wednesday.

The proposed legislation, sources said, will have clauses to disassociate major political parties from campus elections or at least limit their influence. The minister, too, said in the Assembly that the freedom for student politics should be balanced by academic calm in institutions. “It is also a fact that parents are withdrawing their children from government schools,” Mr Rabb said.

He also said that the government was wary of the dominance of a handful of parties inside campuses. He said that the government had not prohibited student politics but stated that it should be carried out in accordance with the guidelines laid down in the Lyngdoh Committee report that came out in 2014.

The minister was responding to a calling attention motion moved by Congress leader Shafi Parambil on the issue. “We are creating an insensitive generation that is incapable of reacting to issues,” Mr Parambil said. He said that campus politics should change according to the times but to ban it from campuses would be akin to “burning the house down to kill the rats”.

Congress leader Shafi Parambil essentially wanted political activity in private colleges, where it is virtually banned. The Lyngdoh Committee had stated that in states like Kolkata and Kerala, members of political parties regularly forced independent candidates or candidates ‘not conforming to the prevalent political ideology’ from contesting in student elections. Even while there are political excesses, the Lyngdoh committee also found that there were genuine grievances like exorbitant capitation fees and poor infrastructure that students need to tackle. The Kerala legislation, sources said, would attempt to create a framework that would allow democratic expression that would fight for certain but would not spill into anarchy.