Campus unrest is not an uncommon feature in India. Recent weeks have seen Tezpur University in Assam and VIT University in Bhopal become the latest examples of student protests.

A well-known case concerning Tamil Nadu deals with the controversy triggered by Annamalai University conferring the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters, in July 1971, upon then Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi. The sad aspect of the row was the death of K.P. Udayakumar, a third-year student of B.Sc. (Maths), under circumstances that have remained a mystery to date.

A few months after he was sworn in Chief Minister for the second time, following his Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) smashing success in the Lok Sabha-Assembly elections earlier that year, Karunanidhi was chosen by the University to be conferred th

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