When children enrol in college, parents hope that their kids turn into an independent and self-sustaining individuals. When I had commenced my college life in NITC (NIT, Calicut), it was very exciting. I was told that college life is the best! This is the time when I could finally start taking important life decisions.
However, as time went by, I observed that college was the exact opposite. It was nothing but an extended nightmare where you are busy being part of the oppressed crowd, and where independence looked like a far-fetched concept.
The monotonous counsel that was given to me when I was a fresher is, ‘Don’t have a beef with the authorities’.
The power imbalance that exists between the authorities (the administration and its faculty) and the students in Indian colleges is appalling. The ability to voice against the authorities when they fail to represent the student community has almost irrevocably fallen into an abyss. The student is pressured to accept the system as it is, as authorities threaten to obliterate the academic aspect of a student’s life by unjustly lowering their grades or refusing to offer help. This results in the student being helpless, and in some cases, this aggravates to more severe mental effects such as depression.
The feeling of helplessness is especially amplified for girls, owing to the effect of bigoted stereotypes that still thrive in many Indian minds.
It wasn’t long ago when one of my professors frowned upon two girls just because they were sitting on the back bench. He explicitly stated with repugnance that ‘they were radiating energy to the boys’.
He also made a derogatory remark on one of the girls’ attire (despite her wearing a churidar), and eventually pushed another one to tears by making disgusting comments on her friendly interaction with boys. It’s sad to see the mentality of our professors in a nationally deemed university.
On the same day, this professor also struck a boy on his head for sleeping. Why are such violent measures needed? Adding to the atrocity, I must mention that this professor was a ‘faculty advisor’ – meaning he was specially chosen by the administration to look after the student. Hiring such irrational beings to the rank of faculty advisor corrodes the social fabric that ties the student and the faculty. It paves way for the destruction of trust that the students have in the system. If the very person who should be guiding the student is engaging in such violent and disgusting acts, where will the student go for assistance?
I still remember the warnings I received from a professor merely for keeping my hand over a friend’s shoulder.
He exclaimed that ‘the campus wasn’t a lover’s club’ and ‘romance is not allowed’, and browbeat me into handing over my ID card so that he could report to the authorities.
How can a simple friendly act of having your hand around someone induce such disgusting and perverse thoughts? This made me question the very character of the professor.
When I put forth the issue of the power imbalance to my parents, their impulsive response was to belittle the issue and advised me to ‘get through college and play it safe’. Many of my peers are indoctrinated to do the same. Though I understand that our parents want our college life to move smoothly, what we have to realise is that at the cost of playing safe we are violating our own fundamental rights and are subjecting ourselves to oppression.
If this issue is left in solitary and the power gap is allowed to enlarge at fate's will, the student's voice will be absolutely shunned. An effective democratic system should be present in colleges. Local newspapers should be set up to let the oppressed voice out. The journalistic medium allows us to hold the authorities responsible when the students are being misrepresented.
The students are thought of as a bunch of ants in the eyes of many. What these minds fail to realise is this major fact: An army of united ants can overthrow a bunch of deluded rats. We as the student community can choose to stand up for ourselves or choose to cower, the choice is in our hands.
(Manickam Valliappan is a second year B Tech student pursuing Electronics and Communications in NIT, Calicut, Kerala. He studied in Kuwait for eight years and finished his high school (CBSE 9th-10th and Cambridge A-levels (11th and 12th equivalent)) in Malaysia. He’s an an avid writer. You can read his blogs here.)
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