About 2,000 students and staff staged a flash protest on the college premises. Others supported their demands outside. Educators, politicians of all hues and persuasions, conservationists, architects, heritage enthusiasts, and alumni rose in solidarity. | Photo Credit: R. RAGU
On January 31, 2003, during the ongoing Assembly session, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa dropped a bombshell. As is often the case, it didn’t seem like a bomb at all. In just a few days and months, the protests really gained momentum and enthusiasm. What ended up being one of the most exciting protests in the city, because it happened from the most exciting emotions – nostalgia and love – the desire to see the past directly.
What did Jayalalithaa do? He announced that since the current Secretariat, operations at Fort St. George, built in the 1970s in a dilapidated state, a new administrative town will be established at Sholinganallur. So far so good. He also said that since it will take 15 to 25 years to build a complete city, in the meantime, the Secretariat will be moved to an empty space in front of the Marina in the next two years. But when you build in the Marina, there is very little space left unoccupied, so it becomes imperative that what is there must come down. The ax has fallen on Queen Mary’s College. But it’s not the original choice. A previous proposal to build a Secretariat on the site of the Lady Willingdon Institute was abandoned as it lacked sufficient depth. The Queen Mary’s College site, on the other hand, is over 26 acres.
Now, the Chief Minister has miscalculated the impact of the decision. After all, several generations of students have passed through the college that was founded in 1914, and nothing, nothing binds them like college students.
Historical significance
Queen Mary’s College, or QMC as it is known among the people of the city, has been an important part of India’s history, having been established during the colonial era. As a college that educates women in advanced times, it has seen some firsts and has had some alumni who have made significant contributions to India’s freedom struggle, and to independent India. No less than Captain Lakshmi Seghal of the Indian National Army, former Vice Chancellor and former Chairperson of the State Commission for Women V. Vasanthi Devi, and IAS officers Shanta Sheela Nair and Jayanthi. The college’s website notes that the first three widows of south Indian graduates – Ammukutty, Pavathy, and Lakshmi – are from QMC. It also has a colonial structure that is a symbol of the city’s heritage, and its students, the city quickly learns, hate it and won’t take no for an answer.
Some QMC staff decided to hold a demonstration in front of the institution on March 27. About 2,000 students and staff staged a flash protest on the college premises. Others supported their demands outside. Educators, politicians of all hues and persuasions, conservationists, architects, heritage enthusiasts, and alumni rose in solidarity. They expand the protest of students outside the world and lend weight to this rather intense unequal struggle of the war between the all-powerful government on the one hand, and a band of loyal female students on the other. People pointed to how colleges accommodated women from lower economic strata and called on the government to reverse its decision.
The inheritance argument
Of course, the legacy argument is also loud. In a city, which unfortunately did not have a functional heritage conservation law at the time, the activists pointed out that the institution was also famous for its heritage value and its location near the Marina. They argue that it is the government’s duty to restore the dilapidated buildings on the QMC campus, and instead it will mindlessly destroy the heritage structure, under the pretext that they have fallen.
The students started gathering every day on the front apron of the campus after the exams to continue the demonstration and ensure that the government withdraws before the annual holiday begins. If they don’t protest then, they fear, they will have to go back to the ruins.
The Hindu noted that the evening student president R. Mohana Priya said: “Where can you go if they destroy the college during the holidays? That is why we will now hold demonstrations despite the exams. Everyone has an argument as to why the building should not be demolished. K. Rajeswari, a lecturer in the department of history, said: “QMC, started in 1914 as India’s first women’s college, is approaching its centenary. Do you know how difficult it is to grow and sustain a college for so long? And the government wants to abolish it completely fast!
A dramatic turn of events
Naturally, the matter went to court. Political leaders also joined the protest. Today’s Chief Minister MK Stalin, who was then the chief of DMK’s youth wing and had served as the Mayor of Chennai, was arrested amid high drama, in April, and later lodged in Cuddalore jail. The First Information Report on her read that she had assaulted a guard at QMC, and Jayalalithaa herself stated that she had also harassed students to disturb and disrupt their preparation for exams. As the dramatic events continue to add to the atmosphere, on April 22, the Central government (TR Baalu ​​​​DMK easily became the Union Environment Minister) banned the demolition and reconstruction of heritage and historic buildings, and buildings for public use, including those used for education, on the coast. The Madras High Court which followed the State government, also extended this Central order.
In August, the government finally decided to consider the possibility of using another parcel of land to build an interim Secretariat. They zeroed in on the property belonging to Anna University in Kotturpuram, and the plan to destroy the QMC gave up. The city was relieved.
It is another matter that this plan is completely abandoned. After the DMK government came to power, they built a massive structure to be used as a Secretariat under the head of Anna Salai in the Omandurar Campus and inaugurated in 2010. As luck would have it, or we should say politics, even the grand plan came to nothing, and today , the Secretariat continues to function out of the same Complex that is said to have been dilapidated nearly 21 years ago.
