College strikes and class disruptions have become so common these days. You get to read about them in newspapers almost every day. Fortunately, they weren't that common during my stint in college. During my tenure as a student, I've experienced a strike only once. But even that was an unforgettable experience!
As a rule of law, political parties or their youth wings are prevented from getting involved in college elections. Although the rules were quite strict, people always found ways to work around these, wards of some politicians end up contesting or winning elections even in colleges (without displaying the party flag of course)! My college enforced these rules quite strictly wherever possible. The election campaign was forced to be pretty mute, college walls couldn't be used for campaign posters etc. Once a candidate was successfully elected for one year, he couldn't contest the next year. On the election day, there was generally a section 144 imposed. Students were forced to leave the college campus immediately after they've cast their ballot. Maybe the election commission can learn a trick or two from our college authorities back then.
Given how taxing these elections were for the students, staff and the management, the college authorities tried always to avoid elections(if they could). They tried negotiations with all those candidates who were willing to contest, sometimes even dragging in the parents of the candidates and discouraging their wards from contesting. The authorities wanted most student posts to get filled un-opposed in order to avoid any scuffles. They were successful most of the time.
During my final year, the college authorities tried the same trick, but apparently, things didn't work out. It so happened that, While my friends and I were attending a lecture on organic chemistry, we heard loud whistles and catcalling from outside our classroom. So loud were these noises that our professor Venkatraman sir stopped the lecture immediately and left the classroom. And then after a while, we heard our Principal's voice on the loudspeaker. Understandably, he had hit the roof and threatened to suspend all students who were causing a commotion. He thought that this would calm down the students and bring them back to the negotiating table. But he was grossly mistaken. The protesting students were further enraged and the situation turned worse.
The authorities were forced to call the police and they were stationed outside the college campus. While the protesting students had locked-in the college gates and none were allowed to go out. With classes all suspended, and canteen being closed, we were completely locked in. After over 2 hrs, we heard the news that the agitating students had stoned the Principal's office and that there could be further trouble. Rumors floated that the police would enter the campus at any moment and lathi charge all protesting students. Basically, mayhem was about to occur and in all probability, we were going to be in the middle of it. This is when my friends (Sapta, Deepak, Saravana, Kumararaja, Yogesh, Rejiesh) and I decided that we've had enough and we planned to escape.
There is only one entrance to our college campus and this is via the main gate. There is a 30 ft road, that leads from the main gate (passing adjacent to our college cricket ground) to the Principal's office and the other departments of the college campus. There is another road that passes around the cricket ground and leads back to the main gate (this passes via the college hostel and the auditorium). But this road is seldom used for two main reasons (a) its a longer route. (b) Passes through a lot of wilderness. Our campus is situated adjacent to IIT Madras campus (which by itself is covered by a lot of trees). You could easily get lost in the campus if you didn't know where you were going.
We knew that the main gate was out of bounds and our only means of escape was through IIT campus. But for this, we had to scale a wall about 8-10 feet tall. Mind you, if we were caught doing this by any of the college authorities, we were in for trouble. They would have suspected us to be a part of the protesting students and then we would have been at the mercy of the police and in case we were caught by the fellow students, they would have branded us as traitors!
For a moment we debated scaling the wall near the labs and restrooms, but then dropped it because of the risk of being spotted by any casual observer from the labs or the restroom windows. So our only other option was to scale the wall somewhere near the college auditorium. This area was covered with a lot of trees and wilderness and any attempts of escape will go un-noticed (if executed correctly). But all of us couldn't walk on casually towards the auditorium as we would have ended up attracting a lot of attention towards ourselves. So we planned to do it groups of three and soon found ourselves in a secluded spot behind the auditorium. Here the wall was easier to scale, but there was barbed wire above the wall and so we had to be quite careful not injuring ourselves.
Once we jumped on to the IIT campus, we couldn't walk out of the gate again as this would have been illegal as well. So we had to find another spot within IIT campus from where we could climb over the wall and get back on the main road. After a while, we finally managed to find a good spot, but we found ourselves a bit away from the main road (safe from all the attention). We were all smiles, grinning from ear to ear. Why not? We had successfully planned and executed our escape to clinical perfection. However, our escape was still not complete. We still had to take a bus and leave back home (and we had to do this without attracting any attention that we were our college students). The bus passed through our college main gate, so after we boarded the bus, we hid our id cards in our bags and pretended to be students of some other college.
When the bus arrived at our college stop, were shocked to see it very crowded. We were worried something had happened. For a second I even thought that the crowd was there to catch us as we had fled the college (refusing to participate in the protests)! But then to our astonishment, we noticed that our college gates had opened and all the students were walking out and leaving home. Apparently, while we were plotting and executing our escape, some negotiation had occurred between the college authorities and the protesting students and they had come to an agreement to re-open the college gates so that the students could go home for the day!
