Universities for Teaching, Research and Politics
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 23 Oct 2017
Dr. Ravi P Bhatia – TRANSCEND Media Service
20 Oct 2017 – There are many outstanding universities in the world – Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Princeton, Toronto, La Sorbonne in France, Humboldt-Universität, Universität Freiburg, Moscow University, Tokyo University, Kyoto University etc. Perhaps no Indian University meets the standards of these institutes, but there are several institutions that are providing good academic courses and have had world renowned alumni and faculty from these institutions.
Another aspect of many world universities is to protest against the injustice seen in different forms in society – whether it is dictatorship, or against wars or gender or racial discrimination etc. This article discusses the type of student protests taking place and also the academic standards of universities in India. The focus for this is the Delhi University where I have had a long association — as a student, teacher and administrator.
Delhi University (DU) was established in 1922 by an Act of the then Central Legislative Assembly of the British India. The University was originally to be named Prince Charles University, but Rai Kedarnath, founder of Ramjas educational institutions, argued that if the university did not succeed it would bring a blot to the name of the Prince.
The University started with three Colleges affiliated to it: St. Stephens College, Hindu College and Delhi College and initially had two faculties of Arts and Science with about 750 students pursuing under graduate courses. Ramjas College also became affiliated to DU subsequently. The first Vice Chancellor (VC) of DU was Hari Singh Gour who remained VC till 1926. One of the important VCs the University has had is Maurice Gwyer who came as Chief Justice of British India and remained VC till 1950. Two places are named after Maurice Gwyer – Gwyer Hall a residential men’s post graduate Hostel started in 1938 and Maurice Nagar a residential colony opposite Ramjas College, for the University teachers and officials.
After the capital of British India shifted from Calcutta in 1911, a legislative assembly and Viceroy’s residence was built in Delhi. A few years later a mammoth and beautiful residence of the Viceroy was built on the Raisina Hill that today is the Rashtrapati Bhawan or President’s House. The existing Viceroy’s residence that was known as Vice Regal Lodge was handed over to Delhi University where the North Campus is still housed. In one of these rooms Mountbatten had proposed marriage to Edwina which she had accepted and the two played a significant role in the partition of the country in 1947. The vice regal lodge is also known for other reasons: Bhagat Singh a revolutionary fighting against the British colonialism was kept here for some time after he was captured and subsequently hanged to death.
The North Campus has several affiliated Colleges including St Stephen’s, Hindu, Ramjas, Miranda House (for women) etc. Others Colleges including the well-known women’s College Lady Sri Ram are spread over the entire city and offer courses in various academic disciplines as well as in many foreign languages – French, German, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Persian etc. There are also colleges of nursing, medicine, business administration etc.
The University Convocation is held annually to grant degrees and diplomas to students especially those who have topped in their subjects and also to several distinguished personalities of the world. The 25th silver jubilee convocation was to be held in 1947 but because of the partition of India into India and Pakistan, the celebration was held over to the next year. The Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru and the Viceroy Lord Mountbatten and some ministers of the Indian government Abul Kalam Azad and Zakir Hussain participated in the Convocation ceremony. Distinguished world personalities are awarded honorary degrees in some Convocations. President Eisenhower was one such recipient, another was the Princess of Thailand and there have been noted artistes and writers such as Satyajit Ray, Amrita Pritam etc. who have been awarded honorary degrees.
The University has also attracted several notable persons as students or teachers. The present Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi was a student of DU; so were several former chief ministers of Delhi – Sheila Dikshit, ML Khurana and several ministers of the government of India — Kapil Sibal, Arun Jaitley, Ambika Soni and others. Some distinguished personalities such as Aung San Sui Kyi (1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner), Girija Prasad Koirala (PM of Nepal), Zia-ul-Haq (6th President of Pakistan) have been alumni of Delhi University. Others in the field of Hindi cinema are the megastars – Amitabh Bachan, Shah Rukh Khan and others.
Luminaries such as Amartya Sen (Nobel prize winner of Economics), Manmohan Singh (Prime Minister of India 2004-14), Kaushik Basu (Chief Economist of the World Bank), Jagdish Bhagwati (Columbia University) have been teachers in the Delhi School of Economics (DSE). Veena Das of the Department of Sociology is now in John Hopkins University. There are other well-known scientists and mathematicians who have also been students and teachers of this University.
Apart from the outstanding alumni that have been produced by DU, there is also another side and that is the politics of the university both at the teacher and student’s levels. Politics is usually quite boisterous and occasionally shows a picture of violence in many universities but perhaps in India and especially in DU the politics is perhaps more than boisterous – it is often a breeding ground for future politicians of India.
A few of the ministers mentioned earlier who have studied in various institutes of DU have used its platform for learning the art of politics here and have thereby become successful politicians in their later lives. To what extent is this justified is often debated but no consensus emerges on this account. The protagonists of campus politics justify this by stating that one comes to study in universities not only for academic purposes of teaching and research but also to understand what acts of injustice are occurring and how these should be addressed. So what is wrong if some students learn about real type politics?
Student agitations and demonstrations are known worldwide to protest against social and political issues in several countries. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was started by peaceful student demonstrations in the streets of Budapest, which subsequently attracted workers and ordinary people to join these protests against the government. The University of Paris at Nanterre was closed In May 1968 due to student protests against the expulsion of Nanterre students.
German Socialist Student Union students have also taken part in the protests organized in the country for democracy as well as against the Vietnam War that was taking place by USA. Other students including from India have also protested against the practice of jallikatu in which bulls are forced to run in city plazas and some men are trained to capture these animals before they cause havoc among the bystanders. The practice which is an ancient one was being opposed because it was cruel to the animals and some men were also hurt in the process.
So we see that educational institutes offer good academic course in various disciplines but are often training platforms for future politicians.
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This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 23 Oct 2017.
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