INTRODUCTION
The Constitution of India guarantees all citizens the Right to freedom of speech and expression and the Right to assemble peacefully and without arms. It also provides for the Right to free and compulsory education for all children in the age group of six to fourteen years, which holds the importance of education as a human right. These are the inalienable rights to which every citizen of India is entitled. Whenever a student protest is mishandled due to inadequacy of administrative control or state action, it directly affects the bundle of rights of the students who may be adults but are in a disadvantaged position which must be acknowledged. It is within the scope of the state to protect these rights and no person should be deprived of them irrespective of any Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) provisions stating against it.
Students in Higher Educational Institutions suffer from several unfavourable policies that discourage them from exercising their fundamental rights, in the absence of a multi-faceted uniform legislation guiding all the HEIs on how to deal with the protests with sensitivity, avoiding disciplinary action as a tool to intimidate students and inculcate a culture of peaceful protests within the campus itself.
PROTESTS IN INDIA
In a democracy political consciousness is integral to a responsible citizen, and HEIs become the budding ground for this actualisation. The resentment in the current establishment leads to reforms through students protest which mainly expresses administrative grievances, fee hikes, security, etc. but may not be limited to this. The Universities in India have a rich culture of student politics, that stage on and off-campus protests to reform the state of education in the institution and the state of society as a whole, promoting student activism.
RGNLU: Student protest in Rajiv Gandhi University of Law (RGNUL) has been going on since September 2024 against a flawed administrative system that has repeatedly failed to provide a safe campus for female students along with derogatory breach of privacy by the VC of the institute by inspecting the girl’s hostel without any notice, hence demanding his resignation. There is no student representative body, which remains another demand for the students that the ignorant administration does not meet. This highlights the importance of an internal student representative body to address on-campus arbitrary administration and privacy issues in accommodations in higher institutions.
RG KAR Hospital: A nerve-wrenching incident that took place in a medical institution, where a trainee doctor was raped and murdered in the seminar hall inside the hospital itself sparked a row of student protests in varied institutions. The students of Jadavpur University, Kolkata were arrested while they were distributing leaflets and chanting slogans near a Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata for justice for the deceased rape victim. Among the 9 arrested, many were from Jadavpur University. Even though Calcutta HC granted bail to all 9 who were remanded for 7 days, it brings to the surface the susceptibility of students getting arrested or detained by the police while protesting, which can have a long-lasting impact on their prospects in the future.
INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
Recent student protests internationally can be used as a template to understand the widespread consequence of an untamed protest and the use of overbearing authoritative power. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. A landmark judgment in Tinker v. Des Moines established that the rights do not end at the school gates and that students have the right to expression in a non-disruptive manner. A protest in April 2024 was held against Israel’s war in Gaza by the students of Columbia University, New York where more than 100 people were arrested, which sparked a row of protests across different universities in the US. The protest was reported to have been largely peaceful at first but then turned tense with the continued police presence.
In Bangladesh, protests began in July 2024, which was a peaceful student protest against the system of quotas, but soon turned violent after police personnel shot a protester while violently dispersing the crowd. The clash between the pro-government students wing and anti-government protesters aggravated the situation which ultimately led to a complete nationwide political instability.
IMPLICATIONS
A policy framework addressing all the issues can bring a balance between the rights of a protesting student, the duty of the police as an authority to maintain law and order, and the role of the institutions. A sui generis legislation has to be comprehensive, having manifold implications as discussed below:
i)Student Representative Body: Every HEI should allow for a Student representative body that can primarily put forth grievances against the institution forming a link between the students and the administration. It will allow for a swift flow of communication about any upcoming protests by the students or the guidelines issued by the administration concerning any ongoing campus protest.
ii)Institutional Charge: HEIs play a very crucial role in regulating, supervising, and protecting the students in such protests where institutional policies can form a mechanism of checks and balances propagating peaceful protests. A responsive institution, that does not suppress but rather allows the students to exercise their fundamental rights by offering leniency in any disciplinary actions due to protests, plays a significant role.
iii)Limitations on Police action: Students should be dealt with sensitivity when allowing for any intervention by the state as they can easily become the victim of police brutality. Arrest or detention by the police has to be utilised as a last resort to bring peace to any outlawed off-campus protest. Further legal proceedings, which add to the criminal records, can have adverse effects on the future opportunities for a student in their careers.
iv)Rightful Restrictions: A uniform set of regulations regarding any on/off-campus protest, like permissible and restricted areas, schedules for when a protest should be entertained without any interference, etc. to prevent disruptions in the ordinary working of the institute which in no way hinders the right to assemble and protest. In 2018, the Delhi High Court held the JNU Students Union guilty of contempt of court for violating an order that restricted the students from protesting within 100 meters of the university’s administrative building. Hence, reasonable restrictions must be allowed.
v)Political Students wing: In a multi-party democratic state, a highly politicized student wing can persuade a protest towards violence due to outside influence. Such infiltration must not be allowed especially in an on-campus protest by the administration and in no case any immunity can be granted to outsiders who insight violence in a peaceful protest.
A sui generis law addressing every aspect of a student protest through a sole statute is not the only solution. Mindful consideration of the lacunae in the existing laws around protests and stepping toward the appropriate amendments can bear similar results. Firstly, the UGC must issue guidelines mandating a student representative body, safe space for protests, reasonable restrictions around administrative buildings, etc. in every HEI. Secondly, the existing criminal legislations like BNS and BNSS define ‘unlawful assembly’ and allow the magistrate to issue orders in urgencies respectively, leading to state action, and rightfully so, in adverse cases of violent protest. The Police Act empowers it to regulate public assemblies and processions and issue licenses along with the powers concerning assemblies and processions violating the conditions of such a license. The amendments in the respective legislation, providing immunity to the students from state action and protection from police brutality will help to improve the current situation of student protest in India. Mandatory guidelines coupled with appropriate amendments can make up for a vacuum of laws to especially aid on and off-campus student protests.
CONCLUSION
Legislation formulated by a think-tank after deliberations among all the stakeholders could provide clear guidelines and set boundaries for the authoritative interference in the exercise of fundamental rights by novice students. The absence of a protective law in the wake of student activism puts them in a vulnerable spot where the administration can exercise arbitrary powers to suppress their demands, snatching their right to protest and also depriving them of education by harsh disciplinary actions like unjustified expulsion or indefinite suspension.
This calls for institutional reforms like the expansion of scope within the meaning of on-campus security in the existing guidelines issued by UGC, where the student community of the HEIs can be encouraged to form a group of Community Service Officers (CSOs) to provide not just escort services, according to the guidelines, but also emergency services to the protestors and even those students who inadvertently get impacted by that. However, such guidelines by the UGC, which more or less suffer from incompliance by many individual HEIs, may not be a panacea to make the institutions safe and secure (where the fundamental rights of the students are secured), which is a precondition to being the harbour of quality education. The validity of such statutory legislation, which is an exception to the ‘Right to Equality before the law’, is based on reasonable classification. Students can be treated as a separate class, being an intelligible differentia to achieve the rational nexus of protecting those who are more vulnerable to arbitrary actions while exercising their fundamental rights and preventing any adverse consequences arising from an untethered student protest. Until then, the amendment to the existing laws can be looked into as a more feasible alternative to achieve the desired outcomes.
Author(s) Name: Anjali Barmola (South Calcutta Law College, Kolkata)
