Little would anyone have thought that the impersonation row at Christian College, Kattakada in Thiruvananthapuram, in the third week of May would open a can of worms in the higher education sector in Kerala.
College Principal G.J. Shyju had forwarded to the University of Kerala the name of Visakh A., a first-year student and Students Federation of India (SFI) leader, in the place of Anagha A.S., the student who was elected as University Union Councillor (UUC) from the college and was supposed to contest in the university union elections. The fraud was allegedly committed to make Mr. Visakh the chairman of the Kerala University Union.
On June 6, the Principal of Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam, an autonomous college, complained to the Ernakulam Central police that Vidya K., a native of Kasaragod and a former student, had forged an experience certificate of having worked as a guest lecturer in the Department of Malayalam to secure a guest faculty appointment at the Government RGM Arts and Science College at Attappady, Palakkad.
The suspected fraud came to light after the interview panel, which knew that Maharaja’s College had made no guest faculty appointment in the Department of Malayalam over the last decade, asked the Principal of the college to confirm the former SFI leader’s claim. The certificate had helped her gain a guest faculty appointment at Government Arts and Science College at Karinthalam in Kasaragod from June 2022 to March 2023. Her admission to the PhD programme offered by the Department of Malayalam at the Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, also came under lens following allegations that norms were tweaked to include her on the selection list.
Yet another controversy erupted on the same day after it was found that P.M. Arsho, State secretary of the SFI and a student of the postgraduate programme in Archaeology and Material Cultural Studies at Maharaja’s College, had ‘passed’ the third-semester examination for which he had never appeared. The Principal, who initially stated that he had remitted the fee to take the exam, retracted his statement within a few hours. and blamed the erroneous result on a software glitch.
39 students disqualified
The reverberations of the Kattakada impersonation case prompted the authorities of the University of Kerala to disqualify 39 students of affiliated colleges from contesting in university union elections on June 10 after they were found to have violated the eligibility criteria.
The SFI received a shot in the arm a few days later after it alleged that the election of Ameen Rashid as member of the Senate of the Calicut University representing the Muslim Students Federation was invalid as he was a panchayat employee and not a regular student. Within a week, another controversy erupted after it was found that a former SFI leader Nikhil Thomas had submitted a fake degree certificate to secure admission for the MCom programme at the Milad-E-Sherif Memorial (MSM) College, Kayamkulam. The authorities of the University of Kerala, who lodged a police complaint against Mr. Thomas, also sought an inquiry into a media report that Ansil Jaleel, a State convener of Kerala Students’ Union (KSU), had allegedly used a forged degree to gain employment.
A barter system
“An important question is how does a student leader get the courage to forge certificates,” asked Amruth G. Kumar, Dean, School of Education at the Central University of Kerala, on the fake certificate row at MSM College. “Our student leaders get apolitical education from political parties. They understand that institutions and practices can be influenced using their political clout,” he said.
Stating that student politics in Kerala is obedient to the political leadership of their organisation and rebellious towards the institutionalised system, Prof. Amruth Kumar said that student leaders see political elite as a means of escape from the constraints imposed by institutions and their rules and regulations. In return for this, the students are encouraged to act aggressively in protests, strikes, and various activities organised by leaders. The aggressiveness of the students is glorified and further nurtured by political leadership, both directly and indirectly. A minority among them draws enormous courage to defy rules, at times openly, he said.
Teachers’ involvement
The Save University Campaign Committee (SUCC), which has petitioned the University Grants Commission and Governor Arif Mohammed Khan seeking action against those responsible for the alleged cases of impersonation and forgery, pointed out that the growing number of such illegal acts is merely a tip of the iceberg and must be regarded as a pointer to the rot in the system. “It is being aided by the unholy alliance of teacher and student organisations affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Without the tacit support of these teachers, the leaders of the student organisation would not flout the regulations so blatantly,” alleged R.S. Sasikumar, chairman of the SUCC.
Though the CPI(M) State leadership backed Mr. Arsho’s complaint that a conspiracy was hatched against him in the mark list row, it has distanced from the fake certificate row involving both Ms. Vidya and Mr. Thomas. “The manipulations and controversies involving the SFI leaders would hit the party hard as the middle class, who attach considerable significance to education, would find it difficult to accept this kind of degradation,” said A. Jayasankar, lawyer and political observer.