Just a few years ago, student activism and protests were a rarity at Chulalongkorn University – considered Thailand’s most elite and staunchly conservative campus. Yet Thailand’s oldest university, named after King Chulalongkorn, has since become yet another battleground for debate over the role of Thailand’s monarchy and political system.
On Saturday, the head of the student union, Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, said he had been removed from his post by the university, which accused him of activities that damaged its reputation, undermined public order and were incompatible with Thai culture.
“They think I’m symbolic of something they have to get rid of, because now the younger generation are very radical,” he said, adding that it was likely that the university administration wanted to remove anyone who might spur on activism among younger students.
The student union has provoked the ire of royalists by questioning the university’s politics and traditions. On King Chulalongkorn memorial day last year, it announced it had voted to scrap the Phra Kiao coronet parade, a tradition where two students are carried above the shoulders of others, along with the coronet, an emblem of the university, at an annual football match. Student critics described it as a symbol of authoritarianism. The union has also issued statements opposing the university’s decision to grant an honorary doctorate to a prominent business tycoon, and apologising for the role of its alumni in past political protests against ’s government.
But it was perhaps the student union’s choice of speakers at an initiation event that most infuriated conservatives. Young activists who have led mass protests calling for the king’s powers to be curbed, and an exiled dissident who runs a popular Facebook group critical of the monarchy, were invited to address new students through a video link.
Parit Chiwarak, 24, a protest leader known by his nickname, Penguin, showed his middle finger and told the audience that the university belonged to students and the people – not to the administration. He faces a raft of legal charges over his role in leading mass protests in 2020 calling for the royal budget to be cut, and for its influence across politics and society to be curbed. The protests shocked the political establishment, and broke a long-held taboo around criticism of the royals.
Since July 2020, more than 1,700 people have been charged under various laws for expressing their political views and taking part in protests.
Parit, who faces hundreds of years in prison over his activism, was released last week after spending more than 200 days in pre-trial detention. The court requested bail of 2m baht for his release; within hours, an online campaign raised more than 10m baht. Anon Nampa, a human rights lawyer and prominent activist, remains in detention.
Alongside a legal clampdown, other forms of pressure have been exerted by those who oppose the calls for reform – from attempts by one university to censor student artwork deemed too political to threats by some companies that graduates who do not attend their graduation ceremony will be blacklisted for employment. The ceremonies, which are presided over by members of the royal family, have been boycotted by some protesters.
Tyrell Haberkorn, professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the targeting of Chotiphatphaisal was part of a much broader pattern of attacks within universities that started after the 2014 coup. “A dean or a department chair will call a student into their office or call a faculty member into their office to say we know you’ve done X, Y, X,” she said.
Elite universities such as Chulalongkorn feel especially threatened by dissent within its student population, said Haberkorn. “Even though students everywhere are rising up, I think somehow they thought it wouldn’t happen where they were.”
Young people’s attitudes towards politics have changed dramatically over the past few years, said Sirin Mungcharoen, known by the nickname Fleur, who recently graduated from Chulalongkorn University. A court ruling that dissolved the popular opposition party Future Forward, provoking the anger of its young support base, was one of several events that galvanised students. The party had been accused of receiving an illegal loan, a claim it denied.
“[In the past] it wasn’t trendy or cool to be into politics,” she said. “Netiwit and other activists like me were seen as strange or different for caring about politics.”
In his earlier years as a student, Chotiphatphaisal refused to participate in a ceremony where first year students prostrate themselves before a statue of King Chulalongkorn. At that time, he said, many students opposed his actions.
Mass protests led by young people have halted, as the authorities have imposed heavy legal penalties on organisers. Yet activists say that change is inevitable. “Some of my professors say, and I agree, [the establishment] won the battle, but not the war,” said Netiwit.
There are other students who will grow to take on the role of activists and protest leaders who have been blocked from positions or detained, said Haberkorn. Younger students in Bangkok’s elite high schools, who will soon progress to higher education, are even more politically engaged than their older peers, Haberkorn added: “The universities have no idea what’s going to hit them.”
