A rigged election teaches a lesson no textbook can undo: that power matters more than principle, and winning matters more than being right.
A child entering a classroom carries more than a schoolbag. The child carries questions about the world, a developing sense of fairness and an instinctive belief that rules exist for everyone. We entrust schools and colleges with nurturing these instincts, teaching young people to distinguish right from wrong and preparing them to become responsible citizens. But what happens when the lessons they receive inside the classroom are contradicted by what they witness outside it? What happens when an election, supposedly an exercise in democracy, becomes a demonstration of how power can bend the rules to secure victory?
Odisha is confronting precisely this question as student union elections return to colleges and universities after an eight-year hiatus. Voting is scheduled for October 15, 2026, across participating institutions. The return of campus democracy should have been an occasion for celebration, an opportunity for a generation of students to experience representation, debate and accountability. Instead, the days preceding the elections have been marked by disputed nominations, protests, allegations of political interference, campus closures and cancellations of polls in several institutions. The Higher Education Department has reported 6,891 candidates in the fray across 359 institutions, but the numbers alone cannot tell us whether every student has had a fair opportunity to participate.
The details emerging from campuses are troubling. At Deogarh Degree College, the rejection of six of 11 submitted nominations triggered protests and an indefinite closure. Elsewhere, institutions have cancelled elections amid disputes over eligibility, attendance records and the possibility of violence. The BJD has accused the ruling BJP government of using administrative influence to favour candidates backed by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, including allegations of selective nomination scrutiny, pressure on college authorities and violations of the Lyngdoh Commission guidelines. The BJP’s opponents have also raised concerns about campaign spending and the involvement of political leaders. These accusations require independent scrutiny, and they should not be mistaken for proven findings. Yet the number and spread of the disputes raise a question that cannot be dismissed merely because the allegations are politically inconvenient: can an election inspire confidence when so many participants question the fairness of the process?
There is an important distinction between an election being lost and an election being experienced as stolen. Losing an election can teach a young person resilience, the need to persuade others, the value of organisation and the possibility of trying again. Losing fairly is an education in democracy. But when candidates believe that their nominations have been rejected selectively, when eligibility rules appear inconsistent, or when the threat of violence determines whether voting can take place, the lesson changes. A student may begin to believe that the outcome depends less on the quality of an argument or the support of fellow students than on access to power, administrative influence or the ability to intimidate opponents. The danger lies not only in whether these perceptions are justified in every individual case, but in what happens when institutions fail to resolve them transparently.
This is where the issue becomes much larger than the fortunes of the BJP, the BJD, the Congress or their respective student organisations. Every political party wants to win. There is nothing inherently wrong with a party supporting student candidates who share its ideas. The problem begins when the desire to win overwhelms the obligation to compete fairly. The Lyngdoh Commission recommendations exist precisely because student politics can become an extension of money power, muscle power and the influence of political organisations. Rules restricting campaign expenditure, outside interference and intimidation are not bureaucratic inconveniences; they are safeguards intended to ensure that students learn to compete through persuasion rather than coercion. If the adults who frame these rules are unwilling or unable to enforce them impartially, what exactly are students expected to learn from them?
The consequences do not remain confined to college corridors. A student who watches a powerful candidate escape scrutiny while a less influential rival is disqualified may carry that experience into professional life. A future civil servant may learn to accommodate political pressure rather than uphold procedure. A future businessperson may conclude that connections matter more than compliance. A future politician may discover that controlling institutions is more useful than earning public trust. None of these outcomes is inevitable, of course. Young people can recognise injustice and reject it. But institutions make a difference to the choices they consider normal. When unfairness repeatedly goes unchallenged, it risks becoming an accepted method of getting things done.
This is also why the national controversy over vote chori deserves attention, although the circumstances are different. In Delhi, opposition parties and student activists have protested over alleged electoral irregularities and the Election Commission’s voter-roll revision process. The Commission maintains that its work is intended to improve the accuracy of electoral rolls, while critics have raised concerns about exclusions and the possible partisan consequences of the exercise. These allegations require examination through evidence, transparent procedures and appropriate remedies. A college election and a national electoral-roll dispute are not identical, and one should not be used as proof of the other. But both bring us back to a common democratic principle: people must have confidence that the rules governing political participation are fair, and that complaints will be investigated by institutions capable of acting independently.
Democracy cannot survive on the mechanical act of casting a vote alone. It depends on the belief that each vote matters, that candidates can compete without fear, that authorities will not favour one side, and that the loser will accept the outcome because the process was fair. When these conditions weaken, cynicism takes their place. People stop asking whether a decision is just and begin asking whether it is advantageous. They stop expecting institutions to correct wrongdoing and start searching for someone powerful enough to protect their interests. Eventually, the distinction between lawful authority and the ability to impose one’s will begins to disappear.
That is how might is right becomes more than a slogan. It becomes a social principle. In a jungle, survival depends on strength, not fairness. The powerful take what they can, the weak learn to submit or find their own means of retaliation, and there is no neutral authority to which either can appeal. Human civilisation, with all its imperfect institutions, was built on the attempt to move beyond this condition. Laws, courts, elections and educational institutions are meant to restrain power, not simply provide it with a more respectable appearance. When they are manipulated for immediate advantage, society risks returning to the very logic they were created to overcome.
We often worry about the corruption of public officials, the criminalisation of politics, examination leaks, bribery and the growing impatience of young people with institutions. We tend to treat each as a separate problem requiring a separate remedy. Perhaps we should also ask whether they share a deeper cause: the repeated experience of seeing rules applied selectively, influence rewarded and accountability avoided. A child who sees dishonesty rewarded may eventually question the value of honesty. A student who sees merit displaced by muscle power may stop believing in merit. A citizen who sees institutions protect the powerful may begin to look for protection rather than justice. Corruption is not transmitted only through money changing hands; it is also transmitted through the values a society teaches, consciously or otherwise.
This brings us back to the classroom and the question posed in my earlier article: who decides what our children should know? We may teach them the Constitution, the freedom struggle, the importance of equality and the responsibilities of citizenship. We may ask them to respect institutions, settle disagreements peacefully and accept defeat with dignity. But these lessons lose their force when the institutions they are asked to respect fail to practise what they preach. Education is not merely what teachers explain or textbooks contain. It is also what young people observe adults doing when the stakes are high and principles become inconvenient.
Odisha’s student elections can still become a meaningful democratic exercise. That requires transparent scrutiny of disputed nominations, impartial investigation of complaints, consistent enforcement of the rules, protection against intimidation and clear explanations for every cancellation of a poll. Where wrongdoing is established, there must be consequences. Where allegations are unfounded, that too must be demonstrated transparently. The objective cannot be to secure victory for one student organisation or another. It must be to ensure that students emerge from the experience with greater faith in democratic participation, not less.
The immediate contest will be decided by ballots, victories and defeats. The more important result, however, will be harder to count. It will be measured in what these students come to believe about fairness, authority and the value of doing the right thing when doing the wrong thing might be easier. Years from now, some of them will occupy positions of responsibility in government, business, public institutions and civil society. They will make decisions affecting people who may never know what happened on their college campuses in October 2026.
When that time comes, will they remember their student elections as an introduction to democratic responsibility, or as their first lesson in the art of manipulating a system? Will they believe that power carries an obligation to act fairly, or that power itself is sufficient justification? These are questions no election result can answer. They will be answered, over time, by the kind of society this generation chooses to build.
And that society, in many ways, is already being shaped in our classrooms and college corridors.
(Views expressed by the columnist are personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or policy of the news portal)
