Death of Kerala veterinary student | Murder most foul on campus

Keralites read with astounding disbelief, the shocking details of the mob trial, of J S Sidharth, a second-year student at Pookode Kerala Veterinary and Animal Husbandry University, who was found hanging in the college hostel toilet after a harrowing ordeal of mob trial, brutal assault, and acute mental torture. According to eyewitness accounts, Sidharth was subjected to merciless torture, between February 14 and February 18. He was forcibly paraded naked before approximately 130 hostel inmates and subjected to brutal physical assault, by belts, iron rods, and wire. The orgy of prolonged public violence, within the campus courtyard, unbelievable as it sounds, spread across two full days, was unknown to the Dean, hostel warden, and all the teaching and non-teaching staff! Be that as it may, this macabre incident has exposed the dark underbelly of campus violence rattling Kerala’s educational campuses. Student outfits aligned with different political parties, their violent ideologies, repeated violent clashes, often internecine involving social shaming, public trials, smear campaigns, inquisitorial methods, and intimidation, have given Kerala’s educational institutions a very bad reputation. Little wonder that parents who can afford to finance their ward’s education, either in other States or abroad, do it with immense self-satisfaction.

A just-released Finance Ministry statement presented in Parliament, reveals that Kerala leads the nation in availing educational loans. The total value of educational loans availed from Public Sector Banks by Keralites stands at a mind-boggling Rs. 4,545 crores. The data also reveals that the total value of education loans disbursed in the State has surged by 324%, from Rs. 1, 610.61 crore in FY21 to Rs. 5,218.60 crores in FY23. This trend will definitely continue to surge, spurred by the present incident, that has brought, the College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences in Pookode, Wayanad, into instant global notoriety.

Coming as it is at a most delicate moment when the Kerala Government, wants to welcome the setting up of Private Universities and foreign campuses, this event would throw cold water, on the entire proposal. Which foreign investor would like the name of his university to be dragged into disrepute by hooligans who excel in indulging in macabre violence? The latest news is that the Vice Chancellor of the College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, in Pookode, has been placed under suspension. Imagine the fate of the institution that is seeing a spate of suspensions in the top management, teaching, and hostel wings, apart from the delinquent students.

Another hasty action that has been done by the College Dean and the Anti-Ragging Committee, is debarring 19 hooligan students from taking admission to any educational institution in India for three years, while 10 others have been debarred for just a year. Nobody is going to be placated by these hasty and asinine actions. This writer is of the firm opinion, that the extended orgy of violence, indulged in by some hooligans, could be only under the continuous intake of strong narcotic drugs, and other alcoholic intoxicants. An extensive, multi-disciplinary probe would be needed to ferret out the truth, before it gets obliterated and mutilated to rescue dubious organizations, masquerading as student’s organizations. 
An important question for all educationists, managements, and intellectuals to deliberate is what is the necessity for politically aligned student’s organizations to exist on any college campus? Political regimes are capable of shifting universities' institutional goals from generating knowledge and inserting it into decision-making processes to maintaining the political regime in place by capturing their administrative apparatus. State-funded universities are particularly vulnerable to the influence of ruling political parties when changes in leadership are tied to political cycles. This hinders institutional memory, stable succession mechanisms, and the university's capacity to effectively serve as a community anchor.

Education is often considered a legitimate target in conflict because of its affiliations with the government or is seen as an opportunity to even destabilize communities. The relationship between higher education institutions in Kerala and their stakeholders is complex, often complicated by reform policies, political divisions, and imbalanced power dynamics between students, faculty, and government, resulting in repeated patterns of violence in educational institutions.

The zeal of the present ruling party to establish its party branches and district associations in universities across the State, resulting in persecution of students and rival politically based student organizations who refuse to comply with this "state-crafted student leadership architecture" is at the root of student violence, rampaging across the State. For this purpose, granting of autonomy to students to mobilize themselves through demonstrations and activism, has been a continuous problem for successive State governments as well as university administrations. Student unrests which have resulted in academic disruption and the temporary closure of colleges and universities in the State, are staple news items. At the heart of many conflicts, it can be observed that students, faculty, and staff have turned against one another and this has impaired their sense of belonging. 

A reimagined view of a university and its role in becoming politically neutral is the need of the hour. One major unique challenge that has stared at Kerala universities has been the usurpation of these institutions by the political elites; this politicization of the universities has held hostage their role as transformers and solution providers; instead, the Kerala colleges and universities have been forced to descend to the arena of the toxic political environment that characterize Kerala politics. It is time to redetermine the nature, scope, structure, and focus of student leadership and student organizations functioning in the State. Equally interesting would be to determine what makes students interested in leadership positions in politically inclined and often conflict-minded and controversy-driven student organizations? Nonetheless, university administrators also need to realize the need to re-examine the suitability of the management models used in university administration to the character of the contemporary university student. In order for education to foster development this writer recommends: the need to separate educational policies from State and national politics, the clear stipulation of educational policies and their role in national development, and a sound implementation of educational reforms.

The author is former Director General of National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes & Narcotics