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India Against Corruption
TREAT STUDENT POLITICIAN AS POLITICIAN AND NOT AS STUDENT
When I was a student in Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu, I attended a meeting addressed by Mr. V.V.Giri, former Vice President and President of India.
During the question and answer session, I asked Mr.V.V.Giri as to whether the students can get themselves involved in political activities. Mr. V.V. Giri replied without hesitation that students should do the following three things, namely study, study and study.
Mr. Giri who was an active trade union leader before becoming the Vice President of India pointed out that students should know politics but should not involve themselves in politics, as it would divert the attention from the primary task of studying and learning. Students getting involved in politics is neither in their interest nor in the interest of the nation.
The recent incidents in J N U, Delhi , where students planned cultural programme to protest against the hanging of Afzal Guru, the agitation by students in Hyderabad University when a student committed suicide and the support readily given to such agitations by politicians , only highlight the fact that politics have made deep inroads in the academic institutions and universities.
In recent times in Tamil Nadu, several students have indulged in rowdy like behavior and frequently indulged in condemnable acts such as fighting between themselves with knives, hijacking the transport buses and even murdering teachers. Many of such students have affiliations to one political party or the other and if the police would initiate action against them, politicians interfere in their support.
It is seen that more than 95% of the students are interested only in academic pursuits. Only minority of students who have criminal mind set or who want to launch themselves as politicians in future, indulge in such rowdy like behavior. Unfortunately, the print and visual media give huge publicity to such deplorable activities of small group of students, which virtually amount to encouraging them, as these politicians in the making get all the publicity that they want.
In this scenario, it is appropriate that the Government of India has taken action against the agitating JNU students and strongly deplored their behavior. As expected, several politicians in the opposition parties and some so called activists criticize the action of the government of India with ready made statements such as curtailing the freedom and reminiscence of the emergency days etc. As usual, the print and visual media give more publicity and space to the activities of the student and utterances of the critical politicians, than the views of the government.
It is high time that we treat the student politician as politician and not as student and refrain from giving the benefit of treating with kid gloves.
N.S.Venkataraman
Nandini Voice For The Deprived
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Sunday, February 14, 2016
Re: [IAC#RG] TREAT STUDENT POLITICIAN AS POLITICIAN AND NOT AS STUDENT
Several comments.
1. You seem to be equating politics with crime.
2. Politics impacts academics too and life in general and in my view is not inappropriate. We have politics rewriting syllabus, imposing political affiliates of extreme incompetence on the students. The idea that students should be denied political views renders them basically puppets to be pulled around by whoever is in power. It should be left to the organization to determine what its culture must be.
3. I do agree with your view in the limited sense that student politics must remain limited to students and not involve non-students on campus, except in specific capacity - for example Modi/Rahul Gandhi/Thackeray/Yechury/whoever addressing a student political event is fine, but regular non-student cadre in audience/protest on campus is not. - which basically then turns into regular politics exploiting educational institutions.
4. Given the instances you highlight as examples, one wonders whether you mean all politics in colleges, including organizations like ABVP or merely leftist politics. Because in both instances, the central government acting to back the actions of ABVP on campus were a direct factor, but are omitted from your description. Additionally, both examples you chose to highlight as inappropriate pertain to perceived injustice against a minority, while other instances equally disruptive appear to not have struck you as inappropriate.
5. You seem to include Rohith Vemula related protests as inappropriate. He was a student in the college and how he was treated is directly relevant to other students on campus. Refusing them their right to protest sounds fascist! Essentially, you seem to be saying that even if you think your colleague is marginalized with direct influence from the political party in power, you must not have a problem with him being targeted.
6. In both examples you cite, college students as a whole appear to have joined ranks in criticizing external political actions against students and the student political representatives of said political actors. In essence you seem to be saying that student rights should be stripped. This goes beyond student politics and appears to be an attempt to disallow resistance to the government misdeeds against students.
Vidyut
On Sun, Feb 14, 2016 at 6:39 AM, Venkatraman Ns <nsvenkatchennai@gmail.com> wrote:
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