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To Second-Years, Please Listen

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Here’s a note from our Editor-in-Chief for the second-year students as they shed their layers of freshness to enter the second year; with (in) experience.*

With the hump of an adventurous (read: chaotic) first year coupled with the exhilaration and exhaustion that college life brings, congratulations on making it to the second year. Hurray! I know it has been tough for each of you with unlearning age-old habits and stepping into an entirely new realm of customs, traditions, and most importantly, individuals. I’m glad to see you doing the best you can. I’m proud of you.

I would be lying if I said that the second year would be more or less similar to the first year. No. For every student irrespective of the differences that exist, the second year would arrive at your doorstep with an eerie silence followed by a thunderstorm. You’ll find yourself trapped in the cage of stress, all thanks to the curriculum consisting of five subjects along with the rat race to expand your LinkedIn profile. Because, well, college is all about hustling, right? No matter how much I want to disagree but this is the sad reality. Experiencing a burn-out will be inevitable, unfortunately.

This is what I would like to tell you via the medium of this editorial. When you will be swarmed by countless assignments with deadlines that always make an appearance a day before and (sad)istic internships that make you churn out every bit of your skill, take a break. I acknowledge the need for personal growth during college life but at the same time, don’t throw yourself into the maze of productivity only to give birth to mishmashes that literally drain your soul.

Take a break to lie down on the green fields of your college while the warmth of the autumn sun hugs you gently. Take a break to get acquainted with your classmates, know about their roots and grab a bite to eat at different (and affordable) places across Delhi. Take a break to resume the book that you had left unfinished owing to the offline semester exams. Take a break to stream ‘Masakali’ and dance your heart out while you breathe in the smell of (rare) Delhi rains. Take a break to remember and do what makes you happy. Or has hustling made you forget the little things that gave you joy?

In a nutshell, don’t deny yourself of the simple pleasures of life, dear junior. I empathise with the splashes of peer pressure that conversations and experiences tend to leave, however, balance is what is the need of the hour. Divide time between leisure and academics added with career pursuits. You cannot expect yourself to be at your best when you are burned out. Sorry, Bunny but rukna bhi kabhi kabhi zaroori hai oochi udaan ke liye.

*This article first appeared in our physical newsletter Volume 16, Issue 2. Don’t forget to grab your copy of the latest edition of our newspaper every Wednesday!

Read Also: Students of Gargi College Face Water Crisis

Featured Image Credits: alamy.com

Himasweeta Sarma

[email protected]

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Lost Land, Losing Languages

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What is necessary – cultural unification or the recovery of culture? Read ahead as the writer weighs these arguments with her Sindhiyat experience.

“May I, a grandchild of Partition, be able to walk the streets of Anarkali…”, read a postcard addressed to the city of Lahore at an exhibition based on Partition held at the National Gallery of Modern Arts. Ghar, Zameen, Jaidad of millions, all lost in the wake of a tragedy that still largely engulfs our nation. Apart from the daily vendetta, what engulfs us more is the culture, and that, for me as a writer, is the language.

So while answering questions arising from confusion over my surname, the dialogue outside is overtaken by the dilemma inside. Sindhi? But how? Just because of the surname? Because the river after which the entire community was named is almost on the verge of drying up and the place called Sindh was left almost 75 years ago. So what’s left of all is the language, the shores of which are drying up quickly.

Even if you go somewhere empty-handed, you will take your language with you”, said my Urdu Professor.

In the case of Sindhi, I guess it travelled too long, losing its tids and bits on the way, where it got disintegrated to the extent that we only got Johnny Lever in almost all movies adding Sai at the end of each sentence in the name of cultural representation and cracking some chindi jokes. So it does make one sad when you realise the collective damage that so many of such communities have suffered at the altar of history, at the hands of those who tried to shape it according to their whims? Such whims today talk of “our” heritage, culture, and its preservation; funnily such, “our” does not aim at identifying the dynamic and diverse reality of this land but rather in the imposition of one culture, one language. That’s how politics is, the language used by poets and lovers to carve out confessions of love can be shaped fluently at the behest of ideologies to spew hatred in disregard of those very languages.

