The boiling point: 12 years of neglect, 250 voices, one unified campus
Sri City: The night of the 20th of July would be an eventful day for Krea University. As the events of Wangchuk being apprehended from his 21 day hunger strike, and visuals of protestors in Delhi’s Janata Mantar being brutalised by police despite peaceful demonstrations shocked netizens and the public alike, many people on campus across majors, years, and identities felt the time was right for campus life to express solidarity with not just Jantar Mantar, but protests across the country calling for the resignation of education minister Dharmedra Pradhan.
Exercising of Privilege (Prelude)
At 8:30pm, the first crowds started gathering with many people making posters and tying ribbons on their wrists to show solidarity and volunteership with the protest. Onlookers would watch not with disdain or prejudice but with interest, where a national issue worth talking about would be demonstrated on campus. Political events on Krea are not a new phenomena. Outside of the classroom, professors encouraged students to become first time voters in the 2024 general election; students have organised film screenings of documentaries such as the Vinay Shukla’s ‘While we watched’ amidst the Newsclick raids of 2023, and Anand Patwardan’s ‘Ram ke Naam’ in January 2024 with the Ram mandir opening just to name a few; stalls and exhibitions to help orphanages with education, and even support donations for Gazan refugees amidst a genocide; Hosting club meetings and reading sessions to discuss political events with peers and faculty alike with global and national affairs; and even participating in marches such as in 2024 when Leher organised a solidarity march for protestors in Kolkata amidst the R.G Kar sexual violence case. This event however would be a stark contrast compared to August 2024 where rather than a silent candle march, the energy of youth frustration would be on full display filled with raw emotion towards mass systemic failures beyond examination systems. The event would also be important as a utilisation of privilege in a time where university protests have often been intimidated. Just a day before the protest on the 19th, students of Visva Bharati University in West Bengal were assaulted by alleged members of ABVP when they tried to do a hunger strike in solidarity with Wangchuk. Krea with its unique position and its liberal environment was seen as a place to express politically and organise.
A crowd of multiple backgrounds
The solidarity march began around 9pm with students across disciplines and schools shouting slogans and playing music. Leher decided to speak to students and faculty alike on their opinions of the solidarity march, and their motivations. While an outsider’s observation may understand students joining due to the influence education systems have on contemporary society, through these conversations, many students from the most marginalised to the most privileged of backgrounds have provided a wide array of personal backgrounds and anecdotes that are a testament to how the protest is not just for education reforms, but disdain for a perceived 12 years incompetence that transcends political spectrums, faith, caste, gender, and region. In the early stages of the protest, Leher had received mixed responses from protestors. A small group of friends (3rd and 4th year students) emphasised the importance of political awareness and critique, when asked about what made it different from the R.G.Kar solidarity march 2 years ago, the friends had responded that it leaned towards rights and democracy, and how the costly mistake of a paper leak shouldn’t be taken lightly. While the initial pull factor was educational reforms and frustration over paper leaks, it would be clear that larger institutional patterns and failures would increasingly be a motivator for large sections of the crowd as slogans started to be shouted.
During the later half of the solidarity march, Leher spoke with multiple female students in STEM related fields in the student body, with some who planned to pursue medical fields in the future. When asking the group of friends why they decided to join this solidarity march, one woman speaking to us mentioned how she had friends in other colleges who were allegedly advised to not protest with the threat of suspension. Another woman speaking to us mentioned that along with the failures in education, there is also a culture of fear many STEM majors were standing up to. A culture of fear was a recurring term encountered by protestors. A culture of fear seemingly driven not just through politics, but also through kinship with disappointing the family, and a culture of fear established by a hyper competitive exam system and coaching culture that robs the function of education across schools and curriculum. For many students who were in CBSE, this moment and the demands for accountability seemed to resonate with them the most, where public systems were seemingly incompatible with modern college testing and admissions emphasised through personal anecdotes.
