Meet the Youthful Face of Resistance to Thailand's Junta
Every year, on the first day of school, thousands of first-year students file onto a field on the campus of Chulalongkorn, Thailand’s oldest and among its most prestigious universities, in the heart of the sweltering capital Bangkok. In crisp, white uniforms with slim black belts, they kneel in neat rows in front of a bronze effigy of King Rama VI, the school’s founder, and his father, its namesake. With their foreheads touching the ground, inductees pledge to honor the institution and obey the world’s richest royal family, which shares prestige and power in this Southeast Asian kingdom with its chief protector, the army.
Last year, two freshmen didn’t take the oath.
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Before he started college as a political science major, Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal read in a book that the practice of prostration had been abolished by King Chulalongkorn, who, the story goes, believed that forcing his subjects to kneel at his feet was cruel and humiliating. Puzzled that the tradition had survived despite a royal decree, Netiwit enlisted a friend to join him in a quiet act of protest. The pair raised their hands and stood up among the sea of students prone in the summer sun. Their peers looked around confusedly as they approached the statue, where they bowed their heads for a moment and then walked away. This simple act of defiance was shocking in a country where being just seen as irreverent toward the monarchy is a criminal offense.
“I don’t want [prostration] to be banned, but people need to be informed about what it means,” Netiwit tells TIME on a recent visit to one of the school’s libraries, saying that the act belies a “hidden political agenda.”
