FYUP row (Hindustan Times, 25 June)
Where Are The War Poets ?
They who in folly or mere greed
Enslaved religion, markets, laws,
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom’s cause.
It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse –
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.
If it were not so near home, the farce unfolding over Delhi University’s Four Year Undergraduate Program (FYUP) would be entirely funny. To have Madhu Kishwar accuse Smriti Irani of being an agent of the left, and to have the left describe the UGC take over of the university as a great victory is bad enough, without the added spectacle of a divided Congress unable to decide whether the FYUP is much loved or much hated. The fact is, the university had no business passing the FYUP in the manner that it did, but the UGC has even less business going over the heads of the university administration and the academic council. If today it can write directly to College Principals threatening to withdraw funding unless they revert to a three-year program, tomorrow it might do the same unless they agree to implement courses in Vedic astrology or compulsory Hindi teaching in all courses.
They who in folly or mere greed
Enslaved religion, markets, laws,
Borrow our language now and bid
Us to speak up in freedom’s cause.
It is the logic of our times,
No subject for immortal verse –
That we who lived by honest dreams
Defend the bad against the worse.
Cecil Day Lewis.
If it were not so near home, the farce unfolding over Delhi University’s Four Year Undergraduate Program (FYUP) would be entirely funny. To have Madhu Kishwar accuse Smriti Irani of being an agent of the left, and to have the left describe the UGC take over of the university as a great victory is bad enough, without the added spectacle of a divided Congress unable to decide whether the FYUP is much loved or much hated. The fact is, the university had no business passing the FYUP in the manner that it did, but the UGC has even less business going over the heads of the university administration and the academic council. If today it can write directly to College Principals threatening to withdraw funding unless they revert to a three-year program, tomorrow it might do the same unless they agree to implement courses in Vedic astrology or compulsory Hindi teaching in all courses.
It is true that the DU administration has violated so many academic
conventions and laws in its haste to push through the FYUP that claims to academic
autonomy sound sour in its name. Faculty have discovered major changes only
through the media, been ordered to frame syllabi within weeks, the
administration refuses to meet professors with alternative points of view and
dissenting departments are punished in myriad ways. Faculty appointments have
been unpardonably delayed, and even those appointments that have been made have
been hostage to the VC’s grand plan. In the history department, which has long
fought against the changes, none of the experts recommended by the faculty were
put on the interview panel, and outstanding historians were superseded by mediocre
ones who supported the FYUP. The right to critical thinking and expression by
faculty is the basic bloc of a university’s autonomy.
However, there are genuine differences over the FYUP. Not
all those who supported it did so because of some corporate agenda to decimate
DU”s “flagship program” to pave the way for private sector entry in liberal
higher education. Many genuinely believed that the potential for
interdisciplinarity it afforded, and the chance for a student to exit with some
degree after two years would be a good thing. Yes, the Vice Chancellor and his
team were adept at mobilizing support, but are the UGC and MHRD saying that all
the College principals and department heads - including many BJP stalwarts - who voted for the FYUP in the academic
council were mere puppets?
The spectacle of lakhs of students applying to DU shows that
it is not three or four years that matters to them, but the brand that DU
offers. Ultimately, it is not the course but the teachers who matter, and unless
they are able to have a discussion around courses on academic rather than
political lines, this brand is doomed to fail.
If DU has violated laws, so has the UGC which sat on the
issue for a year at the behest of the Congress MHRD ministers before changing its mind. The UGC is meant to be a statutory
and autonomous body to regulate education, but its willingness to serve
whichever party is in power has never been more evident. If the DU VC leaves, as
many are demanding, so must the UGC chairman.
As usual with the BJP’s doublespeak, the HRD Minister is
claiming to have outsourced the decision to the UGC, even as the NDTF and ABVP
are taking credit for the change. Far from the HRD Minister being a “left
agent”, it is the DUTA and left student unions, which have so far fought a
principled struggle, who run the risk of becoming unwitting agents of the RSS
supported destruction of institutional autonomy.
There is still a way out if all parties put institutions
first. Let UGC take its directive back, let the UGC panel to overhaul the
program be reconstituted as a DU committee, and let the academic council deliberate
again, this time taking proper heed of anti-FYUP views. A short delay in admissions
is a small price to pay for the educational future of this country.