The most interesting figures however that Leher encountered, were students from rural and remote regions and states across the country. In a series of student speeches outside the NAB block of campus, along with the presence of English speeches, there was also a variety of Hindi speeches by students, and speeches by students outside of metropolitan cities across the country with personal anecdotes. There was also observed participation in the protest amongst students from states unrepresented in mainstream media. When Leher spoke to one senior from Manipur specifically about personal anecdotes, he mentioned from his experience that teaching in Manipur has become nepotistic where teaching has mainly become focused on money, rather on the love of education. His comments would paint a picture of a broken education system felt uniquely across entire states. In a report by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), Manipur ranked 29th out of 36 states and union territories in the School education development Index (SEDI) with nearby states like Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh ranking at the very bottom. For many students from rural backgrounds, the Hindi heartland, and North East India, this act of solidarity gathered steam as a forum to vent frustration with unique experiences of dissatisfaction with the education system.
Not everyone however was as aware, with Leher encountering many students who didn’t know fully about politics or protesting. One student speaking with Leher despite initial hesitancy, mentioned that he wasn’t completely aware of the events of Jantar Mantar over the past month compared to some of his peers. Yet despite the lack of full knowledge, he understood that this was a relevant issue that concerned friends close to him. Similar stories of many people inviting their friends to join the solidarity march would emerge as well.
Many professors and PhD candidates joining the crowd despite extending solidarity to students on campus and students across the country, would also express a couple of doubts from their end. When asking one professor if he believed the lathi charge at Jantar Mantar was a spark, he disagreed with the notion of a single spark and mentioned how it was an accumulation of frustration. When asked whether student connections and kinship with students across other campuses was a factor in the spark, he also disagreed indicating how universal the topic was to generations of students across the country. Another professor in the crowd would comment how there’s the need for inconvenience to be felt in a protest. The protest was, to him, a method to come out of someone’s shell in a time where university education is seen as highly commercialised with a main focus on placements and grades rather than campus itself being a microcosm for public life itself. In a time where universities and coaching centres have marketed themselves as providing secure futures for young students especially in times of abysmal youth unemployment and a highly competitive academia.
Despite attracting huge numbers of support and participation across campus, students and professors alike have expressed skepticism and mild disappointment on an observable apathy where some issues can receive organised protests, while others tend to be sidelined. One professor would comment on the ongoing American-Iranian war as a highly important issue whose ripples are felt across borders. Most importantly though, there was the emphasis that even domestic issues within campus could also experience the same attention and crowd that this protest has gathered with a specific emphasis on food safety. Many students however, have expressed a hope that these issues would eventually receive the same attention. The biggest irony despite the energy and participation in this event for many people, was the fact that the solidarity march required permission from campus administration, which for some participants, would feel antithetical to the disruptive nature that a protest ideally should be.
The Pressure cooker
At 9:16pm, speeches and slogans would be delivered by students and faculty alike. The word ‘Azadi’ would appear frequently amongst many protestors in a time where the word has increasingly become taboo. While talking to members of the crowd, one student would comment how different campus would be if there was an ‘IT cell’ where videos of the protest would go viral. The statement would reflect a pattern of social media intimidation and disinformation campaigns when protests happen in the country. In a series of speeches by leading professors, the subject moved beyond the NEET UG paper leak to a recognition of public systems failing, and an acknowledgement on how events across the country create ripple effects for everyone. Beyond the solidarity march, protesting at large in that moment rather than being seen as a nuisance, seemed for many people in the crowd to be an active responsibility in a democracy. Students across years would heed to issues like corruption, communal hatred, and even institutional transphobia with the recent passing of the Trans bill of 2026 often expressing deep outrage and solidarity with marginalized communities.
One stone at a time
For many people on campus, the night of the 20th of July would be symbolic not just in national history, but also in their own experience in Krea. Would protesting become more common and can happen without the permission or the will of a governing authority? Can this campus, despite being seen as a liberal space, act upon that wish to be an open forum not just in publications or in whatsapp, but also in public spaces to have students pay attention to the world around them? The journey of Krea’s political culture simply doesn’t rely on a single solidarity march, protest, or the empathy of the crowd, but through the vast contributions and awareness of the student body to make a space where grievances and inspiration across lands and backgrounds can be heard.
