Satwant Singh Rissam
In every country, college and university level education is believed to be a stage where an individual reaches to shape his or her own future. Professional education provided at such institutes take these individual on way to progress and prosperity in life. Some countries in the world boast its college and university education as they are known world over for their standards in deliverance of education. Indian college and university education is not among the level of these nations, but yet we also have some colleges and universities which are known world over. No growth could be possible if there are no professionally skilled youth in a country. For this aspect every country tries with the greatest responsibility to build such institutes on its land. The sections of the youth which enter college and university level to get education in a way are believed to be future of the country.
Indian education system has produced many pioneers which touched the sky in various fields. We have had many nation building people who did all their college and university education in India. Many people like Late APJ Abdul Kalam were the products of Indian education system and made name world over. We have prominent institutes like University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Aligarh Muslim University, Banaras Hindu University, Punjab University and even some private institutes which these days are attracting youth. But as we are in 21st century, now the education in India is talked in terms of IITs and IIMs. Such institutes have become back bone of the country’s educational image. In this way, list is endless as far as prominent educational institutes in India are concerned. However, prominence which these institutes gained over the period of time in a way turned some of these learning centres into those who disseminate ‘political ideology’ too. Unfortunately, these learning centres started the transmission of ‘political ideology’ from one batch to another. Now this process is going on from many decades and has effected every generation of student which came to study there. It is also result of this, that some students of these premier institutes become followers of one particular ‘political ideology’ only.
This all appeared normal till sometime back in Indian education system as it was believed that today’s students will be tomorrow’s leaders. All political parties in India nurtured this underlying prevailing political environment of Indian colleges and universities. The best supporting fact to this is the prevalence of student wing of many political parties in Indian colleges and universities. Such structure has not come into being overnight as this all grew slowly but steadily in India. At present time, it has reached to such a level that now it seems inseparable from college and university life. Politicisation of educational institutes is visible in modern India which aims to be among developed nations of the world. Encouragement of political activities in college and universities in India was not much controversial as all parties had their share in such system. But somewhere result of this politicisation of educational institutes, reached a new shape when President of Jawaharlal Nehru Students Union was arrested over certain controversy raised by him at Jawaharlal Nehru University. The debate over this arrest in Jawaharlal Nehru University issue is unending, as for some those group of students were nationals who spoke their mind, while for others they were anti national who raised voice against their own country and as per few this whole matter gave birth to a new future leader from Bihar. Another incident also reflected the politicisation of educational institutes in country was when a Dalit student from University of Hyderabad committed suicide. This suicide made the political players once again jump into turf to fight the student cause but as per their political ideology. For some he was just a student, for others he was a Dalit student and for remaining he was a soul who succumbed to social pressure. Every eye saw his death in its own way and in a way forgot his real reason for committing suicide
In recent days, we witnessed that from north to south, India was on fire over student issues. Incidentally, these issues went on fire with the high interest contributed by all political parties into it. There was already boiling discontent within Indian student community over above said matters and another student related controversy erupted at NIT Srinagar. This issue again from being a student issue became an issue of nationals versus anti nationals. Surprisingly, NIT Srinagar issue once again has symbolised how our students get influenced by the political system of the country. This controversy showed its impact all over J and K state. The civil society in Jammu is again over its toes to lend support to non-local students in Srinagar. Matter slowly has turned in Jammu versus Kashmir as PDP-BJP Government are not able to settle the emotions of their voters. We can see that even after many days NIT Srinagar controversy is still not over in J and K. Every other day students in Jammu are protesting over NIT Srinagar incident. Out of all these issues, what we need to think is that, should hands of students be used to set social system on fire in country? Do we always need fire to fight fire? Such practices if continued will give birth to new social set up in the country which will be contrary to the secular and pluralistic ethos of India.
