‘Antharaya’ and intolerance Local universities are prisoners of a totalitarian subculture

• After the J.R Jayawardene administration released its leadership from prison, the JVP encroached the university politics for the second time in the early 80s and converted them into breeding grounds for the 1988-89 uprising. That colossal misadventure ended in a monumental tragedy at the cost of 60,000 Sri Lankan lives

Last week, a student mob at Peradeniya University stormed the residence of the former vice-chancellor, attacking the residents and ransacking the place. The attack followed a traffic accident involving the son of the vice-chancellor, whose vehicle had hit a student motorcyclist. 

Violence is not new in the Sri Lankan universities and is often overlooked. This time though, perhaps that it was a former don, who was at the receiving end, triggered a string of condemnation. The president ordered an investigation, and the university suspended some errant students. Arts faculty staff suspended teaching, and the university teachers union demanded justice.

While public attention to a deep-rooted problem should be welcomed, it is unlikely that any ad-hoc measures would address the central malady that ails the university system-its subculture, which is rooted in totalitarian uniformity. It’s primitive and exclusivist and fosters intolerance. It suppresses diversity and pluralism in the student community and brainwashes students into mindless drones and helpless bystanders. 

It unleashes a behaviour dynamic no different than what Veluppillai Prabakaran imposed upon the cadres of the LTTE, a nihilistic terrorist group. It turns universities into miserable and suffocating places, far from the bastions of learning and teaching they were supposed to be.

Tyranny of the fringe

After the J.R Jayawardene administration released its leadership from prison, the JVP encroached the university politics for the second time in the early 80s and converted them into breeding grounds for the 1988-89 uprising. That colossal misadventure ended in a monumental tragedy at the cost of 60,000 Sri Lankan lives. However, the totalitarianism of student activism outlived the purge. With the JVP’s return to mainstream politics, it was at its insidious height when I was in university in the late 90s-2000. After the split of the JVP in the 2000s, its offshoot, Peratugamis (The Frontline Socialist Party), parted ways with the Inter University Students Federation (IUSF), which was hitherto an accessory of the JVP. 

Today, your average IUSF activists, including folks in jail, this time though arbitrarily over the involvement in Aragalaya, are card-carrying members of the Peratugamis, if not their sleepers (There is no rational explanation for spending ten years in the university without graduating). 

Sri Lankan university student politics is a prisoner of the arcane, primitive and self-interested politics of the Peratugamis, a hard Marxist group with no real following outside the universities. No one can blame a political party, no matter how fringe, for having a presence in university politics. However, the problem is when that domination is achieved through the totalitarian suppression of others. 

This monopoly of ideology also makes universities barren land for free thinking. If you have ever been to one of those ‘Kala Ulela’ art festivals in Peradeniya, supposed to be the country’s premier university, you would know what a pathetic and monotonous place they have become. 

Whose fault? 

Blame the successive governments for many things, but not for intentionally turning universities into what they have become today, and their lasting lingering effects on the country, its economy and the students themselves. If the government is guilty, it is by omission, by overlooking decisive remedies to fix this rot, for fear of provoking the students.

Perhaps, university administrators are more at fault for often overlooking the pernicious hold of totalitarian student politics on the students.

However, away from the blame game, someone has to fix this, for the continuous failure to do so would hold back the country’s progress,  squander billions of public funds on education, and kick the ladder off the feat of the very children who were supposed to given an opportunity for upward mobility. (Regular  graduate employment schemes by the government to recruit unemployed graduates after years of dysfunctional education is not upward mobility, nor is doing justice to anyone, and is a bane of public money and a factor of the bloated government service.)
First, perhaps the starting point should be confronting ragging, the main driver of ‘brainwashing’ the new students. Universities do a sloppy job in that, partly because many in these institutions think ragging serves a purpose. It does not and does more harm, indeed a lasting one, than creating any form of artificial solidarity. 

Given the manifest complacency in the universities, it might require hardened new laws and intrusive police work to combat ragging in the universities. 

Second, the student councils are microscopic to totalitarian student politics. Often candidates from one party (affiliated with the IUSF) contest and win the elections, while all others are terrorised and purged. If university politics lacks diversity and pluralism in Sri Lankan politics at large, that is because of the totalitarian suppression of others. That should leave the university administrators and the Ministry of Education itself to consider whether the status quo should be allowed. 

Universities should promote and ensure the pluralism and presence of multiple stakeholders in the student council elections, or failing that, should consider suspending elections until basic values of fair play and free competition are established in universities.

Third, the near-state monopoly of higher education is responsible for the dysfunction of the local universities. It creates both complacency and an inflated sense of entitlement- at the expense of many millions of Sri Lankan youth who could not get into a public university.

Last year, 160,000 odd students qualified to enter university at the GCE advanced level; of them, at best, only 40,000 would ever have the opportunity to attend a government university. The government should create opportunities for the rest of the students to have a university education through student loans and subsidised education at semi-private and private higher education institutions. 

It should actively court established international universities and other education providers to open shops in Sri Lanka and provide attractive concessions and infrastructure facilities. Local industries can be encouraged to share their expertise and venture into education and training.

Fourth, Sri Lankan universities are lagging way behind their international peers. That gradual but persistent decline is so deep that there may not be a quick fix. Sri Lanka can think of two options. 

The first one is doable. It should aim to provide a decent undergraduate education, equipped with theory, soft skills, English and problem-solving skills for all or most of its students. Such undergraduates would fare comparatively with their peers in established global universities and be employable locally or abroad. 

Second is giving a shot at the global ranking. That is a long shot! With trying, perhaps one or two local universities can reach the top 300, the top 1% of universities in the world. However, modern universities are run like modern multinationals and those who populate the Sri Lankan education system may not have the expertise and outlook. That might require substantial investment, extensive research work, global cooperation, ex-pat faculty and probably a change of attitude, including a shift to the tenure system- also, a CEO-styled vice chancellor that the universities in Singapore and other successful countries have relied on turning their universities around. That also comes at a pay, perhaps compared to an airline CEO.

The rot in the Sri Lankan university system has been in the making for a long. Fixing it would also be in the long haul.  The government should start it now.

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