Presidency College in the city, which produced two Nobel laureates — Sir C.V. Raman and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, has now made news for the wrong reasons and students and faculty point to gang rivalry as the main reason for the chaos.
“Students have created groups on the basis of their bus routes. Students who come from Thiruvanmiyur in 6D have their own leader whose instructions they follow during elections” said G. Niruban, an M.Sc (statistics) student.
Niruban said that students should learn to use politics in a constructive manner rather than take law into their hands to create hardship for the public.
“Of the 3,800 students of the college, less than 200 create trouble and if the college administration is able to curb these students the problem will be resolved,” he said.
J. Arun Prasad, an alumnus of the institution, said the college had not seen such a big clash with students stabbing each other though clashes had been part of the college culture for decades.
A professor who did not want to be named lamented that the state government had failed to appoint a permanent principal for the past five years and this also contributed to students getting a free hand to create trouble.
“We often urged the police and transport authorities not to allow students to celebrate Bus Day, which is also a major cause for the current clash between students. Politics also plays a big role in college admissions and if students are selected only on merit we will have only quality students,” he said.
R. Nataraj, an alumnus of the college and chairman of the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC), said there was a time when students of the college were called ‘Princes of Presidency’. Now the princes have come on to the streets, he said.
He pointed out that even parents do not set a good example for their children any more and this, coupled with other external factors, push students into the violent path of campus politics. If handled properly, their energies can be channelled positively, he said.