CAMPUS AS A CRUCIBLE: A WAY TO REIMAGINE STUDENT POLITICS

The judiciary should not aim to silence the campus; it should aim to protect the campus from the street. Student activism without party politics can balance academic discipline with democratic vigour

- SHASHI THAROOR

HE recent discourse surrounding the Kerala High Court’s stance on campus politics—in which the court favoured a “congenial atmosphere” free from “political influence’—touches a raw nerve in the Indian educational landscape. It presents us with a false dichotomy: we are told we must choose either the sterile, apolitical silence of a ‘purely academic’ institution, or the chaotic, often violent mirror of state-level partisan warfare.

This choice is not only reductive; it is dangerous for the future of Indian democracy. To suggest that universities should be sanitised of political activism is to ignore their fundamental role as a laboratory for citizenship. However, the critics of campus politics are not entirely wrong; the infiltration of mainstream political parties into student life has often replaced intellectual debate with muscle power. The way forward lies not in banning politics, but in decoupling student activism from external party machinery.

A university is more than a degree factory; it is the first space where a young person interacts with the State and society as an independent adult. If we treat students as passive recipients of knowledge until the day they graduate, we cannot expect them to suddenly emerge as informed, critical and engaged citizens.

Political discussion, engagement and activism are essential pedagogical tools. They teach students how to negotiate differences, how to organise for a cause, and how to hold authority accountable. When a student group protests a fee hike or debates a national policy, they are practising the very mechanics of a healthy democracy. By barring these activities, we are effectively telling the next generation that ‘politics’ is a dirty business best left to professionals, rather than a civic duty shared by all.