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https://thewire.in/education/why-are-delhi-university-teachers-out-on-the-road
However, it was Ms Renuka Dhar whose endorsement made me look at it twice as the subject is of immense and immediate importance to this country coming out of the thraldom of the Colonial state before 1947 and the neo-Colonial between then and 2014.
Almost exactly a year ago I happened to be in Delhi and just on a whim decided to visit my old college from where I had graduated with Honors in English in the year 1965. Now, over 53 years later, I found I had enough time on my hands and a visit to the old haunts would be a refreshing outing, especially in the pleasant December weather of old Delhi.
I have very fond memories of my 3 years in Kirori Mal (KM) College, situated off Bungalow Road and across Kamla Nagar. While a student at IIMC from 1965 to 1967, I did visit the college and meet friends, during term breaks, but after that my visits to Delhi became infrequent. This would be the first time I would enter the portals of the college in 50 years. The very thought was exhilarating and I was eagerly looking forward to reliving a part of the past that so substantially influenced my future.
Taught by such luminaries as the Principal, Dr. Sarup Singh, with Profs. Mangat Ram, Hiren Gohain, O. P. Bhatia, S. P. Goyal, and others, I had, what can only be described, a privilege. Our batch had just 11 students and many times Prof. Gohain (who taught us Milton) would take us to the Indian Coffee House, that was just outside the Kamla Nagar gate of the college and buy us a cup of coffee, while explaining Satan's despair in "Paradise Lost." The presence of two ladies in our batch gave us the privilege to sit in the "Family Room" of the coffee house.
Dr. Singh, who taught us Shakespeare, never came to the classroom, but instead held the class in his office. We would sit around the large conference table in his room, and the hours would just fly by. His class had no time limit, and no bell would be rung at a specified interval. It would go on till he wished, and we just sat there, absorbing the sunshine he exuded. Dr. Singh would order pots of tea from the college canteen and we would all be treated to it while he agonized with King Lear. Many of these sessions, that would normally start in the evening, lasted for over two hours. Later in my life I found an equivalent in the English teacher John Keating of the film "Dead Poets Society."
KM college had perhaps the best dramatic society those years. Big B was a student, but didn't do anything much while there. The college won the inter-college youth festival award for the best play in 1964. The play was an adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's horror story "The Tell-Tale Heart." It had the brilliant comic actor Ravi Baswani in the lead role, with Subhash Nehra, a student from Kenya, Amarjit Singh Gill, and yours truly, in the cast. The play was directed by Raghu Sudan, who later did outstanding work with Yatrik. Other of my contemporaries included brilliant artists like Kulbhushan Kharbanda, (who, incidentally, I am still in touch with), Dinesh Thakur, T. P. Jain, V. M. Badola, and Shyam Arora. Unfortunately, Ravi Baswani, Dinesh Thakur, T. P. Jain and Shyam Arora are no longer in our midst, but they have given some memorable performances during their brief careers in Bombay films. I am not very comfortable with calling that era by its present day nomenclature "Bollywood." Prof. Frank Thakurdas, who taught Political Science at the college, was also the faculty in-charge of "The Players" the name by which our Dramatic Society was known. I was not his student as I didn't have Political Science even as a subsidiary subject. Recently I read that Big B claims to have been taught English by him, but I doubt that very much. Big B was a B. Sc. student, and Prof. Thakurdas did not teach English as a subject.
When we won the award Prof. Frank Thakurdas instituted the award of a College Colour for Dramatics that was pinned to our blazers at the annual day of the college. Normally, college colours are awarded for excellence in sports, and we are perhaps the only group of college students who received it for theater. Designed on the crest of Heidelberg University as the outline, the colour was the size of the breast pocket of a blazer, and buttoned on top of it. In my peripatetic life, I have lost this prized pocket decoration that I wore for many years with great pride.
After graduating in 1967 I was planning to do my Masters in English when I got a letter from IIM Calcutta informing me that I had been selected for admission to the second PGP course that began in August 1965. Apparently, I had done well in the written test and the personal interview that followed. I wasn't sure if that was what I really wanted to do. Dr. Singh also heard that I was unlikely to pursue the subject any further. He sent a word to me that I should see him at his residence that evening. I called upon him and he lectured me for about an hour-and-a-half telling me not to abandon my subject and to continue with English literature and complete my masters. He assured me that he would appoint me as a lecturer in the college immediately after getting my M.A. degree, never mind, even with minimum pass marks. Since I didn't have any business blood in my make-up (we Kashmiri Hindus are more inclined towards bureaucratic, teaching or engineering careers) Dr. Singh left me thoroughly confused. I loved my subject as also the professors who taught me. But then, a career in business with all the attendant financial rewards, was also very tempting. At this juncture I ran into Prof. Frank Thakurdas. I told him what Dr. Singh had advised me and how I found myself at a loss. He said that I would regret if I let go of the IIMC opportunity and recommended that I ignore Dr. Singh's advice.
I heeded him, and to this day have not forgiven myself for the mistake I made. I knew it within a week of joining the institute in Calcutta. But I don't blame Prof. Thakurdas for my mistake. He was a wonderful, kind person and he had only my good at his heart. But, obviously, he didn't know me as well as Dr. Singh did.
What happened after Calcutta is another story and merits a separate post.
Coming back to last year's visit to KM College, I found myself at the same place where the Bungalow Road-Kamla Nagar gate used to stand. I found that the entire area had been built up with shops and the usually wide-open gate had been replaced by an iron-grill gate that was mainly shut, and one could enter only through a small opening in it. Once inside, I found a number of new structures had come up in the open spaces that existed half a century ago. I enquired about the situation of the Principal's office and was delighted to know that it was still where it had been in my times. I was told that the Principal was a lady, and that she was in her office at that time. I found my way easily to the room that used to be at the end of a long corridor on the ground floor. The office was there, but had been divided into two sections. The outer section was occupied by the Principal's secretary and staff, and one had to seek an audience with the Principal through the secretary.
