Former Kerala State Higher Education Council vice chairperson Rajan Gurukkal has criticised Kerala University’s alleged student code which proposes to regulate political activity on campuses.
He said that the alleged attempts to restrict political activity on campus ignore the role universities play in developing politically conscious and active citizens.
In a statement, he viewed the purported attempts to “democratise an outmoded document” as ludicrous.
He asserted that higher education institutions are vital spaces where youth acquire political awareness, debate public questions and agitate. He noted that the university’s approach recalls the Sojan Francis case judgment of 2024, which effectively placed organisational political activity under prohibition.
Prof. Gurukkal stressed that university youth are not merely students, but citizens and voters living in a society governed by political decisions on education, employment, social justice, public expenditure and rights. “To expect them to leave politics at the campus gate is therefore to draw an artificial boundary between education and society,” he said.
Emphasising that universities should produce politically conscious youth bold enough to question authority and speak truth to power, the former Vice Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University maintained that political consciousness-driven debate, dissent, protest, petitions and agitations must be part of student life.
While student boycotts may disrupt academic activities to make grievances visible, he stressed they must never be synonymous with violence or criminality. It is equally important for the youth to separate politics from violence, intimidation, vandalism, and coercion, he added.
“The university’s approach becomes problematic when it tends to place political activity in the conceptual category as criminality against which there is already a body of law to deal with it. Such an approach amounts to producing apolitical and apathetic youth,” the academic stated.
Published – September 22, 2026 08:55 pm IST
