Are the students being used as political tools?

Nepali academia is very difficult to understand. Some are genius who could compete with any other scholar of international standing. Concurrently, some are timid. Timid in the sense that at times this section prefers more often than not to talk to the media men. A few are blunt indeed. This group prefers to talk to the media men on any topic under the sun. However, their comments appear hollow. The rest wish to study more in order to catch up the contemporary changes that have of late brought about the said changes in the world's politics, science, engineering and high technologies.

More or less Nepali academia possesses political tilt, which is only but natural. However, some so-called Nepali scholars exhibit their political allegiance to the extent that one gets the impression that he or she should have declared himself or herself as the "spokesman" of a particular party. Some definitely act in that manner but prefer not to be dubbed so. A smaller group of Nepali academia has enjoyed lucrative posts for having exhibited their political allegiances towards a particular party.

Some favor congress and some exhibit their tilt for the communists. Albeit, the RPP too has to its credit some scholars who side with them at critical times. Understandably, a few champion the cause of the constitutional monarchy.

This explains how our scholars (mostly working as teachers at the schools and the campuses) are divided on political lines. Possessing some sort of sympathy for one's preferred political tilt should in no way be considered to be a crime. This is very natural in a pluralistic society like ours. However, what constitutes a crime when these scholars enter the classroom and wish to impose their political ideas onto the brains of the students. Likewise, yet another set of scholars' push their entirely different political theories in an entirely different way. The students get confused which is also very natural under such circumstances.

This is what is happening in our country. Beginning from the primary school to the University levels, the teachers impose their political biases or for that matter the hatred for the other competing party. The net result is that the students either consider both as farce or get lured to one party for whom he or she possesses some sympathy now.

What is worrisome is the teachers' luring their students to join their preferred political parties. Students do possess the knowledge as to which political party was good or bad. Let them decide on their own to chose the political force of their own liking.

The ground reality is that most of the political parties in the nation have their students' grouping right from the primary to the Varsity level. The political parties consider the students as their "vibrant and energetic strength"'. In the process what the political leaders forget is that they were spoiling the students' educational career. It has been seen that at times when ever there is a sort of dispute in between the establishment and a particular party, the latter uses the strength of the students affiliated to their political paraphernalia. The congress and the communists including the RPP have already used this strength to bow-down the establishment in the past. Not very surprisingly, the Maoists too have their revolutionary sort of student organization.

My contention is that the students should not be used as a political tool. Let them frame their career first.

Luring the students for achieving political ends must come to a halt. However, much also depends upon the students' own choice. Whether to join the political paraphernalia at an early age and become a political tool for others or to continue the studies and become asset of the nation definitely has got to be decided by the students' themselves.

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