Linguistic hegemony has been a major tool for controlling the narratives, be it the attempt to impose Urdu on Eastern Pakistan– later Bangladesh, a Bengali speaking region that became a major reason for the partition of Western Pakistan and Eastern Pakistan– or the unannounced but underlying duel of Urdu and Hindi that goes on amidst the deemed “champions” of Linguistics.

In this fight for hegemony, no language appears to be a winner. Hindi imperialism does no good to Hindi with its negligence in academia or the ignored writers in the publishing scene, whose achievements are not even appreciated by these very “champions of Hindi”.

A lot has been lost already. Recovering and preserving what remains can’t be done with the imposition of one language. Attempts to promote linguistic diversity should be made with utmost necessity, not just with language centres but with the sharing of what is “ours”, rather than the imposition of what is being termed as “ours” on a national level.

Kashish Shivani

[email protected]

 

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Features

The Time Barkha Met Chandni Chowk

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When comeback worth reports and passionate speeches marry the DU aesthetic, what consummates is a jugaad style that could put a seasoned stylist to shame. 

When they aren’t busy being unapologetically themselves, they’re secretly knocking some much-needed sense into those bull-headed skulls. Whether it’s gatekeeping the truth and defending themselves from pesky politicians or inspiring and influencing a whole generation with their style, these fiery women journalists and their proverbial capes are at the forefront of a revolution!

 

An eye for an I

 

Do you know what’s the fastest way to coax out those deep dark secrets? (No, ‘Truth or Dare’ is a scam) A hypnotising kohl-rimmed smoky eye works better than a Truth Serum. Make up for the lack of drama in your life by lining your eyes with Kohl and finishing the look with a sizzling palette of brown shades. Emulate the style of the newsroom greats like Shaili Chopra and Barkha Dutt with the stroke of a brush and a steady hand (along with a fleeting attention span). Be it complementing it with an LBD or elegant Indian wear from your local street market, a smoky eye never fails to impress!

 

When it Rains Janpath Jewellery

 

One look at their feed, and it would appear that the oxidised silver gods have blessed them with a ceaseless supply of silver embellishments. Repeat after me: ‘Go big, or go home’. Yes, the DU aesthetic demands it (even if they are ear-tearingly big). Legend has it that resident DU alumn, Nidhi Razdan, often the dinghy brown streets of Lajpat Nagar to hone her oratorial prowess while bargaining cutting silver jhumka prices with an equally obstinate bhaiya there! Look no further than Arfa Khanum Sherwani if you want to spruce up that drab white shirt and straight fit denim. No one does big bold quirky neckpieces better than her. Pair a chunky silver choker with a colour block kurta and say goodbye to haters.

 

Suit up!

 

If there’s one thing that’s more reliable than DU’s notices, then it’s undoubtedly a power blazer! To make a structured blazer your best friend, throw it over a pair of sweatpants and hoodie for a barely-made-the-assignment-deadline-but-looking-fab look or over your favourite turtleneck like Rana Ayyub. For the times when it seems like all the world’s weight is on your shoulder, rest assured, opt for a padded shoulder jacket. Want to look sharp (for once)? Take style notes from Shweta Singh and her bevy of tailored jackets that she wears over virtually anything. From shrugging it over a plain white kurta and lace hemmed pants to a crisp white oxford shirt, her undying love for all things power blazer knows no bounds.

 

The OG Desi Girl Fit

 

Let’s bust this myth once and for all: no, you don’t have to speak fluent Fabindia to be a journalist. Since the perpetual cycle of brokenness is a part of being a student in Delhi (walking is good for your health and pocket), mixing and matching your crop tops with sarees shouldn’t come as a surprise. College fest fashion crisis? Fret not! Raid your mom’s closet for a saree and pair it with an unintentionally intentional (Read: broke) mismatched top from yours like Sharda Ugra. For extra oomph, style your favourite kurta (yes, the one you spent 15 minutes haggling) with the style hacks mentioned above and slay all day!

 

Featured Image Credits: Own

 

Tanvi Varigala
[email protected]

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Of Loneliness and Heartbreak

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This June, remember to hold onto your anger and pain as you set out to celebrate your pride. Pride was, never a celebration alone to begin with. It was and will always, remain a fierce riot.

When I joined DU Beat, I was a lost correspondent with too many opinions on Netflix and zero knowledge about graphics ideation. But one thing I knew for sure was that I wished to write stories rooted in my immediate cultural experiences. Stories about people. Stories about students. Stories about queerness.

