Freedom, really?

Manipal is a dream, the dream every student in India wants to live. With the great infrastructure provided by the University, the culture blend, the teaching environment, the nightlife and the vibrant co-curricular activities, there is something that Manipal offers that makes it a kick-ass experience, the freedom. This freedom to live life on their own terms, to decide for themselves what they want and it makes them understand how difficult it is to take decision sometimes.

But are we, the students, taking this freedom too far? Are we sure we understand the difference between negative and positive freedom? Are we not crossing the roads over to hooliganism, whilst believing that we are just being free to do what we want?

 The recent incident at MIT Campus where an innocent girl was injured by a whack-job on his bike, the two other major incidents in the same area in the past year where immeasurable damage was caused to the infrastructure, all reported almost instantly by The Manipal Journal, and hundreds of other small but similar incidents in and around the student town which have gone unreported, bear a testimony to the fact that we, the entire student community, are taking the freedom given to us for granted. We are not even sure what to do with the freedom. Funny as it may sound, on August 15^th last year, hundreds of students took to the streets and broke the KC barrier in the name of freedom while shouting freedom related slogans. On 28^th October, the Diwali weekend, they burnt rubbish and shouted slogans like “Raj Thackrey Murdabad!” at KC. What, were they trying to fight racist fascism in Mumbai by shouting slogans in Manipal by damaging property of the Manipal University? Against whom are they venting their angst, and what did they want to achieve by doing so? And what kind of patriotism is it to damage property for no reason? Did it cause any change to anyone, except to their own fellow students who were hurt, physically and mentally, due to such rioting?

While life goes on for us, we have no idea how many students and MU officials have been affected because of these incidents. That poor girl suffered unnecessary injuries because the jerk on that bike hit her, did she deserve it? Guards were shouted at, blamed for not doing their jobs properly. Is it their mistake? Did they deserve it? While many MU security officials lost sleep over the safety of other students, senior officials lost sleep over how the actions of few would affect the image of this lovely University. Did they deserve that? Even this website was being accused of giving negative publicity to MU for having reported these incidents. Did we deserve it, for just reporting the truth?

More importantly, is this really how the students of MU want to be known? Is it who we really are? We don’t want to be known as thugs or undisciplined students of a faraway student town, because we are not. We are students from respectable families who are here to study and enjoy the best times of our lives. We are not hooligans, we are the youth of this country.

So is it only a few spoilt-brats who are responsible for the violence? No. The entire student community is responsible, because while a small section of ours lashed out, we watched and let them do it. We allowed violence, and that is a bigger crime. While that one student bashed the security guard up and hit that girl, a hundred of us watched. We stood there is dismay, in anger, in frustration, in fear, in amusement, or with carelessness and an attitude of “why should I care?” and we just stared at the violence. We did not do anything. And that is why the entire student community is to be blamed. We are just not bold enough to stop violence. The so called brave and the bold amongst us think it requires guts to go about rioting on bikes. It requires more guts to stop violence and such anti-social elements.

Violence and hooliganism is no way of showing off your freedom. Only idiots take pride in doing stupid things. I am here at a faraway university on student exchange, and trust me there is more freedom here than in Manipal. There is a bar just a few meteres from the library! But students respect that freedom, know the value of liberty, and they preserve it with decency and civilised behaviour. There is nothing wrong in revolting when things go wrong, but the reasons must be strong and worthy of revolt. Having to walk a few meters more because of the barricades is not a worthy reason. Student organizations should represent the students and address these issues, and not provoke them to participate in useless and violent activities.

I am not saying we need “peace and harmony”. Oh come on, when will we do crazy sh*t if not at this age? But rioting, burning, hurting fellow students and hurting yourself? Not cool at all. It is foolish, namesake-bravery, a lame show off and pretty pissing off.

We want to have fun, not riot violently. We want to party, not drink irresponsibly and wreck the place. We want to go crazy, not be stupid. The cost of freedom is to control it, so that we have it forever and not lose it all one day. We won’t run away from the truth, we will face it. Members of this very organization will report every incident that happens in Manipal, but we will fight against it as responsible students and stop it from happening again. And this, I write as a student who loves Manipal, who is still living the dream.