Listen to Osmania University Students
Farzeen Faisal
Universities should ideally harbour healthy spaces for (un)learning, dialogue and dissent. This makes room for student movements and protests, as has history witnessed, that reminds the world of the power the politicized student body holds and of the constitutional rights students have. However, constant efforts by the Sangh administrations to thwart the students’ right to dissent has become an everyday-occurance now. From central universities to state universities, campus spaces witness an explicit dwindling of rights to dissent and demonstrate, as Osmania University (Telangana) faced recently.
On 13th March this year, the OU administration released a circular prohibiting student’s mobility to other campus spaces, conducting demonstrations and dharnas, protests, sloganeering, etc., stating that these give out “wrong perception of the University to the society.” This autocratic step being a clear violation of the fundamental rights the students have to peacefully dissent and express, SFI OU unit undertook the protest campaign to resist this move. Asserting the constitutionally granted students’ rights, SFI gathered other Left and Dalit organizations, organized a Dharna the very next day itself. A series of protests like seminars, department-wise campaigns followed throughout the month, unhindered by the admin’s constant efforts to intervene and disrupt. Two months down the lane, despite the circular not being officially withdrawn, it is not really in effect as the repressive system is taken aback by the power of organized student movements and the reiteration of students’ rights. Curbing protests made way for a massive protest led by SFI to take place and the student liberty is more or less retained.
When politicized student body voices against the unjust fee hikes, infrastructural neglect and administrative incompetencies, the systemic powers often tend to silence them rather than attempting to address and resolve them. SFI OU’s struggles in mobilizing and leading the student mass against the criminalization of legitimate expression of dissent is another example of how SFI, nationwide, is constantly organizing movements and awareness that retains the power back to students from the repressive systems.