A campus discoloured

Concerns arise over alleged bias and attempts to create discord at NIT-C after student protests and suspensions.

An uneasy calm prevails at the National Institute of Technology, Calicut, (NIT-C), on the morning of February 5. Yellow college buses and a few private vehicles enter the campus at Chathamangalam, around 20 km from Kozhikode city in Kerala, as classes resume after a three-day gap. Students with backpacks slung over their shoulders are walking in. To the left of the main gate are two police barricades, a reminder of the storm of students’ protests that rocked the campus four days ago, leading to the three-day closure from February 2.

The protests had erupted as a response to the suspension of Vysakh Premkumar, a final-year-student of Electronics and Communication Engineering. The sequence of events that led to the students’ unrest and what followed have raised concerns about the institute administration’s alleged bias and the attempts to create a discord between students and among faculty members in one of the premier institutes of higher education in the country.

The origin of the current stalemate, according to the students, was an event titled ‘Geeta Gyan’ organised at Bhaskara Hall by the Science and Spirituality Club attached to the Centre of Indian Knowledge Systems on January 21, on the eve of the Ram Temple consecration at Ayodhya. Social media images and videos show key people from the administration attending it, apart from a section of the students.

“To our knowledge, such an event with explicit religious colours and political intentions was being held here for the first time on the campus,” says a student on condition of anonymity.

The mission of the club, according to its LinkedIn profile, is to “help students explore their spiritual side while maintaining a scientific approach towards life” and teach students to use spiritual practices, such as meditation, to tackle stress. The steps taken so far by the club to achieve this include a performance of the Ramleela to familiarise students with “our culture”, the profile says.

The Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems, which runs the club, was set up on the campus a few years ago in line with the National Education Policy 2020 to “promote education, training and research in traditional Indian knowledge systems” such as “science, mathematics, economics, astronomy and astrology”.

Pictures and videos of the event were shared by the participants on Instagram the same day. They included a road-drawing just outside the campus hall of a saffron-coloured map of India with a bow and arrow within its boundaries. There were earthen lamps placed on its borders. The students were also seen raising ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans.