Reunion at Uzhavoor college recreates a historic bus strike evoking nostalgic fervour

Kuravilangad: The plan was simple - stop the bus, make the protest heard and let the vehicle go. But what happened next was anything but planned. Students climbed aboard the private bus and, before anyone quite realised what was happening, drove it to the St Stephen’s College, Uzhavoor.

Nearly three decades later, the bus ride remains remarkably vivid in the memories of those who were there. At a reunion on Monday, former students who studied at the college between 1995 and 2000 found themselves revisiting one of the most memorable episodes of their college years.

It was 1996-97, and the campus was humming with election fever. Student organisations were out in force as preparations gathered pace for the college union polls. Amid the charged atmosphere came a complaint that a student had been pushed out of a private bus, an incident that was enough to spark a protest.

The agitation soon spilled out of the classrooms and onto the main road, where students stopped the bus at the centre of the complaint. It was a day they would remember long after their college years were over.

For those who returned to St Stephen’s on Monday, the reunion offered a glimpse into a very different era of campus life, one marked by student politics, camaraderie and the occasional burst of youthful rebellion.

The protest that refused to fade
Sheby Alex Kannampadam, then a student leader and now a lawyer, recalls how the events unfolded:
A complaint had surfaced that employees of a private bus operating through Uzhavoor had assaulted a student. Student organisations launched a protest, marching out of the college and onto the main road. The police soon arrived, and the DYSP laid down just one condition: the bus at the centre of the protest could be stopped, but the students should not block the road or cause inconvenience to other motorists. We agreed.

When the bus finally arrived, we stopped it amid loud slogans. The owner asked the driver to leave the vehicle where it stood and walk away, which he did. I stepped in to move the bus aside. But before I could, the excitement of the moment swept through the crowd. Students climbed aboard and, almost before we realised what was happening, drove the bus to the front of the college.

That was when the mood changed. Eight of us were taken into police custody and, by 8 pm, the bus had been moved from the college to the police station.

That night, our then principal, V P Thomaskutty, reached the Ettumanoor Circle Office to protest our detention. He told the police that he would not leave the station without getting his children back. Eventually, the police relented and released us.

But the matter did not end that night. The bus blockade and our unexpected drive left me facing a legal case that followed me to the Pala court for years, even after I completed my college education.

Looking back, that case became an unexpected turning point in my life . I eventually became a lawyer practising at the Kottayam Bar.