Introduced in the era of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, student politics have played a vital role in the demolition of basis of education system in Pakistan. Taking the students to such a path from where almost no return is possible, student unions have also perished the moral, ethical and religious values of our educational society.
Before student unions were banned by the Zia-ul-Haq dictatorship in 1984, their activities were conducted through regular annual elections in universities and colleges. Student political parties that participated in these elections afterwards became gangster groups which mainly include All Pakistan Mohajir Students Federation (APMSO) and Islami-Jamiat-Tulaba (IJT).
Prime Minister Gillani removed the ban on student unions in his first speech to the parliament in 2008 and since then the increasing violence in the educational institutes is being witnessed again. Students unions are supposed to work peacefully and their main motive should be to protect the rights of students, but the fact is that political parties are using these unions to strengthen their grip in campuses. All the major public universities are held hostages in the hands of these unions, who enjoy the support of political parties, which could be PPP, JI, PML or MQM. Strengthening student unions may help our political government (which is not the case in Pakistan) but it is not only destroying the environment of the institutes but also wasting the valuable time of students. Allowing student unions gave a way to arms and violence in the campuses. There is no age limit for the leaders of the unions; this is the reason why the same old faces are seen in the campuses for years.
The idea of unions, as mentioned earlier, is of PPP. If we analyse the voters’ statuses of different political parties, we may see a rough categorization at least. The voters of PPP are mostly the illiterate people, the voters of PML (N) are mostly the educated and the people who can understand the issues of Pakistan, the voters of MQM are mostly the racist people. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto introduced the concept with the thinking that there are many immature and amateur college students who are all in all in their houses and many of them are the most educated and are considered the most intelligent persons in their families. So, he focussed on these students and made them also to convince their families to vote for PPP. Bhutto knew that other unions will not be as successful as PPP student union. Why? Because literate persons mostly were not influenced by the thinking and agendas of PPP and the thought in later years also proved correct. Bhutto proved true and we noticed that other unions were not much successful except Islami-Jamiat-Tulaba (IJT).
Having a student union may prove a good thing, but when we quote the example of the unions of foreign countries, we should keep in mind that they are independent and free of any political party affiliation.
Seeing the other side, all the student unions in Pakistan are either affiliated to some political party and/or are part of the youth wing of a political party. This means implanting the top-level corrupt, selfish and killing politics to the level of students. The students who are part of these unions, in majority, are not even willing to qualify the programme for which they registered themselves in college or university. It is a fact that most students join unions because of the power the unions possess, the power that enables students to bully others, teaches them to become leader of nobody and get away with it, the power that allows them to pass the exams without having to open the books, the power of weapons which they can use to demand respect and the power to destroy the roots of our education system.
The solution is either to regularize the unions like the foreign countries do or to ban them.
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