When I began graduate studies in the U.S., I was fascinated by the campus politics—lack of it, that is. No clamorous student rallies, no class emptying strikes, not even a knife fight. What little political activity that was going on had to be ferreted out of the student newspaper. Then one day I spread out the student newspaper on my desk and read this arresting headline: “Student group to dissolve student union if elected.”
What a bold promise, I thought. If only I had campaigned on that slogan.
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| Not a laughing matter |
The colleges and schools in Kerala had long been unionized by the communists under the theory that this would give children hands-on experience with parliamentary democracy. Like other party strategies, this was a high-sounding ruse; the real purpose was to grow a crop of new recruits, well trained in the art of strife and conflict. But one sliver of the educational system was spared from this farce—professional colleges: medical schools, engineering colleges, and the agricultural university. This happy state of affairs seemed too good to be true and, as it turned out, it was. I was starting my Masters at the Kerala Ag University, KAU, when the political assault reached our campus. But unbeknown to most, the groundwork was laid a year earlier.
Some events are so bizarre that in order to be convinced they did happen you have to have lived through them—like the demotion of a scientific discipline through decree. How do you demote a science under the force of an order? Isn’t science supposed to rise or fall based on the strength of evidence? The steady state theory of the universe fell by the wayside when cosmic microwave background radiation was discovered, confirming a prediction of the rival Big Bang theory. Nobody passed an edict against the steady state theory; it just couldn’t produce supporting evidence while the rival theory did. The entire field of earth sciences was limping along until the theory of plate tectonics revolutionized it in the 1960s.
Well, behold the demotion of a science, no evidence necessary. The KAU used to award a degree in Horticulture. This seems pretty straightforward: Kerala is increasingly a horticultural state. But KAU also awarded a more established and more general degree in Agriculture. Do you detect a wedge issue here? You wouldn't unless you are a scheming political hack conjuring up ideas to infiltrate every nook and corner of society to grow the party cadre. News spread through the ranks of agricos: as horticulture gains prominence, your agricultural degree would become worthless. Better do something about it now. I never understood how the scheme was hatched and executed but some elaborate planning in beedi smoke-filled rooms certainly seems in order to pull off something of this nature. The next thing you know, the University abolished the horticultural degree in one fell swoop. The feeble horticos protested and shut down the college but they were ineffective: the decree stayed, their degree vanished.
With the mission accomplished the ruling communists demanded payback. The price? Student unionization. Suddenly, friends turned foes as insidious political sympathies reared their head. In short order, the communists segregated into a group and established their student union. Their main political foes, the Congress party sympathizers, were helpless not to react. They followed suit. The aim of these rival groups was to contest and capture the college student union, a body that had little to do other than hold some cultural and literary functions. In the pre-politics days, this college union was run by leaders chosen by consensus in uneventful fashion. A sizable group of independent students tried to reason their way into keeping politics out of the campus, but their integrity had been compromised by their support for abolishing a science degree. So these opponents of politicization did the next best thing. They formed their own student body, setting up a three-party fight for the college union.
This is where things got interesting for me and a potentially new career knocked on the door. I was firmly in the independent student camp but was totally unqualified to lead a campaign opposing the politicals, let alone to run the college student union. But I suppose so were other independent students. The lottery fell on me, I suspect because I had some name recognition from acting in a college play (see my Star-Crossed). Plus, I was a first year Master’s student, which for the dubious reason of seniority, conferred a modest boost in the Campus’s social hierarchy. Whatever the reasons, a bunch of 3rd-year independents approached me and asked me to run on the anti-politics ticket for the post of General Secretary. I had my doubts, but the newfound attention was too flattering to pass up, so I agreed.
The independents were popular but I wasn’t. And I proved to be an even worse campaigner. Moving from classroom to classroom, my message was, “Hey, isn’t it obvious that these politicals will rive the campus and are nothing but a bunch of lackeys and pawns serving their party committee masters? So why would you vote for them? I represent the independent students, serving no outside interests. So vote for me.” Clearly, this qualified as the poorest stump speech ever crafted. But beyond a poorly thought out electioneering strategy, there was another reason for my unpopularity. Basically, caring for no one else until it had come time to ask for votes. Now, this isn’t that different from what professional politicians do. They, however, are skilled in the art of feigning and schmoozing. I was aloof. There was hardly any time for a wholesale makeover. My deficiencies were irreparable especially with women and out-of-state students. When one of my campaign colleagues approached them for votes, they did not mince words: “This guy ignored us all these years and now you want us to vote for him?” Thus handicapped, what must surely have been a sweeping independent victory turned into a nail-biting contest with the communists.
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| Let the campaign begin (Photo Credit: Deccan Chronicle, March 19, 2017) |
When the counting of votes commenced, it proved to be a neck-and-neck nailbiter. The lead swung from independents to communists and back, always separated by a handful of votes. Mid-way through the ballots, my indie ticket partner, the guy running for President, began to build a steady lead. My situation, however, got tenuous. The slender lead I held over my opponent began to narrow. And then it flipped. The communist candidate for General Secretary started to stay ahead of me by a couple of votes.
When the counting concluded, the indie President, the cricketer, won by 10 votes.
I lost—by three.
Actually, I took the defeat pretty well. “Whatever,” I thought. I was out of there in a year anyway.
Nevertheless, a defeat was a defeat and coming at the hand of the communists, tasted bitter. It called for some retrospection. What could I have done differently? It would sure help to be likable, for one thing. Better yet, I could have come up with a bold campaign slogan in the true independent spirit, “If elected I shall dissolve the college student union.” Indeed, that’s exactly what the student group back at my university in the U.S. did. They ran on a union dissolution promise, got elected, and kept it.
That would have been the end of that. But then I learned something new about the chief vote counting official. That changed everything, at least for me.
As student politicals established themselves on the campus, faculty allegiances spilled out into the open. They too split into rival political camps. It turned out the official who had presided over the ballot count, a professor of statistics no less, was a communist sympatico. Well, well, well. Wait a minute! My opponent flipping the lead in the last leg and miraculously maintaining a steady three-vote lead to the end began to make sense.
If there is an appeal body out there, I am looking for their number.
I want a recount.