I never viewed queerness as something that was associated with a sexual identity but rather as something that served as a deviation from a set norm. Queering of narratives, discourses, readings and even something like non-linear documentation of time always interested me. As a marginal figure in my most immediate circles while growing up, I felt the need to understand and by extension empathise with anything that occupied a position of marginality around us.

Ever since I stepped foot into DU, I realised that there are hardly any places more queer than those afforded by educational spaces – where marginal social identities offset hundreds of students from the larger crowd of normal adherence. And such varsity spaces become intersectional convergence points for glorious bonhomie – and sometimes sites of extreme cruelty. Taking pride in visiblising intersectional identities in university spaces like ours are more often than not the share of a privileged few – their economic and social position allowing them affordances most are denied. The same identity that becomes the pride of a select few – comes at a cost for others. For most people of such social minority identities, making common knowledge of your lower caste identity comes at the cost of having your narrative being baited by upper caste saviours, your gender identity becomes a double edged sword in your path of progress and your sexuality a constant site of speculation and amusement for those around you.

But amidst the pride colours, pride watchlists and other glittery extravaganza is the overlooked loneliness of growing up queer. To survive a childhood of conflict with your truest point of self-identification, knowing that perhaps the biggest truth about you will always be held as a questioned truth by those around you and eventually coming to a city this big and finding yourself lost amidst a sea of unknown faces – each presenting to you hierarchies of power previously unknown to you. You are immediately swept into a whirlwind of heterosexual college romances, and your heart yearns for that singular same-sex romance that you only see in your annual token queer Netflix romantic comedy and before you know it you have set sail on the flood-prone waves of the hookup culture. Eventually your life is a string of making your way from one bed to another, from looking for ‘spots’ and asking for ‘places’.

But every year in June, corporations and allies around you urge you to forget this language of heartbreak and make you drown in their definition of a glitzy celebration of queerness. To all those queer souls lost this Pride month – to you I say, remember Pride began as a protest, a riot to be precise. Take the anger in your heart and hold onto it – for being queer comes at great pain of surviving a staunchly heterosexual society. To all the allies planning your next pride march, make sure to administer a consensual hug to the next queer you meet this month – queerness is a struggle with loneliness and for all your good intent some loneliness of the self that will take this community an entire life to overcome.

Anwesh Banerjee

[email protected]

 

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Lost Land, Losing languages

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What’s necessary – cultural unification or recovery of culture? Read ahead as the writer weighs these arguments with her Sindhiyat experience. 

 

Kashish Shivani

[email protected]

 

“May I, a grandchild of Partition, be able to walk the streets of Anarkali…”, read a postcard addressed to the city of Lahore at an exhibition based on Partition held at the National Gallery of Modern Arts. Ghar, Zameen, jaydad of millions, all lost in the wake of a tragedy that still largely engulfs our nation. Apart from the daily vendetta what engulfs us more is the culture, and that for me as a writer is the Language. 

 

So while answering questions arising from confusion over my surname, the dialogue outside is overtaken by the dilemma inside. Sindhi? But how? Just because of the surname? Because the river after which the entire community was named is almost on the verge of drying up, the place called Sindh was left almost 75 years ago. So what’s left of all is the language, the shores of which are drying up quickly. 

 

“Even if you go somewhere empty-handed, you will take your language with you”, said my Urdu Professor. In the case of Sindhi, I guess it travelled too long, losing its tids and bits on the way, where it got disintigrated to that extent where we only got Johnny Lever in almost all movies adding Sai at the end of each sentence in the name of cultural representation and some chindi jokes. 

 

So it does feel sad when you realise about the collective damage that so many of such communities have suffered at the altar of history through the hands of those who tried to shape it according to their whims. Such whims today talk of ‘our’ heritage, culture and its preservation, funnily such “our” does not aim at identifying the dynamic and diverse reality of this land rather in imposition of one culture, one language. That’s how politics is, the language used by poets and lovers to carve out confessions of love can be shaped fluently at the behest of ideologies to spew hatred in disregard of those very languages. 

