I have grown up watching Bollywood movies, many on student politics and enmity. It is very unsettling nowadays to see those movies turn into real life, for every time any news related to violence amongst young students is aired, all that I wonder about is the evolving nature of violence in academic spaces.
Historically, academic spaces have served as a platform of revolution for it is through academia, brainstorming and debate that one learns and associates with a cause. Movements like Pinjra Tod, the Assam Movement, the JNU protests in 2016, and more, are few of many more remarkable movements, which are significant examples of solidarity.
In the course of acknowledging such movements, the news of students’ conflicts in universities and colleges comes with a lot of disturbance. It is very common to hear of cases of deadly violence on campuses now, which have even led to deaths of a lot of students. And every time I hear of another such incident, I am left in deep despair as I try to think of a dead student, a student whose parents never knew that sending their child to study would become costlier than keeping them at home.
Recently, April 2 added a sad page to the history of Banaras Hindu University, when an MCA student, Gaurav Singh, was shot dead outside the Birla-A hostel campus, near the university, when he was busy talking to some of his friends. This incident was reported as a case of internal gang enmity for which 4 people were arrested. Gaurav died struggling for his life at the hospital. He had got suspended last year for being involved in another incident of violence that had taken place in the university in 2017.
This course of events in this case is a straight-forward narration of a much more complicated issue which the incident embodies. In a conversation with a student, who requested anonymity, who is currently studying in BHU, about the present situation on campus, post the incident, Campus Watch was told of an existing fear on the campus.
Additionally, the suspicion of the chief proctor being involved in the murder raises a much larger question: how far are the students safe in the university, and whom are they to rely upon in cases of dispute and emergency?
The question raised needs in-depth thought, as the student also stated that the university has a consistent environment of conflict, not only amongst the students, but even within the faculty and administrative members.
The above described are the details of just one recent case. India cannot ever forget the painful conflict which Najeeb Ahmed, a first year MSc student at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University faced in 2016. Since that inauspicious day, Najeeb is unheard of and like many other cases, the case has been declared shut. His case might have ended in a mystery but it had emerged as a tussle with some ABVP members, and the rest is left to our guesses.
Yet another case of gang conflict from 2016 which took place in Aligarh Muslim University led to the death of two students and a disruption in the university campus. In another incident, the tension which emerged in Ramjas College in 2017 was nothing but shamefully planned violence by the members of ABVP which involved stone-pelting and harassment.
Similarly, 2018 marked a sad incident at Sharda University, when a Kashmiri student was allegedly beaten up by a group of students leading to severe injuries. Shockingly, over 350 students were booked by the police engaged in the offence. Apart from the university spaces, the death of a student at Ryan International School, in which a class 11 student was reported as the accused, is another case which evoked serious disturbance. And if one looks deep enough, many more such cases can be added to the list, both reported and unreported.
Although reading reports of such cases is an unsettling task, it is important to understand the philosophy, psychology and the mechanism of such happenings, which speaks out loud about the nature of persisting ideologies of violence in our country’s academic spaces. In this light, the number of cases do not matter, for if even one such case occurs, the incident and especially the accused must be investigated beyond legalities. The emotions of anger and rage are undeniably natural, but it is our childhood personality development which accounts for responsible ways of dealing with it.
The perpetrators booked in such cases would be turning into individuals who are supposed to be responsible citizens, with basic ethics. A compilation of these cases doesn’t serve any purpose until and unless it is derived from the disturbing gravity of the way humans have started dealing with situations.
The entire society comes under the domain of questioning, to understand the larger question: to what extent have we normalized violence? The incidents cited above, and many like them gauge this extent, but our educational set-ups have to set their feet beyond literacy, where the children are to be taught how to deal with emotions of rage, anger and conflict. The same needs to be inculcated in the development that a student undergoes in their house.
Though childhood development needs attention, but equal accountability is to be held in the contemporary nature of conduciveness of our society. Violence knowingly is not limited to academic spaces, dealing with the issue needs larger contemplative intervention, when the dialogues are to be held beyond revenge.
Concluding this article, I have strong hopes that such things do not repeat anywhere. But, keeping this utopian idea of society aside, I have a strong recommendation to our society. It is extremely important for all of us to reflect upon and distort the idea of violence. Such an establishment won’t come altogether, it will take a lot of time. Having said that, it is important at least to begin.