struggle Archives - DU Beat - Delhi University's Independent Student Newspaper

If all your answers in your society interviews were related to if you would be able to get sponsorships, whether it be the dramatics society or the placement cell, then this piece is for you.

On a bright sunny day, just before fest season begins, one can witness sleep- deprived college students burdened with lack of funds, and begging for sponsorships at many conference rooms. The hustle for getting sponsorships is quite exhausting for all, and even worse for freshers.
Being a fresher is daunting enough, as right outside the comfortable womb of school, you are settling-in, and yet exploring. In all this chaos, being sent on a sponsorship trip can give you something resembling an existential crisis.

Here are a few reasons why most freshers do not sign up for the sponsorship team in their societies:

The Client-Chasing

The third-years of your society are like gods to you. Whatever they say becomes the gospel truth, and perhaps, that is why you sign up for calling random cafés, IAS institutes, and local start-ups. It is very convenient how most seniors forget that you have literally no contacts, and to approach A-list companies without contacts is like getting full marks in a mathematics paper: highly improbable. What you are left with then, is visiting these institutions and cafés with your five-minute-long prepared speech on how your society event will provide them with the best marketing platform. If you are an introvert, you are allowed to cry in a corner, due to the added pressure of awkward interactions.
Dimple, a first-year member of the debating society of her college, said, “All we did few weeks before our inter- college parliamentary debate competition was call clients, asking to meet them. It was so awkward. We genuinely felt like Vodafone call centre asking people to shift from Airtel. Much before we were actually taught how to do parliamentary debates, we were taught how to get sponsorships.”

The Dreaded Rejection

Even if you bring your price down, from INR 1,00,000 to INR 10,000, there is a good chance that you still might not seal the deal. If you felt that the biggest battle was for you to make them agree to see your proposal, bazinga, you have been lied to. Most companies will just peruse through your seniors’ Power Point presentation-cum-proposal, and never actually give you any money. After a million follow-ups and a thousand requests of “please revert soon”, you realise that this was all just a move towards a dead- end. Then comes the sudden realisation that in the next society meeting, you have nothing to show for your work. Rhea Ahuja, Marketing Cell, Sri Venkateswara College, said, “With so much anticipation we send our proposals to the clients, later to just be dejected. I genuinely don’t like asking for sponsorships as most of them have already spent their budget on colleges like Shri Ram College of Commerce and Hindu College. They just stall us, only to reject us later.”

The Jugaad

It so happens that despite the reckless marketing, you are far from your desired budget. Then comes the most resource management any college student has ever done, from the tents to the water cooler, and somehow you manage to get everything downsized. Refreshments go from delicious Domino’s pizzas that you wanted to offer, the same way Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies did, to the samosa, Frooti, and Lay’s chips available in the canteen. There remains the joy of figuring out the weirdest of solutions while freaking out completely.
Whatever you must say, I would highly advice all of you to be a part of this madness, at least once. You will learn to find calm in chaos, you will meet tons of people, and you will be loaded with self- confidence. Now that is a deal that cannot be compromised upon!

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat Archives

Chhavi Bahmba

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Arts & Culture

DU’s Contribution in the Freedom Struggle: A Twofold Tale of India’s Past

By Kartik Chauhan August 13, 2019

Apart from being well known for the intellectual environment and shaping students into future leaders, IP College for Women, St. Stephens, Ramjas and Hindu College have a lot more in common than one might imagine. The colleges have played key roles in the freedom struggle and the independence movement of India and its high time we realise and remember our histories and pasts all the more.

As a part of the four-piece series covering each college and bringing out their insights and contributions in the shaping of the Independent India, the first article is about the role of IP College- the first women’s college of the University and how it had shaped India’s past.

The University of Delhi has countless laurels to itself be it right from national and international contributions in various fields, to its impressions in the student as well as the national level politics. With Independence Day upcoming, here is the first part of the four-part series on how four colleges of the University played key roles in the freedom struggle and the Independence movement of the nation.

IP College for Women is the first women’s college of Delhi as well as the University of Delhi. “I see IP college as a movement. I still see IP college as a movement in the sense of activism”, quotes the Principal of Indraprastha College for Women in the interview to Sahapedia about IP as an institution which has stood the test of times and holds onto its legacy as it celebrates its centenary decade. The college has its own Museum and Archives Centre which serves to tell the students as well as the people around of the college’s glorious past.

An insider view of the Museum and Archives Centre of IP College for Women

One simply cannot overlook the college’s contribution in the freedom struggle. The college played pivotal role in bringing women into the mainstream culture of protest against the British.

Amidst the stigma and stereotypes which had restrained women’s movements in general, Dr. Annie Besant, who is famous for her contributions in women’s rights and education was one of the leading people behind establishing the institution. The girls of IP taking the lead during the Quit India movement was truly a model for the country to behold.