 

 Linguistic hegemony has been a huge tool for controlling the narratives, be it the attempt to impose Urdu on Eastern Pakistan – later Bangladesh, a Bengali speaking region that became a major reason of partition between Western Pakistan and Eastern Pakistan or the unannounced but underlying duel of Urdu and Hindi that goes on amidst the deemed ‘champions’ of Linguistics. 

 

In between this fight for hegemony no language appears to be a winner, Hindi imperialism does no good to Hindi with its negligence in academia or even for the ignored writers in the publishing scene, whose achievements are not even appreciated by these very “champions of Hindi”. 

 

A lot has been lost already, to recover and preserve of what remains can’t be done with imposition of one language, attempts to promote lingustic diversity should be done with utmost necessity not just with language centres but with sharing of what is ‘ours’ and not imposition of what is being termed as ‘ours’ on a national level. 

 

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Netflix and Nap: A Tempestuous Allure

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It’s tempting to fall into unhealthy habits, but a balanced lifestyle is the key to a vibrant college life.

One enters college with an abundance of excitement, hope, and the most fun of them all, freedom. While this freedom provides opportunities for growth, it also brings with it a sense of carelessness. When you’re no longer answerable to Mom, you let loose. In most college students, this leads to the rise of some unhealthy habits. Being able to stay in bed and Zomato all the time may seem like a dream come true at first, but it inevitably invites problems.

However, that is not the only factor that could lead to the development of an unhealthy lifestyle. It’s also easy to feel so drowned in assignments, society work, or internships that there’s no room left for exercise or any hobbies for that matter. After a hectic college day, there is nothing more inviting than your bed. With an episode of your current binge and some pizza on the side. This becomes a routine that’s hard to break out of.

“The appeal of the taste of fast food is not the only thing that has kept me in the habit of ordering in almost every night. It’s also very convenient to not have to prep or cook meals. It feels like a quick fix after a long day.” -Vansh, a second-year student

Moreover, “broke college student” is a famous phrase for a reason. When short on budget, cooking the same instant ramen pack a few different ways to get through the week is appealing. Thus, many factors contribute to the rise of unhealthy eating habits among college students. Another major problem is that of little to no exercise. It’s difficult to make time for a routine. The norm of going late to bed and having to wake up early for morning classes keeps one in the cycle of feeling tired throughout the day. Pulling all-nighters consistently and then drinking tons of coffee to survive, skipping meals, and not exercising are therefore common elements of a college student’s lifestyle. The allure of it all is heavy. But this lifestyle is unfortunately not sustainable. How do we beat it?

It’s important to start at the fundamental level and correct your basics. Build your day around a healthy sleep schedule, eat at the right time, and start incorporating at least some exercise throughout the week. As cliché as this might sound, your elders are correct. Doing this will significantly improve your quality of life and help you focus better on your goals. You don’t need some rigid instruction table to help you achieve all of this. Start slow and be soft with yourself. It’s also okay to maintain some flexibility. You do not need to cut Netflix or McDonald’s out of your life (duh, how could we ever?). Just practice moderation with it.

“After college hours, it feels unsafe for me to travel to and from a gym in the city. So, I’ve made it a point to wake up a little extra early in the mornings to do yoga. This way I get some exercise done every single day.” -Gauri, a second-year student at KNC.

While waking up early is definitely not the best suit for many of us, here are some things that you can do to start living a better and healthier life. When you get hunger pangs at odd hours, have fruits for snacks instead of reaching for a packet of chips. They’re yummy and healthy, plus super convenient to grab. Replace your caffeinated beverages with better alternatives that also serve as a refresher, such as milkshakes. When you do need to order in, pick healthier options as opposed to fast foods. For exercise, try to include movement in the little day-to-day tasks. Walk around on your study break instead of sitting in bed. Take the stairs instead of elevators wherever possible (the metro station maybe?). Discover a safe road/park near you and go for the occasional walk while on the phone with family or friends.

There are innumerable little ways you could create a better lifestyle for yourself. Making conscious choices regarding nutrition and exercise will take care of you both physically and mentally, improving academic performance and overall quality of life. Pave the way for a balanced and fulfilling college experience that sets you up for success in the long run. Cheers to doing better!

