Politics and Students

Our politicians have been seizing every opportunity to incite students to plunge headlong into political agitations. Many students have ruined their careers by falling prey to the guiles of self-seeking politicians. That is one aspect of the so-called student unrest. Other students who belatedly realise their mistakes make up for the leeway through additional study, and employ the knowledge thus gained for the socio-economic reconstruction of the country.

But before one brushes aside the frightful tangles of students, politics and indiscipline, one must not forget the factors that goad students to pick up stones and brickbats. Mere condemnation of youth for violence and unrest will not solve the problem.Ignorance, provocation by extremist forces and lack of proper parental control are not at all the causes of the world-wide actions of youth. It is a manifestation of the latent enthusiasm in students and the youth to take the socialist path.

It is the age of socialism, with the students making up its task force. With unemployment growing by the day, a young man is uncertain about his prospects. He is worried whether he will have his three squares in the future. So it is natural for the youth to work towards a socialistic pattern of the society, which will ensure a life without worry.

The Socialist Revolution made Nehru think of a socialistic pattern of society in India. Life in a socialist country is engulfed in love in spite of its castes, creeds and sects. There is nothing wrong in working strenuously for a set-up built on educational jurisprudence, which does not leave its youth in a state of mental agony and physical decay in neutral India, in which the rulers and leaders eat away thousands of crores of public money.

But instead politics and unrest have become the systole and diastole of the present student community. No amount of clucking and cackling by those who preach discipline, without practicing it, will restrain youth from violence and participation in politics. Unless the inevitable hour of change in the governmental set-up arrives, the innate unrest in students will not die down. What cannot be proved in practice cannot be sound in theory.

To recall the 16th century German religious reformer Martin Luther: “The defects of a preacher are soon spied. Let him be endued with ten virtues, and have but one fault, and that one fault will eclipse and darken all his virtues and gifts, so evil is the world in these times.”

By:Y V Ramakotaiah