A strong political sense is perhaps one of the most startling features of the Kerala society. Our educational institutions have been a nursery to cultivate such strong political beliefs.  The nature and intensity of Kerala’s campus politics have had considerable transformation over the years. Today only very few campuses support political movements. However, campus politics in Kerala surely needs a better direction and more importantly it desperately needs more visionary leaders for its revival. Many of the current generation of student leaders have failed to capture the imagination of the elders. Today campus politics have become more of violence and less of creativity. We have failed to realize that politics is an art and it requires a very imaginative artist to make a portrait. Without getting our hands dirty by debating on the effectiveness of politics inside the campus, let us try and address the issue of the vacuum in existing leadership.

How do we identify the lack of an imaginative leadership in campus? The answer to this question is another counter question. How many action projects have been carried out by the political parties on the campuses which have stimulated real social change? While trying to answer this question let’s not include attempts of picketing government officials or the bloodshed that happens after the resultant lathi charges. Are our campuses just a source of blood that needs to be drawn to the streets? Let us pause at this point and raise another inconvenient question. How many campus leaders have come out with proactive solutions to issues that concern us on a daily basis? How many leaders have used the power of their political belief and their organizational strength to implement such path breaking solutions for the common good of the community? If you are a campus leader and if you can answer these questions satisfactorily at least to your conscience, then you are the leader that Kerala is looking for. But the number of campus leaders who can fit into these proportions is on the decline.

These young leaders who are looked upon with immense expectation have more often than not let us down. A post mortem on this failure can perhaps give us definitive answers.  Have ideologies misled these young leaders by constraining their thoughts? Ideology is indispensable in any society if people are to be united, transformed and equipped to respond to the demands of their existence. However an ideology has to be transformed with time by keeping its core values intact, to serve the purpose of societal welfare. Any ideology that fails to make this transition has become redundant and eventually lost.

Our young leaders hold the mantle of bringing in fresh perspectives to a political ideology. It will require these leaders to study in depth on the reason why people supported an ideology in its initial stages. Today the very same ideology will need to respond to a different set of problems and beliefs. Hence only a leader with a strong foundation in his political ideology can capture the imagination of his followers. If he can break through the constraints of this ideological barrier and bring in fresh perspectives, that leader is surely bound to be infectious because he/she would be the real change maker!

Our campus leaders need to be taught a special course on accepting mistakes! The common misconception that accepting a mistake equals being a failure, has made campus politics look more vulnerable and even violent. To cover up one mistake, they are forced to commit numerous other mistakes, which often end with bloodshed on the streets. If our young leaders had the guts to accept a mistake and had proved their integrity by showing the willingness to correct them, then Kerala’s political culture would have become a benchmark for others. Our leaders need to learn the process of giving and taking constructive criticism rather than performing mere character assassination stunts. Irrespective of the political ideology you believe in, this will be the foundation course that every future leader will need to clear!

There is another important quality that our campus leaders need to usher in. There is an urgent need to bring in constructive social debates into the walls of our campuses. These debates should not be constrained by prejudices and should be driven by facts. These debates should not only focus on the sphere of politics, but should also draw topics from the sphere of technology, science, arts, literature and economics. Such sessions can surely help our campuses shift focus from trivial local political issues to bigger issues which can trigger a global impact.