Featured Image Source: Pinterest

Read also: Health and Wellness Guide for Busy College Students

Arshiya Pathania

[email protected]

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The Democracy of Students – University

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To have democratic institutions and universities in a democratic country makes absolute sense, right? Having a democracy comes with its own challenges and cons, but the solution can never be to altogether dismiss this institution. Sadly, The Democracy of Student – Universities have been forced to sit on the demise of the Indian political scene for students. The prolific campuses of knowledge which gave birth to so many great leaders and drove movements like the Bihar Student Movement (1974), Assam Student Movement (1979), and All Jharkhand Students’ union (1986), are in the process of becoming barren lands of facts and knowledge that involve no political or social awakening and organization of their students. This absence has led callous behaviour of the administration towards the faculty and staff, arbitrary fees increment, and assault in the name of gender and caste on the very campuses built to fight against these perils. It’s almost as if the verdure of the intellectual movement breathing and sustaining on campuses has been sucked to maintain the love of party and ideology. 

 

The Indian movement for independence from colonial European powers was largely supported by the youth. Students made up a sizable portion of the protests during Mahatma Gandhi’s 1919 campaign against the Rowlatt Act. Gandhi advised students to boycott schools and colleges as a form of protest against the repressive British government during the Civil Disobedience movement. They immediately left their educational institutions and joined national leaders on the streets to demonstrate their support for the cause.

 

During the 1942 Quit India movement, the youth leaders organized large-scale protests and rallies. As part of the struggle for liberation, many student leaders were put behind bars and others were killed. The All India Students Federation (AISF), India’s first student organisation, was founded in 1936 as a result of the 1920 First All India Students Conference.

 

Experts on the subject have opined that the loss of a unifying cause harmed the political awakening amongst students. The tussle between the student leaders and the Lyngdoh Committee has made its villainous presence known on almost all campuses. Even the promises of the Student Council in place of Student Unions have not been realised for years in the case of universities like Benarus Hindu University. 

 

The last few years saw the rise of student solidarity again in the face of CAA-NRC protests, but how this political consciousness manifests on campuses is a question that clarifies itself. Student union elections have been the nurturing ground for bright leaders and they are our only chance to save our democracy from the current crisis of gerontocracy. Student unions can become the opportunity the youth need to carry on the great legacy of student leadership. It would be better if the talk of democracy could come out of political science classes and shake hands with the ethics going on in the adjacent philosophy class and bring vibrancy to campuses again, to make their presence known not just as a name existing on a class roll or as a seat in university, but as a student of this Republic of India. 

 

Kashish Shivani

[email protected]

 

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Valentine’s Day and the Gay Bestfriend

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The trope of the gay bestfriend is a painful reminder of the constant alienation of the queer community, especially on days like Valentine’s Day when queer baiting temporarily peaks. Read on for a personal piece on the same.

Valentine’s Day sucks. Not because I am single and perpetually heartbroken. But because I am gay. But then as per normative standards of viewing gayness I am not visibly queer enough for most folks. I don’t colour my hair or sport multiple piercings and there are no rainbow motifs around my social media handles (although not going to deny the presence of veiled hints for those wishing to look really hard). My wrist isn’t limp (you have childhood trauma to thank for that) and my clothes are more indie than unicorn dazzle. And hence the presence of women around me becomes a point of deep intrigue for those viewing me from afar.

Valentine’s Day sucks because being the gay best friend is tiring. We live in a world where the comfort of intimacy is only supposed to be sought in engaging in intercourse with a stranger you met on an app you downloaded two hours ago because you were drunk on your fifth shot at a friend’s housewarming party. Any sort of intimacy, specially of a physical nature, must be relegated to the realm of sexual because people in today’s world have simply forgotten the peace that is to be had in the romance of friendship.

Valentine’s Day sucks because a girl hanging out with a girl in a park is a sight for people to turn around and stare and engage in conjecture. See how they are leaning in pretending to talk? Whispers that follow you to the corner of cafes where over cups of hazelnut latte one can hear admonishing comments on grazing fingers and hands that seek to touch and put the arms as an expression of joy and happiness. There is no respite to be found in the conclusion that friendships are a romance of their own kind. To love someone so deeply and completely so as to forsake the expectations of any physical or carnal fulfilment of that love is to truly be in the presence of a love that is supreme and essentially fulfilling.

