KARACHI: After three weeks of clashes between rival student groups, an uneasy calm prevails at the University of Karachi and its affiliated colleges. However, skirmishes continue off the institute’s grounds and within the colleges and universities, the tension at times being tangible enough to be cut through with a knife.
The latent tension and the volatile enmity between rival student wings of the two warring political parties does not at all portend well for the coming exam days of the graduating students.
The skirmishes in the past weeks have followed the death of a young student belonging to the Islami Jamiat Talaba, who was shot dead in the Government Commerce College in broad daylight. While the IJT blamed the All Pakistan Mohajir/Muttahida Students Organization for the crime, the allegations have been denied by the APMSO. The culprits haven’t been arrested and neither have any serious remedial measures been taken to address the critical issue of violence in educational institutions.
Worse still, there is silence on the issue and its grave implications have been ignored by the secretary, as well as, the minister for education in Sindh. As for the governor and the city nazim, they are too busy, collecting accolades for digging up the city and other grandiose plans, to look into the affair beyond perfunctory statements of banning party activities in colleges and universities.
Following the Commerce College shooting that claimed the life of a BCom student, protests were launched by the IJT students simultaneously in different colleges. And, while the killing was still a fresh wound for his friends, instead of some atonement by officials and henchmen of the education and law and order departments, yet another ignominy was committed in continuation of the initial crime. The demonstrating students were ‘hauled up’ by the police while returning from a protest march and were baton-charged.
The following morning, a picture of the 18/19-year-old student in college uniform, being beaten up, was splashed across the newspapers in the city. But for the civil society, it was just another episode of the hooliganism drama; something which just ‘happens’ in our educational institutions.
And so we, the society, half-interestedly, watched this lethal game of student politics like spectators on the sidelines. Those who were following the events perhaps waited for the next morning’s papers for a follow-up, whereas most others didn’t even notice the news items involving students and turned over to the business news. This is the extent of our social responsibility towards our youth and in turn towards our future.
There is a callousness and irresponsibility at every level of the education sector as well as society, which is downright scary. But then again, it is perhaps the trickle-down effect of habitually accepting bad governance. How else can one explain the apathetic reactions of all the literates, who saw the picture of the student being bashed up by two police thugs inside a police mobile?
No NGO came up with a protest at the mishandling of the juvenile offenders nor was there an inquiry ordered into the whole issue, which began with the death of a student – an act carried out brazenly with no legal consequence affecting the culprits. And since then, the warring student parties have continued an offensive course with the latest casualty being the roughing up of APMSO students.
Student wings in universities and colleges and their violent actions have been an extension of the political power play of the main parties at the national and provincial levels for a long time now. The rot is now so deeply set that killing has become a game of death, a martyrdom to be embraced.
The Rangers outside many campuses are a permanent fixture but even that does not deter the miscreants. Is this the mandate of our political leaders? To totally ruin the younger generation’s future in academics and to simply use them as pawns in their personal bids for power?
Our President and Prime Minister float high-flown plans for higher education and the need for technical education, and allot millions from the tax payers’ funds for the purpose. But at the basic level, there are thousands of students whose attendance in colleges and universities is for the sake of maintaining a political stranglehold.
What kind of leaders are these people who want their followers to excel at the art of violence and compromise their future? And what kinds of parents turn a blind eye to their children’s actions, unconcerned or unaware of the goings-on in their lives? And what of the vision of the educationists who are handling these children’s futures?
While political leaders will use any tool for their personal benefits, it is the other stakeholders who need to wakeup and realize that the culture of politics and violence amongst students is what will take us down as a nation. If the civil society wants an environment where they are not afraid to send their children to school and colleges, they must then realize that this culture must be curtailed even if it doesn’t directly concern them now.
Our youth comprises a brilliant set of youngsters, who have no direction – either from their parents or the educationists – who stay involved in power play and politics.
Extra-curricular activities have almost come to a standstill and literary councils are almost non-existent in government colleges.
These are the same youngsters, who rose as one at the time of the October 8 earthquake, volunteering their help in everyway, in the most trying of circumstances. Can they not be re-directed towards positive activities?
Do none of the political leaders have the capability of creating literate figures instead of bloodletting hooligans? One wonders if there will ever be answers to these questions, or else we are doomed to see our children being hanged as terrorists.
