Two incidents last week brought to the fore the stark reality that the situation in the campuses of the Tribhuvan University has not been improving.

The Tribhuvan University and its campuses had been out of media scrutiny for quite some time with almost no news of strikes and disruption of classes. That led to a false notion that things were actually getting better in the campuses.

But apparently, this is not true. Recently, a fight between two groups of students over a case of eve-teasing at the Ramswaroop-Ramsagar Campus in Janakpur led to the injury of several students. After the fighting the campus was closed for an indefinite period.

However, a more serious incident occurred in the Prithivi Narayan Campus in Pokhara. Millions of rupees worth of materials, including furniture, window panes and computers were vandalized, destroyed and burned by some agitating students in the pretext of police entering the campus and disrupting a meeting of the students’ union affiliated to the Maoist communist party.

The students also set fire to the administrative office of the campus which destroyed almost all the student records, other documents, examination papers and others.

The Campus Chief was also severely beaten up by the students, who  accused him of letting the police inside the campus. The students were holding the 13th district level meeting of the union inside the campus, when the police made their entrance.

The scuffle between the students and police led to the injury of at least three policemen, one of them seriously. While the police baton-charged and tear gassed the students, the students fought back with brick, stones and whatever they could lay their hands on.

The students accuse the police of ‘violating’ the sanctity of the academic institution, but an observer queried, “weren’t the students’ themselves misusing the campus for their political purposes?”.

This has again led to the issue of whether cadre-based political activities should be allowed in the academic institutions or not. Everybody accepts and have realised that politics and politicisation have been the biggest stumbling block in building a  sound academic environment in the academic institutes, especially the public colleges.

The student unions think it is their right to carry out their political activities, but in doing so, they may be quelling the rights of many students who think their studies are more important than politics.

Most feel, after the advent of democracy 10 years ago, giving political freedom to all colours and ideologies, it is time for partisan politics to make an exit from the campuses.