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by Ranga Jayasuriya

Twenty three-year-old Ovitagala Vitanage Samantha would not receive that hallowed place dedicated to Weerasuriya or Padmasiri Trimavithana in the history of local student politics. He may not be commemorated in the remembrance ceremonies for "student heroes", nor would he be mentioned with admiration when the activists of the Inter University Students Federation (IUSF) address the freshers to entice them into their brand of politics.

He will be another Varaprakash, whose memory was soon forgotten for the comfort of student activists. Because both Samantha and Varaprakash were not killed by State terror, both were victims of their contemporaries.

Samantha's attackers dragged his unconscious body from the ambulance to beat him repeatedly with bed poles studded with nails. JVP activists in universities seem to have learned from the alleged murderers of their seniors. Thrimavithana, it was said, was tortured with nails driven into his skull before he was slaughtered in 1988 in Ratnapura.

Had the activists of the Inter University Students Federation stood by the principles they claimed to be followers, of the murder of Samantha would have been averted and so would have the recent clashes between rival student groups at the Universities of Colombo and Kelaniya.

Friday's murder of the Management Undergraduate is not the first such reported from universities here.

Samantha paid with his life since he fought against ragging. And Peradeniya University underguate Varaprakash died in 1997 when he submitted himself to the raggers. Varaprakash's death forced the authorities to enact new anti-ragging rules. It is however open to question to what extent these regulations are operational. If the relevant authorities were serious enough to counter the prevailing totalitarianism in students politics, of which ragging is an integral part, Samantha would not have been a victim, nor the Kelaniya University Science student who lost an eye when the members of the JVP affiliated "Maha Shishya Sangamaya" attacked him in 1998.

The tragedy is that thuggery has been approved as a means of maintaining political dominance in student politics and dissent is crushed at the beginning. Daya Pathirana, former leader of the Colombo University Independent Students' Union, was killed in 1987 when he formed an alternative to the JVP-affiliated Socialist Students Union. Samantha, it is said, was the leader of a group of students opposing ragging in a university where the pro-JVP Progressive Front had been the dominant student group since JVPs re-emergence in student politics in the early 80s.

For the JVP, universities remain a fertile ground for new recruits. And most JVP MPs cut their teeth in politics as activists of the IUSF, whose conveners since its formation in the mid eighties proceeded to takes rank in the JVP. It is therefore clear that the JVP would not risk its privileged position at universities. And as long as the strange "affirmative action" called district quota system - which decides university entrance not on a merit basis, but on geographic location - remains intact, the party would find enough supporters in universities.

One will not, at least to some extent, be vulnerable to propaganda if one's analytical enough to see their contradictions, if not one can be easily brain washed.

The bitter truth about the district quota system is that a large number of competent youth have been denied university entrance, while the lesser qualified have been accepted in the politically motivated system. What is equally disappointing is that communities, such as Tamils of Indian origin, who truly deserve affirmative action to address the centuries of marginalisation have been left out. So despite the expectations of the founders of the local university system for a liberal academic tradition and an atmosphere for free discussion, a strange type of totalitarianism is sweeping the universities here.

The pro-JVP student factions emerge as the sole representative of student politics through a vacuum; a vacuum not because there are no alternatives, but because dissent is crushed at its beginning. It is because of this phenomenon that Daya Pathirana, Varaprakash and Samantha paid with their lives.

Recent events at Ruhuna University where the administration was compelled to withdraw punishment - following student protests - against the alleged attackers of a group of female nurses attending lectures, indicates the vulnerability of the university administration before a politically-organised students union. The idea seems to be that if you can prevent the rest from attending lectures, and if you can tap the heart of good-hearted but ignorant mediamen for publicity for your cause, you can win any battle against the administration. This will not be the last incident, unless relevant action is taken. Legal action against those responsible for violence is not enough; what is indeed of paramount importance is a collective effort by students to fill the vacuum for liberal thinking and tolerance through a moderate students union. Obviously it is universities which have the true potential to be the promoters of liberal thinking in this country, confined in its own inhibitions, but sadly they are plagued by totalitarianism.

So all should get together to set the university system on its founders' expectations of a liberal academic tradition.

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