Valentine’s Day sucks because cafes across the city offer discounts on love that can be capitalised. It isn’t enough anymore for Yash Raj to earn millions when Rahul promises to love Nisha for the rest of his life while a thousand people cry in the darkness of the cinema theatre. Love must be sold tangible – through discounts and offers inscribed on menu cards and shopping banners. But these aren’t all that comes our way. Extra offers are deliciously reserved if you are queer and can bring with yourself a same-sex lover because your love is just a means to fuel the system that encashes the most fundamental and necessary of all human emotions.

Valentine’s Day sucks because it is painfully lonely to be the one man in your nearby vicinity who is proud enough to be out there – only to become a transit point for the rite of passage sexual awakening of all the queer closeted men around you. Men who use you precisely like a transit point, to never turn back and look upon once the transition is undisturbed and over with.

Valentine’s Day sucks because to be the gay best friend is to beg people to realise that you are more than just a Gucci handbag for people to sling onto their arms and strut around – claiming your space for their wish-fulfiment fantasies. You are more than an accessory to adorn the sorry lives of people, you are more than just the reductive heternormative gaze that breaks and splits you down to your tiniest atoms and you are more than your community which makes you guilty of always just not being enough.

Valentine’s Day sucks because people around you fail to realise that beneath all your pointed laughter and printed linens, very few people understand – looking at the million dazzling Valentine Day adverts – that the difference between alone and lonely shall perhaps always remain lost in translation.

 Anwesh Banerjee

[email protected]

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Dalit Professor slapped by HOD – Casteism or rage?

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A humiliating incident took place on Monday at Lakshmibai College when the HOD of the Hindi Department slapped a fellow Dalit Professor. A police complaint has been filed after which The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) organised a protest against the issue.

 

A shocking incident took place at Lakshmibai College on Monday when the HOD of the Hindi department, Ranjit Kaur slapped her colleague, Dr Neelam a Dalit Associate professor during a college meeting. 

 

The teachers were called in for a meeting and the Head, Ranjit Kaur asked them to sign the minutes. Dr Neelam said in her statement to the Indian Express that she wanted to browse through the minutes before signing but Kaur wasn’t allowing them. She was slapped after her insistence, which left all the teachers stunned. Though only a few of all the 13 teachers present have come forward in support of Dr Neelam. 

 

“There were 13 of us there; we all saw what happened. We were stunned that somebody could slap their colleague like this.”

  • Anshu Jharwar, a teacher in the Hindi department as reported by The Indian Express

 

Neelam has also alleged in her statement that this insult was hurled because of her caste as Kaur “always had an issue with me because of my caste”. 

 

As a counter-statement, Ranjit Kaur has alleged this as false and it was she who was attacked. She told The Indian Express that Neelam wanted to go through minutes of various previous meetings which would have taken them 3-4 hours. 

 

“I even apologised immediately. But she came and grabbed me and pulled my hair. In her original complaint, there was no caste factor but now she’s playing the Dalit card to create problems for me. I’m a god-fearing; I have never said anything casteist in my life,” said Kaur as reported by the Indian Express. 

 

Stating this as her reason behind the objection she claimed, “I had to go to the computer lab, so I tried to take the register from her but she pulled at it. During that tussle, it’s possible my hand could have hit her face. But it was not an intentional slap.” Ranjit has now filed a counter-complaint to the Principal against Neelam. 

 

After this incident, Dr Neelam filed a complaint at the Bharat Nagar police station. She also went to submit her complaint to Principal Pratyush Vatsala who did not accept it until there was pressure from activists and teachers. Meanwhile, the Principal has denied these allegations and said that they tried to resolve the matter but it has gone out of hands now. This matter will be put forward in the next Governing body meeting of the administration. 

 

“This is a serious matter. Institutions cannot be allowed to refuse redressal. A fair time-bound inquiry as per rules should be conducted.”

 

  • Said Dr Abha Dev Habib, Treasurer, DU Teachers Association (DUTA) in a statement to Edex live

 

Was the hurled abuse due to casteism or not will be revealed after further investigation. What can’t be denied is that casteism is a dominant force in academia. From ill-treatment to discrimination a lot is faced by teachers and students of marginalized communities, a lot of which goes unreported. 

