Student politics bloodied by absence of reason and courage

There was a joke that did the rounds at Peradeniya University in the mid 1980s. Whenever we met someone from the University of Colombo, we would say, umbalage ithin thiyenne shishya satan ne’. ‘Shishya satan in common parlance referred to student activism or agitation. The play was on the word satan, plural of satana, which can be taken to mean ‘struggle’ as well as ‘fight’ or ‘clash’. It was the latter meaning that was stressed at the time.

Colombo University, back then, was where the JVP-led Inter University Student Federation could never achieve complete control. This was largely thanks to the Independent Students Union (ISU) led by Daya Pathirana.

There were frequent clashes between the two factions. Usually it was because the JVP just didn’t have the intellectual resources to challenge the ISU. Daya Pathirana was murdered in December 1986 and there’s no doubt as to who was responsible.

That led to further clashes and pro-JVP student activists had to keep mum, until around the end of 1988 by which time the ISU itself had compromised its claimed ‘independence’ by aligning itself with the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party and later the United Socialist Alliance. Some of the activists ended up in vigilante groups and some were murdered by the so-called deshapremis of the time.

After the universities opened post-bheeshanaya there was a lull in shishya satan. Campus politics was dominated by those affiliated with the Chinthana Parshadaya. The JVP and the ISU were both subdued for a few years. Not for too long, though. The JVP re-emerged as a more democratic avatar, at least at the national level. Within the university system, it was the same old JVP. Stuck in slogans, poor in theory and heavily dependent on the effective political tool called bahu balaya. So there were shishya satan in Colombo.

There were shishya satan in Kelaniya where anti-JVP elements took control of the Science Faculty Students Union. And there were shishya satan in Ruhuna and Sri Jayawardenapura. There was a shishya satana even on Tuesday, November 11 as well at J’Pura campus. Over the years these shishya satan have resulted in many students being hospitalised and several being killed.

I find it difficult to understand that student activists don’t realise the damage they do to whatever ‘cause’ they happen to be espousing at the moment by fighting like this. It is disgusting and is so reminiscent of the manapa poraya that politicians engage in during election time.

It is in fact as damaging as destroying public property when they choose to demonstrate outside some public institution. The right to protest something does not include a right to vandalize. This they fail to recognize.

They also fail to understand that when they bash up another student’s face, they simultaneously do massive damage to their public image.

Students may wonder why they rarely find public support for their cause. They may put it down to apathy. The truth is that the ordinary citizen has little time to waste listening to a common thug’s grievances.

Can it be stopped though? The authorities have tried, we all know that. The particular university is shut down. Students get suspended or even sacked. A few months pass. Tempers cool down. There is a re-opening. There is normalcy. And after a while there’s another clash, more students get injured and the university is shut down again. When will they ever learn, one can’t help wondering.

Students who are not interested in politics are helpless for the most part.

They are not organized because they are not interested in forming clubs, but are focused on doing what they came to do. So they can’t match the organized thuggery that passes for ‘student activism’. As for the satankaamis or ‘warriors’, they do not seem to understand that their brand of shishya satan amounts to a demand for two things and a demand that is gaining momentum with every act of thuggery and vandalism: a) establishing permanent police stations within each university, b) abolishing or severely curtailing free education. Neither would be popular of course, but if things go on like this, it will not be an ‘option’ but an ‘imperative’. A must-do thing because nothing else has worked.

This side of such ‘solutions’, the only way out is for student activists themselves to redefine the parameters of their studentship and the modalities of their activism. There is a story which demonstrates what is possible. It was related by Anagarika G.I.D. Dharmasekara. He was speaking at an event felicitating Dr. P.A. Kiriwandeniya, the leader of the SANASA movement. The following is a rough translation. “This happened in the early 1960s. Some students of Vidyodaya (now Sri Jayawardenapura) Campus had come to Vidyalankara for a volleyball match. Naturally there was some good humoured taunting. Some of the visitors were upset and the verbal exchange heated up into something ugly. There was a pile of stones nearby. Soon there were missiles being thrown in both directions.

Then I noticed a boy from Vidyalankara who had turned his back to us and was pleading with his friends to stop it. I realised that if anything thrown in that direction hit this boy, things would get completely out of control. I then turned back and pleaded with our boys to stop it. And it ended. That boy is the man we are felicitating today, Dr. P.A. Kiriwandeniya, to me a bodisatva figure.”

There are times when all it takes is for the voice of reason to combine with extraordinary courage. Today, in our universities, we don’t have reason. We have rhetoric. We don’t have courage; we have students exercising the bahu balaya option at the drop of a hat.

We don’t have a healthy exchange of ideas; we have the exchanging of blows. We don’t have democracy; we have anarchy. And the student movement, not surprisingly, does not move forward, but is steady marching backwards.

If things continue this way, one day the general public will storm the universities (this has already happened in J’Pura and Kelaniya). They will be screaming in unison: Shishya satan apata epa! And that will be that. [email protected].