ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the scenario of capture of power by a student organization (SO) in a government-run arts and science college in Kerala where the SO exercised a monopoly and prevented counter-mobilizations. It utilizes material on student politics generated through a larger study of higher education in Kerala focusing on arts and science colleges. The chapter explores the perspective that underpins prohibition in private aided colleges. In the aftermath of the prohibition, students reported that any demands by them or attempts to mobilize even in sporadic and contingent ways around issues were seen as suspect and branded as politics by the management. The Catholic College, a diocese-based college, banned political activity and switched to the parliamentary form of elections to the students’ union in 2007. Prohibition of politics on college campuses is based on the perspective that political activity is inimical to the education process, which openly refutes the need for associational freedom on campus.
