If you are paying attention to the streets of Thiruvananthapuram and campuses across Kerala right now, you are seeing the same old script play out. Strikes, water cannons, broken barricades, canceled exams.
The young men and women holding the flags believe they are revolutionaries fighting the system. My honest take, after 30 years of watching institutions from the inside: many of them are being used as the cheapest, most disposable foot soldiers in a fight that isn't really theirs.
When a party loses ground at the ballot box, one common survival strategy — not unique to Kerala, not unique to any one party — is to manufacture visible conflict to stay relevant in the news cycle. Campuses are an easy place to find that energy: young, idealistic, and available in large numbers. It's worth looking honestly at the mechanics behind the strikes, not just the slogans.
"You're not leading a revolution. You're unpaid PR for someone else's comeback."
— worth screenshotting before you head to the next rally🚩 The Illusion of Rebellion
Ask yourself honestly: how many of these strikes were called in direct response to a genuine, campus-specific grievance — and how many were called on a political calendar? That's not a rhetorical trick, it's a real question worth sitting with the next time a strike is announced before the reason is even clear.
Students are told they're "fighting for rights" and "resisting the system." Some of them are. But it's fair to ask who benefits most when a protest makes the evening news — the student who loses a semester, or the political leadership who gets a headline without ever standing on the barricade themselves.
🛑 The Collateral Damage
While politicians fight for media coverage and relevance, who actually pays the price?
THE ACADEMIC CALENDAR
Exams delayed, semesters stretched, academic years derailed — for students who didn't choose the timing.
THE MIDDLE CLASS
Working parents who drained their savings to fund a degree watch their children's timelines get pulled into someone else's fight.
THE KERALA BRAIN DRAIN
It's not a coincidence that so many of Kerala's sharpest students are taking loans to leave for Europe, Canada and the UAE. A campus culture that prioritizes street conflict over skill-building pushes ambition elsewhere.
"Your degree is leverage in a global economy. Their politics is not your currency."
— say it back to yourself before you skip the exam for the march♟️ A Question Worth Asking
Before anyone steps in front of a police barricade, it's worth asking one plain question: where are the children of the leadership calling for the strike? Not as an accusation against any named individual, but as a pattern worth noticing across the top tier of political families in general — private universities, corporate law degrees, campuses abroad, safely removed from the front line they're encouraging others to hold.
The middle-class kid on the barricade risks the police case, the disciplinary record, the lost semester. It's fair to ask whether that risk is being shared evenly, or outsourced.
🗽 A Different Strategy
My honest suggestion to any young person reading this: don't hand your early adulthood over to any party's calendar. Build your own independence first — skills, critical thinking, the ability to question any side, including the ones you're inclined to agree with. A democratic society is stronger when it's built on independent thinkers, not on students who follow marching orders without asking why.
"Nobody's protecting your semester but you. Guard it like it's the only one you get — because it is."
— pin this one🧠 The Venad Global Takeaway
If you're a student: your education is your real leverage in the global economy. Before you join the next strike, ask who called it, why now, and who actually pays if it goes wrong. Guard your time aggressively — nobody hands it back.
If you're a parent: don't hand your children over to a fight they didn't start. Things you value, you don't hand off carelessly. Kids included.
Protect your time. Protect your mind.
Ask hard questions of every side — including your own.
Stop fighting wars that were never yours to fight.