Kerala students' question: Can happiness exist only in acceptance?

There is a furore in Kerala over the arrests of the college students and authorities of two institutes – Government Polytechnic College in Kunnamkulam and Shri Krishna College in Guruvayur over showing Narendra Modi in bad light in their respective college magazines. In both cases, the students responsible are members of the Students Federation of India (SFI), a students’ political body affiliated to the Left.

 

But if this were not enough, more curbs are being imposed as the days go by. While the state government is planning to ban politics in campuses based on a 2006 High Court directive, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Calicut, Dr M Abdul Salam, has sent a directive to Principals of all colleges to ensure that ‘shameful’ content does not appear in college magazines!

 

Besides, in what amounts to pre-censorship, the draft of the magazines will have to be certified by the Principal and an undertaking obtained from the student editor that “the articles, photos, cartoons etc, do not contain anything tarnishing/defaming the image of National leaders affecting the national integration and communal harmony”.

 

In the directive (Hoot has a copy) dated June 28, 2014, the Vice Chancellor said that the photographs defaming national leaders and highly respected dignitaries causes irreparable damage to the University and the colleges, ‘besides tarnishing the esteem of the nation itself’. This sort of literary freedom, the directive said, did not ‘fit into the rich values and cultural heritage of the nation’.

 

In the Kunnamkulam case, the students had portrayed Modi on the list of negative faces along with George Bush, Osama bin Laden and Velupalli Prabhakaran among others in their college magazine. In Guruvayur, the students had used a crossword puzzle in their magazine to criticize Modi and Amrithanandhamayi (who incidentally was caught up in a raging controversy raised by her former disciple – Gail Tradwell in her book – The Holy Hell, which the Godmother’s powerful machinery played down in the popular media in Kerala and outside).

 

Yuva Morcha and ABVP leaders took up the issue and filed a police case to which the police promptly reacted and arrested the students and the college authorities. The politics of this case takes an interesting turn since the Home Minister for Kerala, Mr Ramesh Chennithala has openly claimed that he finds the police action unjustified.

 

One only wonders whose tune the police are dancing to.

 

In any case, there are scores of Indians who feel Narendra Modi is guilty of injustice to humankind, and hence a negative face of the society. Only 38.5% of the voters in the general elections voted for the NDA and rejected its election slogan of Modi for PM.

 

 

Kerala has a long history of politicized campuses, where students discuss not only the latest technology or about roses and lilacs but also about the politics of Washington, Caracas, New Delhi and Trivandrum. This is reflected in their wall posters, campus magazines, debates and speeches. Though many of the new privately promoted institutes police the activities of the students to a large extent, students in most colleges are still politically conscious and so are their college magazines.

 

For example, the centrally funded National Institute of Technology, Calicut (NITC), which does not have any registered political students unions, focused on naxalism in the cover issue of its student magazine this year. Among other articles, it also carries a piece on the Rajan case. Rajan was a final year student from NITC who was falsely suspected to be a naxalite. He was arrested and tortured to death during the Emergency in 1975-77 in India, shaking the consciousness of the entire state.

 

Students think incisively. They are sharp in their criticism, often using words and methods that are acerbic. Even when there is a frontal attack from the state on freedom of expression, students in most colleges are still politically conscious and so are their college magazines. Isolating these usages and sharply punishing them creates an environment intolerant to dissent.

 

 

Of course, it’s not in Kerala alone that these incidents of intolerance towards dissent that’s happening and there have been a number of instances – from the arrest of an MBA student from Bhatkal for a message against Modi in WhatsApp, the charge against a shipping professional from Goa for an anti-Modi post in Facebook or the UP police arrest of a script writer for posting messages in Twitter for threatening to shoot Modi.

 

Trying to suppress dissent is not a new phenomenon that has come after Modi came to power. It was under the UPA, that we saw a young lady in Mumbai being arrested for a seemingly harmless Facebook post asking why there is so much hype for the cremation of Bal Thackeray.

But what is alarming is the time it has taken for this new Government to take control of the repressive mechanisms of the state. Other happenings in India, like the Intelligence Bureau report on Greenpeace and foreign funding for NGOs, only increases the cause for concern. While it might not be a bad idea to question the sources of funding of NGOs and to what purpose it is being utilized for, by say bringing them under the RTI, one is forced to wonder the intentions behind such reports when conclusions are made that there is a negative impact of 2-3 percent on economic growth.

 

We are seeing an emergence of a multitude of attacks on freedom of expression and free speech. These types of direct action by the state using the unlimited powers it has on its hands to curb dissent is a danger indeed for freedom of expression in the country. But more dangerous are the indirect, discreet methods, which are being played out.

 

The only way forward is not to be intimidated by all this and continue to wage for our rights, perhaps with a little help from Faiz:

 

One would have to rethink George Orwell’s quote: “Happiness exists only in acceptance”.