But standing up against the British was not an easy task. With the students participating in the Quit India Movement, hoisting and saluting the national flag amongst other actions of defiance against the British, the wheat rations to the college were stopped and the teachers penalised.

The sound of IP’s actions in Independence struggle had even forced the British to imprison one of college’s student at the Lahore Jail (now in present day Pakistan) who had participated in the national movement.

Central Jail Lahore where one of the students of IP College was imprisoned

But none of the efforts on the part of the British faltered the courage in the hearts of the brave, young women who later on even joined with the students of St. Stephens, Hindu and Ramjas to protest at various places against the government’s decisions.

Even after the Partition, IP College spearheaded in various spheres, including running the college in evening shift so as to accommodate the huge number of women from Punjab states so that they could complete their education, even if it meant that the degrees would be affiliated to the Punjab University or collecting donations for the soldiers during the India- China war of 1962.

Till this date, the college has been a host people who have played key role in moulding India into the land our forefathers dreamt of, right from first President of India Shri Rajendra Prasad, Independent India’s first Education Minister Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Smt. Indira Gandhi to the Late Former President Shri. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad takes the Guard of Honour on College Day, 1948

The college continues to thrive and bloom, as it inches towards its hundred glorious years.

Stay tuned to read up the next article another college of DU which played a key role in India’s struggle for Independence.

Feature Image Credits: Sahapedia

Amrashree Mishra

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DUB Speak

Struggles of Every Outstation Student in Delhi University

By DU Beat August 15, 2018

Studying at Delhi University is a dream for every Indian student.

Students from all parts of the country come together to spend some of the best years of their lives together, meet new people, and gain new-fangled experiences. While stepping out of the protected environment of your house brings a large number of perks, it brings with itself a plethora of problems too. Here are a few issues that every outstation student can relate to:
Home sickness

Nobody is the tough guy they imagined themselves to be. Yes, it is emotionally frustrating and sad to be away from home. This feeling escalates especially when you are sick and have no one to look after you. You may get an excellent friend circle to have all the fun with, but you wouldn’t be a part of the Sunday family dinners or your dog’s birthday celebration. Being away from family will always create a void that can’t be filled by anyone else.
The Real Homesickness: Awful food

The homesickness gets real when you eat your hostel/flat/PG food. No matter how fancy or exorbitantly priced your accommodation is, the milk will always going to be diluted and you will always breathe a sigh of sadness after looking at your dinner sabzi. This crisis may cause you to put your cooking and culinary skills to test. Time and again, you would come with ideas of opening a start-up to relieve your fellow comrades of this suffering.
Above all, you realise how good a cook your mom is.
Being perpetually broke

The cash always seems enough in the beginning of the month but you can never figure out where it all went in between. You realise what a brat you are, when after fulfilling the cost of your monthly basic necessities, you barely make both ends meet. Now your favourite biscuit packet which you wolfed down ungratefully at home is actually a fetched luxury! Nevertheless, this perpetual state of being broke will end up improving your bargaining skills. Being away from home, you learn the value of each hard-earned penny.
Sharing accommodations

Once upon a time, we all thought sharing rooms with our friends would be so cool. But, we never thought how overwhelming it could be. All the fights regarding splitting bills, AC temperatures, maintaining silence and sharing washrooms can get to you pretty quick, especially if you don’t have patience. Words like privacy and personal space seize to exist and all you crave for is a moment all by yourself in your room.
Trying to fit in

Every new small town student trying to adjust in the big metropolitan city knows how hostile Delhi can be sometimes. The commotion of vehicles, congested roads, travel time, and pollution levels are much worse in comparison to home. There is a constant fear of mispronouncing words, thanks to the accent your local language gave you, and not being aptly dressed according to the fashionable Delhiites. While this complex does surface time and again, you gradually realise your peers are more accepting and open than you thought them to be, and so is the cosmopolitan city of Delhi which will become your second home in no time.

Feature Image Credits: Rishabh Gogoi for DU Beat.
Bhavika Behal
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Uncategorized

The ‘S’ and ‘N’ Words in a Student’s Dictionary

By DU Beat August 15, 2018

From struggling for the country’s freedom to being free in a democracy, the ideology of nationalism and movements may have changed since 1947, but the quest for justice remains alive. Read on to find out how a student’s approach towards the terms ‘sedition’ (S), ‘nationalism’ (N) and ‘struggle’ (S) change the course of how a nation grows.

In Bangladesh, the government had fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse around 20 protesters who had gathered to agitate against the deaths of two students, reportedly killed by a speeding bus on 29^th July. Allegedly, the social media outreach by the masses there, voicing their concerns against the actions, has been strategically curbed.