As a rule of law, political parties or their youth wings are prevented from getting involved in college elections. Although the rules were quite strict, people always found ways to work around these, wards of some politicians end up contesting or winning elections even in colleges (without displaying the party flag of course)! My college enforced these rules quite strictly wherever possible. The election campaign was forced to be pretty mute, college walls couldn't be used for campaign posters etc. Once a candidate was successfully elected for one year, he couldn't contest the next year. On the election day, there was generally a section 144 imposed. Students were forced to leave the college campus immediately after they've cast their ballot. Maybe the election commission can learn a trick or two from our college authorities back then.
Given how taxing these elections were for the students, staff and the management, the college authorities tried always to avoid elections(if they could). They tried negotiations with all those candidates who were willing to contest, sometimes even dragging in the parents of the candidates and discouraging their wards from contesting. The authorities wanted most student posts to get filled un-opposed in order to avoid any scuffles. They were successful most of the time.
During my final year, the college authorities tried the same trick, but apparently, things didn't work out. It so happened that, While my friends and I were attending a lecture on organic chemistry, we heard loud whistles and catcalling from outside our classroom. So loud were these noises that our professor Venkatraman sir stopped the lecture immediately and left the classroom. And then after a while, we heard our Principal's voice on the loudspeaker. Understandably, he had hit the roof and threatened to suspend all students who were causing a commotion. He thought that this would calm down the students and bring them back to the negotiating table. But he was grossly mistaken. The protesting students were further enraged and the situation turned worse.
The authorities were forced to call the police and they were stationed outside the college campus. While the protesting students had locked-in the college gates and none were allowed to go out. With classes all suspended, and canteen being closed, we were completely locked in. After over 2 hrs, we heard the news that the agitating students had stoned the Principal's office and that there could be further trouble. Rumors floated that the police would enter the campus at any moment and lathi charge all protesting students. Basically, mayhem was about to occur and in all probability, we were going to be in the middle of it. This is when my friends (Sapta, Deepak, Saravana, Kumararaja, Yogesh, Rejiesh) and I decided that we've had enough and we planned to escape.
There is only one entrance to our college campus and this is via the main gate. There is a 30 ft road, that leads from the main gate (passing adjacent to our college cricket ground) to the Principal's office and the other departments of the college campus. There is another road that passes around the cricket ground and leads back to the main gate (this passes via the college hostel and the auditorium). But this road is seldom used for two main reasons (a) its a longer route. (b) Passes through a lot of wilderness. Our campus is situated adjacent to IIT Madras campus (which by itself is covered by a lot of trees). You could easily get lost in the campus if you didn't know where you were going.
We knew that the main gate was out of bounds and our only means of escape was through IIT campus. But for this, we had to scale a wall about 8-10 feet tall. Mind you, if we were caught doing this by any of the college authorities, we were in for trouble. They would have suspected us to be a part of the protesting students and then we would have been at the mercy of the police and in case we were caught by the fellow students, they would have branded us as traitors!
For a moment we debated scaling the wall near the labs and restrooms, but then dropped it because of the risk of being spotted by any casual observer from the labs or the restroom windows. So our only other option was to scale the wall somewhere near the college auditorium. This area was covered with a lot of trees and wilderness and any attempts of escape will go un-noticed (if executed correctly). But all of us couldn't walk on casually towards the auditorium as we would have ended up attracting a lot of attention towards ourselves. So we planned to do it groups of three and soon found ourselves in a secluded spot behind the auditorium. Here the wall was easier to scale, but there was barbed wire above the wall and so we had to be quite careful not injuring ourselves.
Once we jumped on to the IIT campus, we couldn't walk out of the gate again as this would have been illegal as well. So we had to find another spot within IIT campus from where we could climb over the wall and get back on the main road. After a while, we finally managed to find a good spot, but we found ourselves a bit away from the main road (safe from all the attention). We were all smiles, grinning from ear to ear. Why not? We had successfully planned and executed our escape to clinical perfection. However, our escape was still not complete. We still had to take a bus and leave back home (and we had to do this without attracting any attention that we were our college students). The bus passed through our college main gate, so after we boarded the bus, we hid our id cards in our bags and pretended to be students of some other college.
When the bus arrived at our college stop, were shocked to see it very crowded. We were worried something had happened. For a second I even thought that the crowd was there to catch us as we had fled the college (refusing to participate in the protests)! But then to our astonishment, we noticed that our college gates had opened and all the students were walking out and leaving home. Apparently, while we were plotting and executing our escape, some negotiation had occurred between the college authorities and the protesting students and they had come to an agreement to re-open the college gates so that the students could go home for the day!
