Every Student Talks About Politics But A Few Talk About Power

I have just stepped into law school, and within a couple of days, I am already noticing the political undercurrents that run through university life. With election season close by, the campus feels charged posters, speeches, and student leaders canvassing with the same energy I had always been curious about since my teens. I even sat through a small showdown with the Chairperson of the department. It wasn’t fiery more lukewarm but still a reminder that even in student spaces, politics is never far away.

But here’s what struck me: most of what I saw didn’t feel mature. Conversations about leaders, issues, and student politics were happening, yes. But very few people spoke about power not Foucault’s abstract theorisation (though his relevance is undeniable), but the basic, lived question: Who has it? Who doesn’t? And how is it exercised invisibly?

Instead of talking about caste, communalism, gender, or the structural inequalities that shape student life itself, the so-called leaders focused on short-term issues and “fulfil gimmicks” promises meant to win votes rather than build politics. Even ideology was missing. It was politics reduced to event management.

Some may argue I am intellectualising what is just a college election. But even student leaders themselves claim this is a stepping stone to bigger things state or even national politics. If that is true, then the shallow nature of these debates should worry us. Because the way politics is learned here is the way it will be practiced outside.

It reminded me of Ram Manohar Lohia’s sharp observation:

“The tragedy of India is that it has too much politics in society and too little in politics.”

 

Source: LinkedIn

Politics vs. Power

One of the reasons I came back to law school was not only to learn the law essential for any real social change but also to test my hand at politics. A university campus is often said to be a testing ground for future leaders. Yet what I find here resembles the larger Indian political scene: rallies, gimmicks, freebies, hashtags, and endless but often pointless debates.

This is politics in its most visible, almost cringeworthy form. But true politics the kind that might actually encourage Plato’s philosopher to step into the political arena requires deeper debates. It requires engaging with the structures and institutions that silently govern our society: caste, class, gender and capital.

That is the distinction: politics is visible but power is invisible. Politics is loud, performative and often shallow. Power, by contrast, is decisive. It determines who gets to speak, who gets to lead, and who remains unheard. And sometimes, if you are born “right” whatever that means in this society you are simply sprung up as a leader, with little reflection on why others are denied the same stage.

Why Students Avoid Power

This is an important question one that, if answered honestly, can dispel some myths we carry close to our hearts. I have noticed something striking: when student leaders came into our classroom, it was mainly the guys who spoke, while the girls were sidelined. The well-groomed boys spoke about big issues like the “prospects” of becoming MLAs or MPs. The irony was obvious politics performed as a spectacle while the audience looked on, alienated.

On campus, Ambedkarite groups seemed weaker than the national party-backed groups, which reeked of caste privilege. The near absence of leftist student voices was glaring. In contrast, the presence of SUVs and muscle power paraded by “student leaders” said more about who really wielded influence than their speeches ever could.

Inside classrooms, no one touched caste or class. It felt unsafe. It was far easier to chant slogans than to question personal privilege. And if pressed, most would not even recognise the privilege that cushions their lives. Universities themselves play a double game: encouraging “healthy politics” through sit-ins and symbolic protests, while simultaneously punishing any deep critique that threatens institutional order.

Nobody talks about who wields power and why. Nobody questions who gets to stand for leadership and who is excluded. Because asking that would expose hypocrisies in friendships, in classrooms and in the institutions themselves. The result is a politics without courage. A politics without bravery.

 

Source: Open Edition Journals

Consequences of Ignoring Power

A reader may well ask: Hasn’t it always been like this? What’s the point of questioning it now? Can this really change?

I disagree sharply. This line of thought itself is the greatest fallacy, a comfortable excuse for institutions and leaders who fight hard to keep things the same.

When power is ignored, real activism is undermined. The questions that matter about caste, class, gender, privilege are buried beneath slogans. What we get instead is hollow activism: noise without transformation, visibility without substance.

And the cycle repeats. Privilege sustains itself. Those already in power remain there, unchallenged, while others are taught to accept their exclusion as normal. In this climate, we produce a new generation of “armchair intellectuals” people informed enough to criticise but helpless when asked for solutions. These arm chair critics who are informed to an extent but raise their both hands in exasperation when asked for practical solutions- which can help in transforming politics.

The idea of politics itself degrades. It stops being struggle it becomes performance. These so called leaders forget their duty to question privilege and power. Instead, they learn to play safe, to please everyone and to avoid risk. They turn into obedient soldiers of the very systems they once claimed they would fight.

That is the consequence: a politics without teeth, without courage, without transformation. The real idea of politics changes and it degrades to become more like a performance (again as I proved empirically) and not real struggle that we have witnessed in our past.

Closing Punch

Students like us must take the mantle into our own hands. The answer is not to dismiss politics outright, but to demand better to make it real. We cannot keep voting for leaders because they are popular faces, masters of blame games, or performers of petty politics.

The focus must shift from “Who will win?” to “Who decides?” Because until we ask the troubling questions Who has power here, and why? Who is excluded, and how? our debates will remain safe distractions, rehearsals for a politics that only sustains privilege.

Real politics begins when we confront power, not avoid it. And it is only then that our universities can become what they claim to be: spaces of learning, struggle, and transformation.