Lucknow University denying admission to protesters: Why there is more to this than meets the eye
If we see the whole picture, a few pieces are amiss.
Blaming the authorities of the University of Lucknow for barring admission of over 20 students for showing black flags to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath a year ago can be an example of oversimplification of a complex situation.
For the last one year, the university has been in the news for all the wrong reasons and the situation now calls for a more responsible approach from all stakeholders — the university authorities, students — and also the state police.
Organising political events at the expense of students, abruptly hiking students’ fees can’t be the solution, as creating ruckus and vitiating the academic environment can’t be a way out of the cesspool. Similarly, treating students as criminals won’t ease the situation either.
The recent unrest dates back to last year, June 7, when UP CM Yogi Adityanath came to the university campus to attend a programme on Chhatrapati Shivaji. Leaders of the Samajwadi Party Chhatra Sabha and some Left-backed student unions blocked the route and waved black flags. According to reports, 14 students were arrested. Out of them, 11, including two girls, were sent to judicial custody for “severe” security breaching.
The university too took some measures and expelled eight students.
According to a report, those eight students include Satwant Singh, Nitin Raj, Pooja Shukla, Anil Kumar Yadav, Ankit Kumar Singh, Rakesh Kumar, Madhurya Singh and Apoorva Verma. Their expulsion was revoked after they signed an undertaking that they will not take admission to LU after completing their graduation.
The narrative takes an interesting turn here as SP student leader Pooja Shukla is one among those students barred for admission this year. Various news reports have quoted her saying that she was not a student of the university when she had staged the black flag protest. Hence, the undertaking was not applicable to her. But it’s not clear whether she is mistaken or may even be trying to misguide others. As an undergraduate, she was not a direct student of the university, but her degree was affiliated to the university.
Early July, Pooja started a hunger strike on the university campus as part of the ongoing protests against the decision of the university authorities to withhold the results of a few selective candidates.
This protest, too, turned violent and the university had to shut down the campus for a few days.
In an apparently unrelated development, the same Pooja was detained during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Lucknow visit, in an act of “preventive detention”. According to her account, she was manhandled by the police.
If we see the whole picture, a few pieces are clearly amiss.
Why did the university allow these students to take admission tests?
According to the university authorities, the students denied admissions include all those found guilty of various irregularities, including waving black flags at Adityanath.
As punishment for that severe security breach — serious charges were slapped against them — they were suspended and asked to give an undertaking that they will not take admission in the future under the university.
But it’s surprising that a year later, the university allowed these students to sit for entrance examinations and then withheld the results.
Why is there a probe against the ex-VC?
According to reports, the university authorities initiated a probe into the alleged role of former Vice-Chancellor Roop Rekha Verma in the recent violence that took place on campus as she sympathised with this protests of the students. “When I learnt that students with good academic records are being denied admission, I went and supported their protest. I sat with them at their dharna. But that was two days before the violence took place. And in no way did I or anyone else at the protest encourage violence,” she said to The Wire.
Why did the university have to shut down for students’ protests?
If a university has to close down for students’ protests, the joke is on the university, as protests are very much a part of students’ unions and university life. Also, Lucknow University is not the first university to witness student unrests.
It is a mystery why the university authorities and the UP Police are failing to maintain the overall atmosphere of the university which includes questioning outside the classrooms as well. In fact, the same thing seemed to happen recently to protesters in Allahabad University who were waving black flags at Amit Shah.
Banning protests on campus won’t be a solution now. The university has to dissociate itself from the political quagmire it has become part of to restore academic equilibrium.