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There had been more than five university students uprising in just couple of weeks across the country though not being shown by the media. Such type of uprising are supposed to take place during Martial law regimes, but why are they taking place in a democratic regime leaves behind a lot of other questions, too.
Students everywhere are one of the most important, as well as most vulnerable sections of population. Students, especially at higher education level, are financially dependent on their parents and look toward the government for research and career needs. Besides this dependency, they are much strong as well as they observe things from modern and futuristic perspective. A single injustice or any play game with their future lays down very harmful consequences which cannot go unnoticed by students. You can control them for a specific time but not for very long time. Past military regimes in Pakistan always had been in direct confrontation with students in Pakistan but even a strong military dictator, Ayub Khan, was overthrown with the help of Students. The Bengalis students helped their politicians in grabbing their state from the wolf’s mouth. So it shows that students’ uprising can’t be stopped by using force, and that their needs should be addressed to avoid any inconvenient situation. Now the question is why students are compelled to agitate even in a democratic regime?
Answer to this question is not too much easy. We have to look it deeply to find where the problem is. For example: let’s count the events which took place in recent weeks. The International Islamic University Islamabad students started their agitation because the university administration didn’t allow them to hold a cultural event. The second day university was shut down, students were arrested and emergency like situation was there for the whole day and night. The second uprising took place in Lahore by the students of University Sargodha (Lahore Campus) in which students complained that they are deprived of their degrees for past two years. Due to this non issuance of degrees, they are unable to get their jobs in already shrinking and competitive job market. And the recent most importance uprising of students took place in Peshawar University, in which students were injured, jailed and tortured by KPK Police. They were protesting against an increase in semester fee and hostel administrative issues. As a result, they were beaten up and arrested by police.
The basic nature of these problems are different from each other in each case. Some students are demanding freedom to celebrate an event, some have degrees issue and some have fees hiking issue. However, their demands seem genuine in all above cases, whereas the concerned universities had adopted coercive measures to silence them. For instance: Peshawar University looked like battle filed. The answer to why universities react aggressively is simple. They want to stop any type of students agitations in future, and hence, universities administrations have been doing it for so many years.
If you talk about the student unions, people will look down on with disdain.
Students unions in Pakistan were banned since Gen. Zia’s regime in Pakistan. There is no coordination between university administration and students. Due to lack of this coordination, the students’ problems couldn’t reach to university administration, which in turn, results in frustration among the students which ultimately leads to students’ uprising and agitation. The lack of students unions leads to more resentment and frustration because the gap between students and University authority gets increased day by day due to no interaction, so the main cause of this resentment and retaliation is lack of students unions in our educational institutions. It’s unwise to stop students by use of force, rather we need to accommodate them by allowing them to participate and interact in university’s functions and activities.
The problem with Pakistan’s education institutions is that we defame Student Unions to the level that it becomes abuse. If you talk about the student unions, people will look down on with disdain. People need to understand that Student Unions do not mean destruction of institutions, rather they are primarily meant for positive and constructive activities. We have to look at the world what they are doing; these unions are there even in Oxford, Cambridge and in many more institutions. Jawaharlal Nehru University, the largest university of our neighboring country India, also has Student Union which is working effectively. Our parliamentarians should observe this issue very keenly and should allow Student Unions to operate. If it’s ignored, it will lead to further disruptions in academic institutions.
The writer is the student of Pakistan Studies at Government College Mansehra. He tweets as @abidhashnagar and can be reached at abidalimn121@gmail.com
well done Abid.