Managing Conflict in Colleges

Managing Conflict in Colleges

-Yogesh Snehi

Managing Conflict and understanding social behaviour form an integral aspect of any college/university administration. Conflict can literally be defined as disagreement or incompatibility at the level of thought. It can also represent a state of non-violent and even violent tussle, unrest and struggle. Thus when one tries to grasp the ways to ‘manage conflict in colleges’, the nature and conceptual framework of the conflict should be kept in mind. Further, the term ‘managing’ itself is problematic. It is significant to understand and devise ways to ‘resolve conflict’ than to ‘manage’ it. The latter implies a piecemeal arrangement, a proposition which is dangerous for Indian democracy as pertinent issues continue to remain unresolved. I intend to understand conflict through various perspectives, vis-à-vis personal and social.

Conflict generally begins at the emotional level. The ‘matters of home’ and the attitudes of parents are crucial to the genesis or resolution of conflicts within self and with others. Matters as trivial as parental dealing of a child’s emotional and material needs or behaviour and resolving conflict between siblings will be crucial to understand the origins of conflict. Dealing with opposite sex, with teachers, friends and colleagues and college authorities is something which an individual learns in the family. Thus family plays a significant role and every emerging issue in a college needs to be dealt through an active involvement and counselling of parents along with students. Student counselling should become an integral part of college administration.

Colleges and Universities constitute a crucial stage in the psychological growth of the youth in India. In a country where some colleges and universities lay emphasis on segregation of boys and girls within the classroom and outside, psycho-sexual conflict begins at this level. Further, the state also lays emphasis on establishing separate colleges for boys and girls, which further accentuates the conflict. Human desire to know the ‘other’ which involves multiple layers of sexual, emotional and social curiosities is the second step in understanding conflict. Colleges should focus on encouraging interaction between the ‘genders’. Inter-dining, inter-gender sports and dialogue should be encouraged to break the social barriers of caste, class and gender. It helps in breaking gender-related myths, reduces sexual tensions and is a first step in harmonising conflict in colleges.

Social behaviour also helps us in understanding day-to-day conflict in colleges. Notion of caste and class play a vital role in formulating these conflicts. Indian society has varied layers of caste and class hierarchies. Such notions inevitably foster ‘group-formation’ among students. Group-formation is essential to solidarity between members of various castes and classes, at times to resist oppression and hegemony. But in areas where social behaviour is marked often by feudal tensions of caste or/and class conflicts, such attitudes will be reflected in college politics too. Besides inter-state/ regional groupings also play a significant role in fostering solidarity on the one hand but also conflict on the other. Very often minor personal tussle transforms into inter-caste, inter-class or inter-regional conflicts.

Dealing with such conflicts requires rigorous encouragement of intra-caste, class and regional interaction which would help in breaking the narrow parochial barriers of social behaviour. The engagement of teachers and academia is extremely essential in this exercise. Academics have to find answers to issues related to the society and channelizing the energies of students towards constructive activities relating to their day-to-day problems. In addition to it, in a multi-ethnic/religious society like India, conflicts can also turn into inter-ethnic/religious violence. It is essential to engage students in critically debating on these issues, discussing and eliminating biases and fostering peace and cooperation.

Ideology has played a significant role in the emergence of student politics. In the 1960s-70s, student unrest in colleges was significantly determined by various ideological positioning. Elections to student council/bodies continue to be fought on the lines of state or national political parties. In a majority of cases party conflicts lead to apparently unavoidable conflict in colleges. Violent forms of such conflicts are condemnable but politics should be placed in a proper perspective. Rather the effort should be on shaping leadership and extending debates by organising discussions on political issues. De-politicisation is a serious character of students’ politics in colleges; the focus should be on guiding their energies on socially productive behaviour, critical thinking and nation building.

Efforts should be laid on building leadership but at the same time delinking students’ politics from narrow and divisionary party feuds. It is further essential to differentiate between physical violence and unrest. While violence is condemnable and unacceptable in any democratic society, unrest is crucial to the evolution of social thought. It strengthens criticality and dynamism in social behaviour. It is also essential to understand that equal participation of both boys and girls can inculcate cohesiveness and conjure social responsibility. It is also essential to engage students in academic debates which strengthens intellect and fosters democratic solidarity.

Conflict also manifests in the form of rampant gender-based eve-teasing and occasional cases of molestation in the colleges. Many colleges have enacted strict laws against such cases. These measures should be strengthened in colleges throughout India. Eve-teasing and molestation degrades human and individual dignity and ruptures emotional integrity. Though laws can act as effective deterrent, it is essential to engage and sensitise the perpetuators of such violence. There are other forms of violence, for instance in the colleges and university hostels of Panjab University, where students are often known to hurling both physical and verbal abuses on mess/canteen workers who live in pitiable conditions. Authorities should be intolerant to such incidents. These migrant workers suffer from multiple forms of alienation. Their living conditions are a grim reminder of our social reality. Students should rather engage with such core issues of progressive politics.

Violence is an articulation of emotional, sexual and psychological anxieties on the one hand and social, economic and political underpinnings on the other. Productive channelization of students and academic churning on these issues can be crucial to resolving and managing conflict in colleges. In cases of violent conflicts colleges resort to protective policing, but in the long run these measures should be corroborated with a more sustainable mechanism of conflict resolution. Yet there are other forms of conflicts between teachers, with management, which should be equally addressed in the interest of students.

Acknowledgements: This presentation benefits from a panel discussion 'Culture of Violence and Academic Atmosphere in Panjab University’ organised by Critique on 26 August 2003. I am also thankful to Deepa Sharma for her useful comments. It was presented at the 80th General Orientation Course at Academic Staff College, Panjab Unversity, Chandigarh on 16 December 2008.