The Students’ Outpost Manifesto

Who we are, what we do and the future we hope to build

What is The Students’ Outpost?

The Students’ Outpost (TSO), is a Bangalore based student group that was formed in June 2017. It is a network of students from multiple (and as of now, primarily private) higher education institutions in the city who have come together in response to what we see as a lack of adequate and active student representation on campus. Given that the University Grants Commission mandate on compulsory formation of student unions does not seem to hold in the state of Karnataka (where student unions have been banned since the 1980s), we have been unable to organise within our campuses and thus decided to organise outside of it.

From the UGC’s guidelines on Student Entitlement

TSO is by nature, therefore, an informal (unregistered), inter-collegiate student organisation.

What is TSO’s purpose?

In order to understand TSO’s agenda, it is important to first understand why we felt the need for such a network. In Bangalore, a city more caught up by the “apolitical” IT sector than any other in the country, students from private colleges are generally not allowed a space to nurture their own political opinions and perspectives. The fact that our families largely steer away from active politics, along with the methodic training most of us have received during our school days, has taught us to keep silent in the face of authority and remain ever tentative with our self-assertion. Meanwhile, private college managements flourish and grow increasingly dictatorial. The UGC, as we have seen, seems to have very little real power (or interest) in these matters.

Yet, there are students in the city who do care; who do give a damn; who do wish to question and engage in discussion with their college authorities. There are students who stand up for themselves and speak when wronged. TSO is a group for precisely such people to come together and figure out ways in which to further political engagement and discourse among our peers. We aim to challenge the ever-growing dominance of conservative and capitalist college authorities in order to stand up for our rights as students. We demand safer, more democratic and inclusive campus spaces and wish to ensure that students have an effective and informed voice in the governance of student affairs.

Our Philosophy

As a politically active organisation, TSO strives to take into account the various marginalised identities that students come from, including caste, class, sexuality, gender, region, religion etc. As we strongly believe in the motto Educate, Agitate, Organise, TSO’s modus operandi is to create spaces for vital, sometimes uncomfortable conversations so that it may lead to radical changes, both within the minds of students and in campuses at large. TSO takes an active interest in ensuring that the voices of students belonging to the minorities or marginalised communities aren’t silenced in the face of elite student voices or oppressive managerial systems.

Given that many of the problems we have faced in college are systemic in nature, we further aim to bring about radical changes in the very approach and structure of Indian higher education. We consider education to be a right and that it should be accessible to everyone. We strongly believe in a future when education is free for all.

With these ideas guiding us, The Student’s Outpost works towards the following key points, some specific, some broad:

1. An active, democratic representation of the student body in any decisions made by the institution or the education authorities of the government that affects student life.
2. Affirmative action in all student matters, including admission, academic assistance and student leadership. This should be focussed towards people or people groups marginalised based on their caste, religion, gender, sexuality, race or social class.
3. Quick and informed redressal of student grievances, especially in the case of sexual harassment and/or identity-based violence.
4. Sensitisation and de-alienation of local communities with migrant and foreign student concerns.
5. Curb the influence of external financial benefactors in the syllabus, the rules of the institution and the programmes offered, while upholding the academic autonomy of professors.
6. Radical changes to remove the strong arm of capitalism from the field of education and stop the repurposing of education as a commodity by neoliberal government policies.
7. Socio-political enlightenment of the student community, for students to reassert their voice in all matters of society, politics and culture.
8. Prevention of the spread of prejudice, hate and violence against targeted communities.
9. Removal of the practice of institutions asking for funds from students and putting insensible fines on them. Students should instead be provided with financial support to cover additional academic expenses.
10. Access to free, quality higher education across India.

The Nature of Our Work So Far

In the past three years, TSO has engaged in a variety of campaigns and activities related to student politics. We have fought systematically and protested against Sexual Harassment on Campus, we have conducted several study circles and weekly meeting sessions to encourage students to engage and speak up and we have also organised a number of film screenings. Apart from this, TSO also manages an extended WhatsApp group and active social media profiles in order to further our efforts of keeping discussions alive and facilitating the flow of political news and volunteer work updates.

Organisational Structure:

Since its conception, The Students’ Outpost has operated in a flat hierarchy system and all the students/youth in its network play an important role in furthering the movement. While the aim is to gather more members and eventually form a democratic system for assigning roles, currently TSO is run by a small core team of volunteers listed below.

1. Shalom Gauri
2. Akshay Balan
3. Vishnu P.V
4. Paran Amitava
5. Ujwal KP
6. Shah Iflah

There is no established hegemony or roles within this team, so each of them take up responsibilities in an ad hoc basis.

Drafted by Anirudh Gupta, Revised by Akshay Balan, Edited by Shalom Gauri. Images designed by Vishnu P.V and Akshay Balan.