This comes as a stark reminder of 2016, when students from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) were abused, threatened with death and rape, were thrown into jail without charges and without concrete evidence. What came to be popularly known as the JNU Sedition Row reflects a prominent question- “Is dissent the first step towards anti-nationalism?” “The universities encourage ideas of liberalism and provide a platform for engagement. If a thinking individual cannot think out loud, question, or criticise the establishment, then the idea of a university is of no use,” says Akanksha Rao, a student at Jesus and Mary College. But we have been fed the textbook-sentiment of patriotism for so long that it seems nearly blasphemous to ask the ‘what, why and how’ of patriotism.

While patriotism simply implies devotion towards and vigorous support for one’s country, nationalism is defined as the ‘identification with one’s own nation, and the support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations’. However today, the lines between patriotism and nationalism have become extremely blurry.

As a 20-year-old student, Vishal Ranka disagrees with the approach of sedition in the present-day and stated “It’s a blatant slap to my Freedom of Speech. If one doesn’t question, how far can my pride go?”

Sedition laws were first imposed upon the Indians by the British to curb any dissent against authority or power. Regrettably, what constitutes as sedition today lies in a comparative on how tolerant the state is.

Niharika Dabral, a student at the University of Delhi (DU), put her ideology of what doesn’t constitute nationalism in an article, writing, “The notion that there can be only one concept of what constitutes a nation, and that every other view is anti-national, is intellectually void at best and authoritarian at worst.”

With constant discourse in society, the phrase ‘anti-national’ has become frivolous to the extent of forming a binary between blind nationalism and sedition. These restrictions, stemming from stringent emotions in society, impact the students the most, as their primary interaction with liberalism isn’t liberal in itself.

There may be a thousand perspectives on nationalism today, but informed student movements today fight against those rationales which demand one to put a litmus paper to the tongue, scream “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”, and the minute the paper turns saffron, pat oneself on the back, and get labelled a ‘patriot’.

Feature Image Credits: Eyes on Europe

Feature Image Caption: Nationalism is defined as the ‘identification with one’s own nation, and the support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations’.

Anushree Joshi

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Muskan Sethi

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Your Beat

Of Independence and Ideology

By DUBeat August 14, 2009

images

Happy Independence Day. Why day? Why happy? Most importantly why the Independence?

First and foremost, why must we celebrate an Independence DAY? Surely the massive struggle for Independence was not achieved in so insignificant and insulting a time as a day. It was a gut wrenchingly slow and dragging battle for which thousands of souls over far too many generations fought and died. It began from the first feelings of unrest among those suffering under the yoke of colonial oppression and continued till the last of the colonial overlords, wearied to the bone, finally took his leave of the land that had been to him successively a trading haven, a conquest, a property and a home.

Even if we do, in the impatience of contemporary life, choose to allot a mere day to acknowledge this monumental episode of our past, how can the complex emotions triggered by its memory be labeled by that grossly simplistic umbrella emotion: happy? It was a hard won independence, resulting as the result of a long drawn struggle, a world war, mutinies, marches and the silent protest of a nation wanting to exist. It inspired an utter cacophony of emotions. Feelings of relief, euphoria, thankfulness, bliss, bittersweet triumph and pure epiphany all swelled up when the realization dawned that this land was finally solidly ours. At the same time the joy was drenched in the sickening memories of partition, of violence which tore a country apart and the irreversible damage it wreaked. Will any amount of relief drown out the horror necessarily attached to the same historic incident? Surely the drowning cannot be so complete as to even leave behind an overall feeling of ‘happiness’ in its wake…

Finally, to tackle the issue of Independence: Why use such an uncompromising psychologically and socially relevant term to describe a historical victory? Our freedom from colonial rule was certainly a magnificent triumph leading to the re-assertion of our identity. However our country existed far before the British ever came seeking us. We have in turn been conquered and ruled by many invaders; most of whom got assimilated and became us while some were thrown back. Did we celebrate as Independence each little skirmish that led to an oppressive tribal chief, city chieftain or even king being ousted from power? However those fights won freedom too, highly valued by the victims in each case. Even today the struggle for independence is far from over. Whether it is a corrupt government, a negligent minister, an unfair law or even a tyrannical teacher, there will always be people trying to overpower us and deny us our rights. The fight against these oppressors can never cease as indeed our quest for finding new ways of defining and achieving freedom can never end.

Independence is a state of mind. It cannot be brought about unless every citizen truly feels free in our country. Perhaps when India can satisfactorily fulfill the needs of every person calling it home, protecting them and nurturing them, it will achieve that which is closest to ‘Independence with a capital I’- the selfsame one we so presumptuously celebrate each year.

However until that utopian ideal is achieved, let us be content with hoping that each one of us shall appreciate and acknowledge the multiple facets of one great historical achievement of our country, not an Independence but a more temporal albeit equally creditable struggle for freedom.

Here’s to a great victory!

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