If the fizzled out university elections deflated your spirits, the storm filled intra-college politics ought to give you a new high. Lady Shri Ram College, which made the news the last academic year with their email campaigns organizing corridor blocking dharnas have decided to add a new chapter to DU online politics: Blogging.
A mass email announced the setting up of the LSR political blog: lsrkiawaaz.wordpress.com. The blog is moderated by an anonymous group which calls itself LsrKiAwaaz. The purpose of the blog is apparently to “create a mature ground for political contestations and reasoned discussions on issues that have anything to do with college.” With an invitation extended to students, alumni, professors and principal alike the blog aims at bringling up old allegedly unresolved issues such as inflated café prices, semester system etc. as well as tackling some new ones such as the commercialization and privatization of higher education and the rather politically charged question of whether LSR should join the Delhi University Students Union. The last of the listed issued was one which saw great contention in the form of heated debates and discussions with a number of students demanding an alternate students union or an initiation to DUSU politics. The reason for this demand, according to one comment on the blog, is “not because the university student politics is any better, indeed it is much worse, but because they at least have complete and utter autonomy and can take up student causes without fear, even if they be against college administration”.
With just a single post up the blog has already roused great interest and is sure to see much political action in the near future. In any case it has proved once again how politics is slowly acquiring a whole new quite virtual dimension. The group LsrKiAwaaz quaintly declares as much in its little attempt at self justification:
“We believe that a consolidated effort at re-opening democratic spaces is the need of the hour. And because this space is not easily accessible to us in the real world, LSR KI AWAAZ is an attempt at creating it in the virtual world.”
Some Comments on the Blog:
neha says:
This is amazing. Yes, I do think it’s time that we started debating issues. When was the last time we were allowed to say something without being told that we are being disloyal to college? Sure hope those are not charges made against us this time. Well done guys. Way to go.
TBR says:
We cannot begin to congratulate you for this effort. It
is difficult to start something new. It’s sometimes even tougher to
pick up the pieces left over from a pretty ruthless clamp-down and
start something up again — that requires, often, more courage, more
resilience, for you are working with the knowledge of what
repercussions this might have. As far as TBR was concerned, we knew
things would never be easy or cordial, but we had not anticipated the
extent of the backlash. You witnessed it, experienced it, and have
returned. Hats off to you people.
Ex-Exec says:
[The college authorities] do it because they can, of course. They have the power, and they can therefore, manipulate. However, the fact that they had to resort to such persecution not only exposes the falsity of their outwardly calm, articulate and democratic appearance; it also tells you something about how intensely insecure and hollowed out their control is.
crazyblacklab says:
The problem as I see it is that our own elected union has no power to operate. We apparently have student representatives there to voice our problems and treat us fairly but inevitably they get cowed down by the rather dictatorial college administration.
Take a certain Staff Adviser of the (… …) societies for example who arbitrarily decides on who to send for prestigious inter college competitions without either holding a fair audition or even consulting the society unions. If the student representative in this case who supposedly has complete authority finds herself dictated to by a Staff ‘Adviser’, it shows the small measure of control students are allowed over their own college life.
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