QAU campus saga

The Quaid-e-Azam University administration has rusticated some of the students involved in a clash with a rival group and has suspended others in the hope of trying to bring sanity to the otherwise peaceful campus which was shaken by recent clashes. While classes have resumed at the campus, claims by the university administration that things have returned to normal are not entirely true. The campus is being heavily policed and many students, who had little or nothing to do with the violence, have been hauled up to explain their actions. There is a fear on the campus. These highhanded measures may bring temporary relief but at the end of the day the anger and discontent of students who have been poorly treated or unjustly punished will fester into something greater. Today members of a Baloch student organisation have been penalised. It could be some other organisation tomorrow. The problem of violence on campus will not end by bringing in the police.

To begin with, one has to appreciate that university campuses are supposed to be nurseries of politics. Most of our leaders today, which include both the interior minister and the foreign minister, learnt their political ropes on campuses of days gone by. It is ironic today these gentlemen are denying the same opportunity to others. Young men and women in a democratic dispensation need to air the opinions and vent their frustrations. In the good old days, student unions were the way universities would channel the aspirations of those who were politically aware and active. Since the days of General Ziaul Haq student unions have been banned and the youth do not have a positive way to express themselves politically. And yet it is very important that they do so. The QAU saga needs to be resolved as soon as possible. The interior minister, who himself was quite active in student politics, should ask the administration to take back all expelled students after they have tendered due apologies. And in the long run, unions should be reinstated so that democracy is strengthened at the grass roots. Till this is done, anti-democratic forces will continue to hijack the country’s political agenda. We need to check this at the earliest.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2017.

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