Lessons Not To Learn

By Shobhan Saxena

Modern education is not just about developing a good temper or building loads of self-confidence , it's about experimenting with new ideas and challenging the old ones. A modern university is not just huge lecture halls, hi-tech labs and swanky cafeterias, it's a place that can take young minds to the frontiers of knowledge. But in 21st century India, the campuses seem to be either regressing or are still living in the past. A few incidents on some of our most prestigious campuses this month show how new ideas are being resisted and old, archaic thinking imposed on students by the people who are supposed to guide them.

On October 9, the academic council of Delhi University decided to drop A K Ramanujan's essay 'Three Hundred Ramayanas' from a course in the history syllabus after some faculty members objected to it for being "blasphemous" . A week later, at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the administration issued a showcause notice to the president of All India Backward Students' Forum for "denigrating" gods and goddesses after a section of dalit students decided to observe 'Mahishasura Day' to reiterate that the demon killed by Durga "belonged to a backward community" . Again, the move was called "blasphemous" , a word generally heard in medieval fiefdoms, not in secular democracies.

In both cases, as usual, the debate turned into a shrill slanging match between the right and left. The real point about academic freedom and free speech being curtailed on campuses was completely missed. "The lesson from this episode is to realize that any epic, phenomenon, event and text in history is multivocal; their meanings are multiple, alternative , complex, conflicting and not final. Undergraduate students have to be exposed to such cultural diversities, narratives and different perspectives. No academic council, administrative body or political group has the right to interfere in an academic course at the undergraduate level. Academic freedom and historians' territory should be protected from political attacks on history teaching and history-writing ," says Nonica Datta, who teaches history at Miranda House, Delhi. The problem is that history is not being left to historians . Everyone, including the lunatic fringe wings of political groups, has jumped into the debate. But the real problem could be the academics themselves. "The recent controversy in JNU is another instance of the oppressive mindset of the academia. JNU is considered an institution of excellence. But so-called Hindu orthodox organizations are trying to smash its secular fabric and forcing the administration to take action against backward caste students," says K P Singh, dean, school of humanities and social sciences and chief proctor of Gautam Buddha University in Greater Noida. "The academic system in most Indian universities is worse than the caste system. In social sciences if someone wants to research on issues related to caste, that scholar is judged not on the basis of merit of the subject matter but on his or her caste," says the social scientist who till recently taught at the Washington State University, Seattle.

Religious bias, caste prejudice, regional stereotyping and gender discrimination plague our universities for a reason. The campuses don't exist in a vacuum. They are merely showing symptoms of society at large. As the politics of intolerance grows, the universities , too, have fallen to the culture of hooliganism. Four years ago, Rohinton Mistry's Such A Long Journey was introduced in a course in colleges affiliated to Mumbai University. But in August 2010, Shiv Sena supremo Balasaheb Thackeray's grandson Aditya, a student of St Xavier's College, mobilized the party's student wing - Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena - whose workers burnt copies of the book and asked the university's then newly appointed vice-chancellor Rajan Welukar to drop the book from the syllabus as it contained "matter that was anti-Shiv Sena" .

And the university obeyed the Thackeray scion's diktat without a murmur. "Timidity has no place in academia. Heads of such institutions must have the courage to face the music," says writer Aroon Tikekar. Prominent Mumbaikars, students and filmmakers defied the Sena workers by gathering at the Mumbai Press Club and reading out passages from the book. But that did little to change the stand of the university. The novel is still banned.

Indian campuses have been always prone to interference from political parties but the nature of intervention has changed dramatically over the decades . In the early and mid-1970 s, students and teachers joined Jayaprakash Narayan's "Total Revolution" and rose against the Emergency; now the climate on campuses is more conformist."The change happened in the early 1990s as the anti-Mandal agitation and L K Advani's rath yatra vitiated the social atmosphere . That also led to the rise of ABVP on campuses across the country and many academics, who were earlier shy of expressing their right-wing views, came out in the open," says a JNU professor. With the rise of backward politics coinciding with the growth of militant Hindutva, it's not surprising that most campus conflicts have happened around the issues of caste and religion. "In the undergraduate courses of Madhya Pradesh colleges they teach the virtues of the caste system. You can imagine what kind of students will come out of this educational system," says a lecturer in a Bhopal college who doesn't want to be named.

Regression is not just limited to syllabus and teaching. Some institutions have begun to give their students lessons in social behaviour too. In 2006, Bangalore University decided that boys and girls should sit in separate rows in class. "If sitting near a boy is being progressive, I do not agree with it," K Narahari, a former MLC who was part of the university syndicate that took the decision, had said as some students protested against the move. After creating gender segregation in the classroom, the university also tried to impose a dress code, but did not succeed. Still, many colleges in India's Silicon Valley have a dress code for students. "It's the security guard at the gate who decides whether we are decently dressed or not. If he thinks that we have a 'provocative' dress on, we are to go back and change and miss the first hour. What's decent and indecent for him, we have not yet figured out," says Smrithi R a final- student of Christ University.

Wearing jeans may not be a sign of a liberal mind, but in the eyes of university authorities it's definitely a symbol of decadence. In 2009, the fashion police cracked down on colleges in Kanpur, mandating that women teachers and students should dress "decently" to ensure discipline on the campus. The ban, 'unofficially' imposed by the management of four colleges, prohibited denims, long earrings, sleeveless blouses and high-heeled shoes. "I am a proponent of appropriate clothing on campus, but to say that all women who wear a pair of denims are dressed inappropriately is ridiculous. What we need are courses on gender sensitization, starting from school, to change this mindset; not some ridiculous rules about clothing," says Nishi Pandey, a professor of English at Lucknow University.

But that seems to be the last thing on the mind of the authorities even as students, especially those from the northeast, suffer in silence. "There is an immediate stereotyping of women from the northeast by the administration as well as by some other dominant, aggressive elements on the campus. These women face discrimination, sexual harassment and violence in their everyday life. Many of them, for fear of being attacked, are forced into confinement in hostels and colleges," says Datta of Miranda House. The curriculum imposes "limits" as well. "We don't have any references to the northeast in our undergraduate courses. Our curriculum has a strong north Indian bias and perspectives and histories from the south and northeast are not taught." Ramanujan's essay somehow bridged this gap as it mentioned 300 versions of the Ramayana in different languages and from different regions. Perhaps that's the reason it was dropped from DU's syllabus.

With reports from Hemali Chhapia,Mumbai; SruthySusanUllas,Bangalore; Swati Mathur,Lucknow; MRamya, Chennai; Manash Pratim Gohain,Delhi, and Somdatta Basu, Kolkata