HYDERABAD: It’s considered a war zone for Telangana students and policemen today but things had never really been dull at the Osmania University. Be it the Emergency days, or the volatile years when leftist radicals livened up the campus in the 1980s, or the present day when students have made it the battlefront for separate statehood, Osmania Unversity has always been politically volatile, and its students socially aware and excitable. Perhaps due to the grand visions raised by its the imposing Indo-Saracenic architecture, Osmanians have always been quick to come out for a cause.However, as a new vice-chancellor, Prof S Satyanarayana takes charge, the alarms bells are ringing for the future of OU, still the marker of Hyderabad rather than the University of Hyderabad. As the separatist agitation rages on campus, faculty has been divided along regional lines, students are too busy throwing stones at policemen to attend classes, and exams have become games of cat and mouse between teacher and the taught. Research standards have reportedly reached abysmal standards and professors are gratified if three students turn up for class.Critics of the Samaikya Andhra persuasion would jump to the quick conclusion that this is all due to the separate agitation in the streets radiating from Arts College but as Prof Kodandaram (see interview) says, these are docs attending to symptoms rather than the disease. Critics would like to think that things began to go bad only since in November 2009 when Osmanians kicked the Telangana agitation to life. Prior to that, the student community of OU was as politically driven as always but their dreams were excited by the announcement of steps towards Telangana on Dec 9, 2009.“Before that, discussions between students in the hostels, messes or tea stalls used to revolve around academics, career prospects and political issues. In the past one and a half years, the Telangana issue has taken centre stage among the student community,’’ says T Ramakrishna, a Ph.D. (mathematics) student who hails from Kollapur in Mahabubnagar. According to Ramakrishna, though the voice of separate Telangana used to be raised on and off on campus before, it reached a peak in late 2009. “Seminars and sometimes agitations related to Telangana issue used to be held but they were held by individual groups,’’ he says.Students say student unions used to fight for their ideologies or caste-related issues. “Student unions earlier used to take up issues related to scholarships, maintenance of hostels and poor food served at messes and others but now they are agitated about Telangana,’’ said a post-graduate student.Once the agitation flared up in 2009, academics took a back seat. The semester examinations that had been going on in November 2009 when the Telangana movement built up on campus were finally held in March-April 2010. “The semester examinations could only be completed by conducting one examination a week,’’ one student recalled.R Rudra Reddy, a Ph.D scholar in the zoology department, says, ‘’It is the students’ frustration of not getting proper placements and the injustice to Telangana that’s making them join the movement. Not many of us regret losing our academic career. All we want is justice in society.’’As he takes over, Prof Satyanarayana has the onerous task of persuading students to balance their political intents with academic interests. He says improving the ‘employability’ of OU students is his main mandate, but then Prof Kodandaram would say that that’s what the agitation is all about, only it applies to all of Telangana.
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