The recent discourse surrounding the Kerala High Court’s stance on campus politics (the court favoured a “congenial atmosphere” free from “political influence”) touches a raw nerve in the Indian educational landscape. It presents us with a false dichotomy: we are told we must choose either the sterile, apolitical silence of a ‘purely academic’ institution or the chaotic, often violent mirror of state-level partisan warfare.
This choice is not only reductive; it is dangerous for the future of Indian democracy. To suggest that universities should be sanitised of political activism is to ignore their fundamental role as a laboratory for citizenship. However, the critics of campus politics are not entirely wrong; the infiltration of mainstream political parties into student life has often replaced intellectual debate with muscle power. The way forward lies not in banning politics, but in decoupling student activism from external party machinery.
A university is more than a degree factory; it is the first space where a young person interacts with the state and society as an independent adult. If we treat students as passive recipients of knowledge until the day they graduate, we cannot expect them to suddenly emerge as informed, critical and engaged citizens.
Both my sons were outstanding students at Yale University, but one of them, Ishaan, won a special award when he graduated for being “the senior who did the most to rouse the conscience of the college”. He had founded a ‘progressive’ student magazine, and had also led an agitation to get better wages and employment conditions for the dining-hall workers. That experience taught him more about democracy than a dozen academic seminars might have.
Political discussion, engagement and activism are essential pedagogical tools. They teach students how to negotiate differences, how to organise for a cause, and how to hold authority accountable. When a student group protests a fee hike or debates a national policy, they are practising the very mechanics of a healthy democracy. By barring these activities, we are effectively telling the next generation that ‘politics’ is a dirty business best left to professionals, rather than a civic duty shared by all.
The real rot in Indian campus life is not the presence of politics, but the presence of party-political proxies. Organisations like the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and Students’ Federation of India (SFI) are the youth wings of national or regional parties rather than organic campus movements. This dependency creates several systemic issues. The worst is external interference: when a student election is funded and directed by a national party, the issues debated are rarely about the campus library or hostel conditions. Instead, they become microcosms of national polarisations.
In Kerala, mainstream political rivalry often brings with it a culture of intimidation. The tension and lawlessness mentioned in various court rulings often stem from the fact that student leaders see themselves as foot soldiers for external bosses rather than representatives of their peers. Party discipline also inevitably discourages independent thought. Students are pressured to adopt the ‘party line’ on every issue, which is the antithesis of the critical thinking a university is supposed to foster. The stifling of nuance is contrary to the pedagogical ethos that should animate a university.
If we accept that political engagement is necessary but party-political interference is toxic, we must look for a middle path. The goal should be to foster autonomous student governance. We should move toward a model where student unions are strictly independent of registered political parties. This is not a radical idea. I was elected president of the St Stephen’s College student union in 1974 in an election blissfully free of organised political parties. Many of the world’s leading universities operate under ‘independent student unions’ where candidates run on individual platforms or campus-specific coalitions.
To be sure, any argument for keeping national parties off campus must acknowledge the real advantages they offer. For many first‑generation or rural students, organisations like the NSUI, ABVP or SFI provide the cash, mentorship and networks that make political participation possible. Their national reach also gives student unions leverage when confronting an unresponsive university administration or state government. And exposure to national‑level mobilisation and party discipline is part of learning how real‑world politics works.
Yet, none of this requires the formal presence of external party organisations inside the university. Funding, training and mentorship can be institutionalised through need‑based student development programmes; student unions can be empowered through statutory protections rather than partisan patronage and the skills of negotiation, consensus‑building, and disciplined collective action can be cultivated within autonomous campus bodies. In other words, the benefits that national parties currently provide can be secured through healthier, more transparent mechanisms—without turning universities into extensions of national political battlegrounds.
To bridge the gap between academic discipline and democratic vigour, we need a three-pronged reform. The first element is financial and organisational decoupling. Strict regulations should be placed on election spending with a mandate that all funds must be raised internally or provided by the university. Any evidence of funding from a registered political party should lead to immediate disqualification.
Second, university administrations and student bodies should work together to ensure that union charters focus on campus-specific governance—academic quality, student welfare and local social justice. By shifting focus to the immediate community, the incentive for external parties to intervene diminishes. And third, rather than shutting down political debate, universities should institutionalise it. Instead of chaotic rallies, campuses should host structured debates, town halls and ‘civic forums’. These should be spaces where students can debate national issues—yes, even controversial ones—without the fear of being branded by a party label or facing physical retribution.
The Kerala High Court and the Lyngdoh Committee are right to be concerned about the academic atmosphere prevailing above the political. But their solution—leaving everything to the discretion of educational institutions—can lead to a paternalistic environment where any dissent is labelled ‘indiscipline’. The judiciary should not aim to silence the campus; it should aim to protect the campus from the street. The doctrine should be one of institutional neutrality: The institution itself remains neutral, but it provides a protected, safe space for its students to be un-neutral, to be passionate and to be political.
The purpose of a university is, at bottom, tutelary. But learning to be a citizen is just as important as learning to be an engineer or a historian. If we ban political activism, we create a generation of apathetic technocrats. If we allow party politics to run rampant, we create a generation of polarised partisans. By choosing a path of independent student activism, we can create a generation of thinkers who understand that while they may or may not belong to a party, they certainly belong to a democracy. Let the campus be a place where ideas go to battle, so that the students don't have to.
Shashi Tharoor | Lok Sabha MP, Chair of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and Sahitya Akademi-winning author
(Views are personal)
(office@tharoor.in)