The story so far: A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court has observed that political activities such as dharna, hunger strikes and satyagraha have “no place in a constitutional democracy, much less in academic institutions”, citing a 2017 precedent, as it quashed a single-Bench order that had permitted 16 Students’ Federation of India (SFI) activists to appear for semester examinations at the Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady.
What was the case?
The students were under suspension pending an inquiry, for allegedly staging a mock cremation of Vice-Chancellor (V-C) Ciza Thomas. The FIR filed by the Kalady police stated that the accused allegedly manhandled and defamed the V-C and damaged her car. The university syndicate had constituted an inquiry committee to look into the alleged incident and take disciplinary action. The committee had found the students guilty and recommended action.
The SFI activists have denied the allegations, claiming that their protest was meant to highlight their 18-point charter of demands, including the appointment of required faculty and the provision of basic facilities for students across various departments.
The petitioners sought an interim order directing the respondents to permit them to participate in the examinations. A single Bench of the Kerala High Court allowed the suspended students to write the semester examinations beginning on November 4, 2026. But the Division Bench of Justices Anil K. Narendran and S. Muralee Krishna allowed an appeal filed by the V-C and the syndicate against the single Bench order on November 3, 2026. The court noted that the students had sought to appear for the examinations without filing an application to condone shortage of attendance. The aggrieved students have now approached the Supreme Court seeking relief.
What did the Kerala High Court say about political activities?
The court cited a 2017 precedent Dr. Antony Thomas v. V.M. Muhammed Rafique and others, in which a Division Bench of this court observed that political activities such as dharna, hunger strikes and other practices like satyagraha have no place in a constitutional democracy, much less in academic institutions. Anyone indulging in the said activities in an educational institution would make himself liable to be expelled and/or rusticated. Educational Institutions are meant for imparting education and not politics. By their political ambition, the political parties cannot hold to ransom the educational institution or the right of the civilised students to receive education.
The court also went on to quote Dr. B.R Ambedkar that “if we wish to maintain democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what must we do? The first thing in my judgment we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives. It means we must abandon the bloody methods of revolution. It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non-cooperation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for constitutional methods of achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the grammar of anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.” He had said this while introducing the Constitution for its adoption to the Constituent Assembly on November 25, 1949.
What was Ambedkar’s speech about?
On November 25, 1949, Dr. Ambedkar gave a speech while introducing the Constitution for its adoption to the Constituent Assembly, which is often called as the ‘Grammar of Anarchy’. He explained constitutional methods, hero worship, social democracy and nation building.
In his speech he said: “…I feel, however good a Constitution may be, it is sure to turn out bad because those who are called to work it, happen to be a bad lot. However bad a Constitution may be, it may turn out to be good if those who are called to work it, happen to be a good lot. The working of a Constitution does not depend wholly upon the nature of the Constitution. The Constitution can provide only the organs of State such as the Legislature, the Executive and the Judiciary. The factors on which the working of those organs of the State depends are the people and the political parties they will set up as their instruments to carry out their wishes and their politics. Who can say how the people of India and their purposes or will they prefer revolutionary methods of achieving them? If they adopt the revolutionary methods, however good the Constitution may be, it requires no prophet to say that it will fail. It is, therefore, futile to pass any judgement upon the Constitution without reference to the part which the people and their parties are likely to play.”
He also expressed his concern about democracy. “This democratic system India lost. Will she lose it a second time? I do not know. But it is quite possible in a country like India — where democracy from its long disuse must be regarded as something quite new — there is danger of democracy giving place to dictatorship. It is quite possible for this newborn democracy to retain its form but give place to dictatorship in fact. If there is a landslide, the danger of the second possibility becoming actuality is much greater.”
In his very same speech, as quoted in the Kerala High Court judgment, Dr. Ambedkar did say “When there was no way left for constitutional methods of achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods.”
Throughout the speech, he reiterates the concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity. He said, “We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well. Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy.”
He concluded the speech saying “if we wish to preserve the Constitution in which we have sought to enshrine the principle of government of the people, for the people and by the people, let us resolve not to be tardy in the recognition of the evils that lie across our path and which induce people to prefer government for the people to government by the people, nor to be weak in our initiative to remove them. That is the only way to serve the country. I know of no better.”
Later, in September 1953, while speaking in the Rajya Sabha, on the Andhra State Bill for the formation of separate Andhra Pradesh on the basis of the Telugu language following the death of activist Potti Sriramulu who sat on an indefinite fast demanding the creation of the State and eventually sacrificed his life, he remarked that the Constitution and democracy would not be imperilled if the Constitution would be amended and special powers would be given to the Governors in the pattern of the Canadian constitution and British conventions for protection of linguistic minorities.
