People's Democracy

Police Brutality In Kerala

K K Ragesh

IN Kerala, the state government wished to subvert justice with grenades, bayonets and tear gas shells. The streets were painted red with the sprinkling flesh and blood of the agitating students, courtesy the police brutality. It was an exemplification of the state initiated terror. But students remained robust in their determination and kept on marching forward to expose and protest the subversion of justice. At last, the unbending will of the students, who stood firmly in the path of struggle, confronting all the state sponsored horror, prevailed and the government had to helplessly bow down.

A section of the media, which joined hands with the government to justify the brutality on students, motivated by ascribed sectarian political motives to the agitation. For them it was “only a deliberate effort to take students to the streets to take on the government.” They even adorned the role of a mediator by echoing the government’s jingoistic suggestion to wait till the Supreme Court gives its final verdict on the Self-financing Act, saying that it would solve all the issues in the arena of professional education in Kerala once and for all. So, can the stir be proclaimed as a confrontation that is stalling the studies of lakhs of students or in favour of some thousands of professional students and hence as an agitation for agitation’s own sake, as the rhetoric of the right wing media goes?

GOVT’S MANTRA: COMMERCIALISATION

“Fifty per cent free seats in private self-financing colleges” is the “proclaimed” policy of the ruling UDF government in Kerala. Based on this policy, the government even declared that two private self-financing colleges would serve the purpose of one government college. But seeing the hidden agenda behind the private college bandwagon, the SFI and other students’ organisations on the Left had protested the government’s decision to allow professional educational institutions under private sector. The question is: At a time when the Cooperative Academy (CAPE) established by the LDF government can open any number of self-financing courses in public sector, why did the UDF government allotted the same for the private sector? It is clear that the government’s intention was not to provide more opportunities for professional education. It was just to diffuse the protest that the government always kept singing the mantra that “two self-financing colleges will serve the purpose of one government college.” 

No one can deny the fact that the private self-financing institutions are established with an agreement to provide 50 per cent free seats, where fee to be collected would be equivalent to that charged by a government college for the same course.  In the year 2002, the self-financing managements, armed with the Supreme Court verdict in the Pai case, blatantly violated the agreement and started collecting exorbitant fees from the government quota (free seats) too. But the government, which was supposed to enact legislation to ensure 50 per cent of the total seats under free quota, did nothing in this regard and even went to the extent of collecting exorbitant fees for self-financing courses in government-sponsored self-financing colleges, which have nothing to do with the court verdict. They conveniently hid the fact that under the LDF rule, the fees charged for 50 per cent seats in the self-financing colleges under the Cooperative Academy (for example Medical College Pariyaram) and the other government sponsored self-financing institutions was at par with the fees in government colleges. Last year, as a result of the agitation led by SFI and other Left students organisations, the government was compelled to provide free seats in those colleges. In the current year, the managements have again decided that they would collect exorbitant fees (Rs 1,13,000) from the students admitted to the free seats also. The UDF government, which once uttered the “50 per cent free seats” idiom, dubiously joined hands with private managements by abolishing free seats even in the government-controlled self-financing colleges that were introduced during LDF government’s tenure.

MANAGEMENTS ON THE RAMPAGE

The government’s unholy alliance with the private managements did not stopped there. The government was very keen to protect the interest of the education mafia even while enacting a legislation to ensure free seats by providing a lot of loopholes to collect capitation fee. The government ignored all the suggestions mooted by the Left in this regard. Under the pretext of ensuring free seats the government in fact legalised the capitation fee, which was strictly prohibited by the Supreme Court in its verdict in the Pai and Islamic Academy cases. All these were done by succumbing to the pressure of the managements as a precondition for ensuring 50 per cent free seats. Nevertheless, the private college managements questioned 50 per cent free seats scheme in the Supreme Court. The court referred the case to a seven-member bench without considering it comprehensively and ruled that uniform fees structure suggested by the 11-member bench was to be maintained till the final verdict came. The act was questioned in the court because it was not included in the 9th schedule of the constitution. Induction of the act in the 9th schedule is necessary to ensure that a law brought with the aim of social welfare is not challenged in the court. The government also kept silent before the court on the centre’s refusal to induct the Self-financing Act into the 9th schedule; this act is not aimed at the welfare of the weaker sections of the society. The loopholes in the act, which allow capitation fee, need to be filled, and due reservation for the weaker sections must be ensured to enable induction of the act in the 9th schedule.

The argument that the verdict of seven-member constitution bench would give final solution for the issue is also baseless. It is worthwhile to note that the same constitution bench had earlier given the verdict that the Unnikrishnan scheme is unconstitutional. Till the Supreme Court gave verdict in the Pai case in October 2002, admissions into private self-financing colleges were given according to 50 per cent free 50 per cent payment scheme. It was the Supreme Court, which had introduced this scheme in the year 1996.

