Anxiety has started gripping the students of the private Kerala law Academy law College at Thiruvananthapuram who have been agitating for almost the past one month demanding mainly the resignation of principal lekshmi Nair with the management remaining unprepared for any compromise and the State Government and the Kerala University under which the college comes showing no willingness to take action against the Academy.
The students, whose agitation completed 27 days on Monday, have also started to feel that it was perhaps a big mistake on their part to take the support of political parties like the Congress which also have joined the stir at the college gates transforming a problem of academic administration limited to the college into one of the biggest political issues of the State.
The agitating students are also worried that their complaints, particularly over how lekshmi Nair used to victimize them have been overshadowed by the issues associated with conduct of the college and the misuse by the management of the 11.49 acres of land the government had allotted to it half a century back for academic purposes.
Apart from independent students, students’ unions ABVP, AISF, KSU and MSF are actively on the agitation front in the college while the main political parties protesting there are the Congress and the BJP. The BJP is staging a hunger strike at the college gates for the past 13 days and the protest fast by K Muraleedharan MlA of the Congress entered the fifth day on Monday.
The management has stated that lekshmi Nair will not resign and that she has already been removed as principal as part of a settlement reached at with pro-CPI(M) students’ outfit SFI on January 31 following which it withdrew from the stir. Terming the SFI act as betrayal of students, the other students’ unions decided to continue the agitation till the principal resigned.
“While accepting the support of the parties, we had hoped it to help us in putting pressure on the management, university and the Government. But now it seems this “political alliance” is not working out the way we had expected. To be sincere, I have no idea as to how this is going to end,” said an llB student leading the independent agitation.
The student also said that she did not want to even think of the possibility that the agitation could fail. “If that happens, that will be the end of life for us. If this stir fails to weaken lekshmi Nair’s influence, she is sure to take revenge on us. She will ensure that we don’t reach anywhere in our law studies,” she added.
Several leaders of the parties that are accusing the CPI(M) and SFI of protecting lekshmi Nair and the college management also are having second thoughts about their decision to join the stir. “I think what our fasting leader Muraleedharan has done is to walk into a trap set by some other party. How are we going to get out it is crucial,” said a Congress leader.
Meanwhile, the Kerala University Syndicate which held an emergency meeting on Monday – amidst intense protests by various students’ organizations – to discuss a report of its sub-committee that had examined the law Academy issue decided not to scrap the Academy’s affiliation as students and several political parties had demanded.
While eight Syndicate members including those of the Congress-led UDF and CPI demanded cancellation of the Academy’s affiliation in such a way that it did not affect the students, 12 members including CPI(M) representatives opposed it. The Syndicate rejected the resolution that called for cancellation of affiliation was rejected through voting.