He said, “Sir, my friends tell me that I have made the Constitution. But I am quite prepared to say that I shall be the first person to burn it out. I do not want it. It does not suit anybody.” He then observed, “But, whatever that may be, if our people want to carry on, they must not forget that there are majorities and there are minorities, and they simply cannot ignore the minorities by saying, “Oh, no. To recognise you is to harm democracy? I should say that the greatest harm will come by injuring the minorities.”
Despite this statement, Dr. Ambedkar always valued the Constitution. On March 19, 1955 while speaking in the Rajya Sabha on the Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Bill, 1954, he said: “If I may say so, and I say it with a certain amount of pride that the Constitution which has been given to this country is a wonderful document.”
When a member of Rajya Sabha recalled his statement that he would burn the Constitution, Dr. Ambedkar replied that, “We built a temple for a god to come in and reside, but before the god could be installed, if the devil had taken possession of it, what else could we do except destroy the temple? We did not intend that it should be occupied by the asuras. We intended it to be occupied by the devas. That is the reason why I said I would rather burn it.”
What was the 2017 precedent relied on by the Kerala High Court about?
In the precedent Dr. Antony Thomas v. V.M. Muhammed Rafique and Ors (2017), the Kerala High Court cited back to M.E.S. Ponnani College v. Debashish Kumar Behra (2017) which primarily observed the same principle that political activities such as dharna, hunger strikes and other practices like satyagraha have no place in a constitutional democracy, much less in academic institutions. It said that the court has been consistently holding that educational institutions cannot be turned into a political battleground. In an educational institution, there cannot be politics. Any individual student interested in politics is free to indulge in his interest, but, outside the educational institution. These institutions are teaching and learning institutions. The police would be duty-bound to give all assistance in the matter so that upon timely intervention, the dharnas and vandalism is put under control.
It also referred to Sojan Francis v. M.G. University (2003) delivered by the Kerala High Court itself. The question raised in the Sojan Francis case was whether an educational institution has got the freedom to prohibit political activities within the college campus and forbid the student from organising or attending meetings other than official ones within the college campus and whether such a restriction would violate Article 19(1) (a) and 19(1)(c) of the Constitution.
Article 19(1)(a) guarantees all citizens the right to freedom of speech and expression. Article 19(1)(c) guarantees all citizens the right to form associations, unions, or co-operative societies.
In that the court held that: “We are of the view, guideline (9) banning political activities within the campus and forbidding the students from organising or attending meetings other than the official ones within the campus is not designed to prohibit any of the fundamental rights of the students guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) or 19(1)(c). It is not a total prohibition of any fundamental right, but only a reasonable restriction confined to college campus and the code of conduct cannot be flouted in the name of any other freedom or the rights guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a)or 19(1)(c). Once students are admitted to an educational institution they are bound by the code of conduct laid down by the educational institutions through the prospectus or college calendar and it is implicit that they should observe the code of conduct necessary for the proper administration and management of the institution.”
“Restrictions are only reasonable and designed to promote discipline in the educational institution so that the objectives of the educational institution could be achieved and wisdom of laying down those restrictions cannot be challenged by the student after getting admitted to the educational institution,” it stated.
What about the right to protest?
The Constitution’s Article 19(1)(a) states that all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression. Article 19(1)(b) asserts the right to assemble peaceably and without arms.
By Article 19(2), law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence. According to Article 51A, it is a fundamental duty of each citizen to protect public property and to refrain from violence while protesting.
Looking into a few precedents on the same, in Himat Lal K. Shah v. Commissioner of Police, Ahmedabad, (1973), the Supreme Court recognised the authority to regulate public meetings in streets while making clear that such regulation cannot become an arbitrary denial of the right to assemble.
In Re: Ramlila Maidan incident in 2012, the Supreme Court examined the legality of police action against a gathering at Ramlila Maidan and reaffirmed the importance of protecting constitutional liberties against excessive and arbitrary State action. While the State may impose reasonable restrictions on public demonstrations in accordance with the Constitution, such restrictions must satisfy the requirements of legality, necessity, reasonableness and proportionality.
In Modern Dental College and Research Centre v. State of Madhya Pradesh, (2016) and K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India, (2017) , the Supreme Court developed and applied proportionality as an important constitutional standard for assessing restrictions on rights. The proportionality inquiry requires attention to the legitimacy of the objective, the relationship between the measure and that objective, the availability of less restrictive alternatives, and the balance between the measure’s impact on rights and the public interest it seeks to protect.
In Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan v. Union of India (2018), the court reaffirmed the right to peaceful protest as fundamental and directed the police to formulate guidelines that did not effectively extinguish it.
The Supreme Court judgment in Amit Sahni v. Commissioner of Police (the Shaheen Bagh case), (2020), established that while citizens have a fundamental right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(b) of the Constitution, this right is not absolute and must be balanced with public order.