Considering the fact that the eleven-member bench ruled against the Unnikrishnan scheme, naming it unconstitutional, the chances to get a verdict on the Self-financing Act, containing the admission scheme similar to the Unnikrishnan scheme, is distant. Moreover, the government of Kerala has not demanded from the court that a larger bench should consider the case. It is unlikely that the present seven-member bench would give such a verdict, as may over rule the verdict earlier given by the eleven-member bench. It is clear that the government is dubiously keeping silence and striving its best to get the present auction regime recognised by the court.

COURT RULING OPENLY FLOUTED

The private managements which charge exorbitant fees, courtesy the Supreme Court verdict permitting collection of common fee in all the seats, also desist from implementing the court ruling with regard to management quota. According to the verdict the private managements are bound to limit their fees to the rate fixed by Justice K T Thomas Committee. Rs 1,13,000 was the fee recommended by the Committee for the current year in self-financing medical colleges. The court has categorically ruled that any amount charged over and above the stipulated fees will be considered as capitation fee. Self-financing institutions like Pushpagiri Medical College charges Rs 25,00,000 and above from students under management quota. The move supported by the present minister for cooperatives, to charge capitation fee in the Pariyaram Medical College, was halted with the intervention of the court. The chief minister and education minister are giving silent support to the managements’ efforts to charge huge amounts as capitation fee by ignoring the Self-financing Act and the court verdict.

The private managements were given the nod to conduct separate entrance tests without any supervision and in violation of the guidance of the K T Thomas committee. It is aimed at helping them to collect capitation fee. According to the Supreme Court verdict, such entrance tests conducted by a consortium of managements must be under the supervision of a five-member committee headed by a retired High Court judge. The government order, which appointed two committees, headed by Justice K T Thomas, mentions this categorically. However, now the education minister justifies the entrance test conducted by the private managements without consulting the Justice K T Thomas committee. The education minister argues the Self-financing Act passed by the Kerala assembly has a clause that allows private managements to conduct “their own” entrance tests. But the minister ignores the fact that such a provision was aimed at ensuring the norms of “free seats.”

Analysing the government’s soft approach towards the private managements, appeal against the free seats and its acts of facilitating the collection of capitation fee by its “timely” decisions, one may conclude that the coming days would be more demanding for the democratic students movements. The Supreme Court suspends the “free seats” norm in the act, its provision aimed at ensuring free seats cannot stand. Amid all this, a question remains to be solved by the government: what was the aim behind the enactment of Self-financing Act? Implementation of fees at the government rate or encouraging capitation fee regime? If the latter is the answer, the student community cannot afford to remain silent spectators.

The government’s hobnobbing with the private managements is the reason behind the present crisis of professional education in Kerala. The government misinterprets even the court ruling against two-tire fee structure in the same institution --- that there shouldn’t be any fee concession in government quota. The education minister has been acting like an agent of private managements by justifying such dubious acts.

IMPERATIVES OF THE SITUATION

The present problems can be solved only if the government sincerely tries to control private managements. First, there should be immediate efforts to ban the capitation fee. A separate entrance test is not required if the fees are collected at the rates recommended by the Justice K T Thomas committee. If the government has the will to prevent capitation fee, the private managements can be forced to adhere to government order and provide 50 per cent free seats or even more. The government’s negligence towards this imperative reveals its unholy alliance with private managements.

During the last two years the government was trying to proffer a lot of excuses in favour the private managements. During the agitation last year, the government argued that since the counselling and admissions in professional colleges was over the issue would be solved in the coming year, and that made the students block the counselling centres. This year the students’ organisations had requested the government to solve the issue well in advance. But the government’s decision was to crush the students’ agitation by joining hands with the self-financing managements. The police brutally attacked the students who peacefully marched to the counselling centres.  Girl students were cruelly treated by policemen. The police even used grenades to suppress the agitation, which resulted in serious injuries to a number of students including girls.

Why is that the court which, took a suo moto stand against the SFI leaders and directed the government to suppress the agitation, is blind towards all this injustice? It is not known if any court has ever registered any suo moto case at any time against the managements that violated the Pai case verdict and charged capitation fees. The court kept silent when the managements prepared bogus merit lists on the basis of separate entrance tests! Isn’t the dilemma of students whose academic excellence was going waste due to lack of money a sufficient enough reason for the judiciary to become active? Although the Supreme Court has already advised that socially and economically backward students would be given opportunities, not a single suo moto case has been registered against any management’s negligence!! Earlier, in the Mohini Jain case, the Supreme Court had given a ruling that the right to education is a part of the fundamental right to live.  Is it justice to disallow the right to live? What should be the judiciary’s stand? Which side should it stand when the constitutional rights are being denied to the poor majority?   

The students’ agitation in Kerala is not aimed to wrest opportunities for a mere 10,000 to 15,000 students. Those who grab MBBS seats by spending 25 lakhs may hardly contribute to our ailing health sector. The present struggle is, above all, an integral part of the fight against the neo-liberal policies which surrender our education sector to the market forces.