I introduced myself to the gentleman as an ex-student who had passed through the portals of this institution 53 years ago, and would be delighted to pay my respects to the Principal for a few minutes if she had the time. The secretary promptly offered me a seat and went in to see the Principal. Within a trice he was out, holding the door open for me to walk into that hallowed space.
Dr. Vibha Chauhan, the Principal, was standing behind her table, welcoming me to a seat in front. Obviously, I must have come as a blast from the past, a time when she herself might have been a toddler. I could sense her astonishment at seeing a student, well into his 70's, coming back to a college that he had left so long back. I have seen such scenes in films, but never thought that it would happen to me. Pleasantries aside, she ordered a cup of tea and biscuits, reminiscent of how Dr. Singh used to do the same while teaching Shakespeare. But, gone was the long conference table and the chairs around it. The room was much smaller as the outer office had been cut out from the earlier space.
Dr. Chauhan also taught English and had been in this post for one year. But her challenges were much harder than what Dr. Singh faced. She had 5000 students on her rolls and a terrible shortage of teachers. This entire narrative I have inflicted upon the readers is only to highlight what I learnt from my visit to one college last year. Apparently, the college needed another 65 lecturers to be able to do justice to the students on roll. In our days the building consisted of a ground plus first floor. Now an additional floor had been added to accommodate more students. But the shortage of teaching staff was hurting the entire community. The college didn't have the flexibility to appoint more teachers and now we know the reasons for this paralysis from Ashley's article referred to in the beginning. From the information I got that day the numbers given by Ashley are no exaggeration.
We spoke of many things including the theater. Dr. Chauhan told me that the condition of the auditorium would bring tears to my eyes. So dilapidated it had become! We were interrupted by a lecturer of history who wanted the Principal to flag off a group of students who were starting a project visiting the neighboring Kamla Nagar area to unearth its history. Instead of going out the Principal asked the lecturer to call the students in as she had an "interesting ex-student" meaning me, in her office, with whom they should interact. About a dozen bright and eager-looking boys and girls walked in and sat on the sofas. I found them to be very involved in their studies and projects and I realized that I was learning much more from them than they were from me. As a student I had lived in Shakti Nagar, a walking distance from the college, and apparently, a part of the area the students were going to study.
I learned from the young students that this area was once known as Chandrawal village and dairy farming was the principal occupation of its inhabitants. The village had been commandeered by the British Army who appropriated all its produce. Apparently, the farmers had taken a pledge from Jawahar Lal Nehru that after independence the lands would be returned to them. But like most of his pledges even this remains unredeemed. This group was going to visit the descendants of those dairy farmers and reconstruct the history of Chandrawal and its redevelopment into the urban slum it is today.
I couldn't have asked for anything better than this wonderful opportunity to interact with fresh, young minds, and it is with great satisfaction and pride that I can say that KM College has not let its commitment to excellence wane by even one bit, despite all the challenges modern educational institutions in India face. It's not the youth that have failed India. It's the entire political-bureacratic establishment as well as the individual families that have failed them. If we put the JNU question to test here, we will find the same culprits responsible for its current state as a Naxal breeding ground. The Education Ministry, the UGC, and the plethora of other administrative interventions have played havoc with the temples of learning. Seventy years after independence we have not created one Nalanda, but have managed to erect a pathetic caricature in its place.
The ministry of education was renamed Ministry of Human Rights Development by Rajiv Gandhi. And like everything else he did, this too was a euphemism essentially to hide the lack of any constructive ideas. The name has been carried forward since then, and I am sorry to say that even Prime Minister Modi has treated it with scant attention. The Ministers assigned to this portfolio are uninformed and uncaring about the crucial importance of their charge. The Communists had asked Mrs Indira Gandhi for just one portfolio in return for their support to her Government. She gave them Education and Prof. Nurul Hassan was their appointee to this post. The havoc that this gentleman played with our educational system and institutions is worth a whole library of books on it. Any self-respecting government should have made the correction of this damage its primary goal. But Modi, even in his second term, seems to be completely oblivious of it. I fail to understand why?
After thanking the Principal, the lecturer and the students, I took my leave from them. Later, I sent an e-mail thanking her for the manner in which she received me in her office "when I requested for an audience without a prior appointment." I wrote, and I quote:
"I do not have enough words to express the emotionally overwhelming experience I had while interacting with the students and their history lecturer. The three best years of my life were as a student in KM College, and now I can assert that the one hour in your office and the hallowed precincts of the college almost equal that time and will fondly remain with me for the rest of my life.
"What was even more satisfying was the infectious enthusiasm of the children for the project that they were going to undertake. In fact, it was I who learnt a lot during that brief interaction with the students.
"Whatever I am today, and whatever I may have achieved in my life, it was KM College, its faculty, and the easy environment of learning that gave substance and purpose to me. I was so happy to note that the same spirit continues to pervade through the corridors of the building even now. I am sure that your contribution towards nurturing that spirit would be no less than that of Dr. Sarup Singh, whose office you occupy today."
To end, it's important to listen to Ms. Renuka Dhar, who writes while bringing the reader's attention to Ashley's article in The Wire:
"#EndAdhocism"
"#RestoreRightsOfDUTeachers"
"#StopAdhocExploitation"
Vijaya Dar
December 05, 2019