 

The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) wrote to the Principal of the Lakshmibai College and demanded proper action be taken and justice be served. They asserted that issues of casteism in the university space are to be dealt with utmost seriousness. SFI Delhi State President Sumit Kataria and SFI DU Convenor Akhil KM met Dr Neelam to express their solidarity. 

 

https://twitter.com/sfiduspeaks/status/1427965317548974089 Embed this tweet, pleaseee

 

SFI even organised a protest against the humiliating act on 18th August at Lakshmibai College. There was heavy police deployment at the site who tried to remove the activists by force and manhandling. Still, the protest took place demanding action against Ranjit Kaur. 

 

 

 

Various issues have sprung up in the past year that has shown the ‘equal face’ of our education.

 

Vipin Pudiyath Veetil, an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences resigned because of the caste discrimination he faced at work. The video of a Professor from IIT Kharagpur hurling abuses at students from backward communities went viral last year. 

 

If the teachers holding the baton to guide generations of the nation would be in clutches of social evils such as casteism, it becomes a very serious issue that will obviously lay its impact on the future in ways unrecognisable. Thus the most valid question of the hour becomes,

 

 “Societies progress one small step at a time, or do they?”, as asked by Professor Vipin in his mail to other faculty members. 

 

Kashish Shivani

[email protected]   

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We the People of India: Republic of Sycophancy?

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As India celebrates its 73rd Republic day this year, it marks more than seventy decades of the enforcement of India’s constitution. How are we as a Republic functioning? Are we citizens exercising our power or are we forming ourselves into a ‘cult of sycophants’? Read to find out more.

India celebrates her 73rd Republic Day this year. Overcoming all the challenges and obstacles coming on her way, India has completed more than seventy decades of being a Republic. But, what does being a Republic mean? It refers to the country where it is the citizens who hold supreme power and choose the elected representatives.

As stated in the Preamble, it is “We, the people of India” that holds immense power and signifies the essence of India as a Democratic Republic. However, in recent times, the term Republic can be seen challenged and diluted by ‘sycophancy’. So, what does sycophancy mean?

The Cambridge dictionary defines it as the “behaviour in which someone praises powerful or rich people in a way that is not sincere, usually in order to get some advantage from them”.

Back in 1974, the Congress leader from Assam, Dev Kant Barooah told the country,

Indira tere subah ki jai, Indira tere sham ki jai, Indira tere kaam ki jai, Indira tere naam ki jai, Indira is India, India is Indira”. 

This sounds poetic indeed, but isn’t it too much? While Tamil Nadu leader Jayalalithaa’s arrest in 2014 led to the largest number of suicides. Besides, several other ‘followers’ depilated their heads. This is undoubtedly a pathetic level of sycophancy! On the other hand, the era of BJP is also not lagging behind in this race of rising sycophants in the political ground of the country. In 2018, Maharashtra’s BJP spokesperson Avadhut Wagh tweeted, “Hon PM Narendra Modiji is the 11th Avatar of Lord Vishnu. Yada Yada hi Dharmasya”.

 

 

This reminds me of what Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar said,

Bhakti in religion may be a road to the salvation of the soul. But in politics, Bhakti or hero-worship is a sure road to degradation and to eventual dictatorship.” 

It rightly reflects the current political state of India. There is nothing wrong in admiring a political leader, but extreme admiration leading to sycophancy and idolization is detrimental to the nation.

The rise of “Bhakts” in the era of BJP has ushered a new generation of sycophants in India. Moreover, this rise of “cult” associated with any political leader or party is disastrous. It makes one become unseeing of the faults of the leader or the party. One should question oneself: Is it the responsibility of citizens to hold the government accountable or to defend them at all times like minions?

It is indeed essential to question our idolatry of political leaders. We, the people of India, elected our representatives to run the country in order to fulfil our needs and desires. Any action taken by the government for its citizens can either be their duty if it is beneficial to all the citizens or dereliction of duty if it harms the citizens. But, whatever a government or the elected representatives do can never be a “favour” or “blessing” for us to ‘worship’ them in a way that makes us unsee their wrongs.

As we celebrate this day when the Constitution of India was enforced, let us remember the words with which the Preamble begins: “We, the people of India”.

Featured Image Credits: Kaypius

 Read also: Republic of India: A Metamorphosis Of Definition

 Republic and Dissent: The R&D of Our Nation

 Namrata Kalita

[email protected]

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