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DU students organised a protest at Arts Faculty, North Campus to attract Delhi University authorities’ attention towards their demand for online examinations for all semesters of DU.


Following an earlier protest which was organised on 7th March 2022, students of Delhi University held another protest on 11th March 2022, demanding online examinations (or OBE) for all students, including those belonging to semesters other than the first semester. This protest was held at Arts Faculty, North Campus, Delhi University and students showed up in massive numbers to support this demand for OBE for the ongoing semesters.

 

These offline protests were accompanied by online protests which involved sharing of posters on stories and using the hashtag ‘#Hybridmodeshouldbeachoice’ and ‘#OnlineExamForAllSemestersOfDU’. This also led to the signing and filling of an online petition form which was then to be submitted to the Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University on 11th March itself.

 

After the massive re-opening protests in the beginning of February, these protests highlighting the problems of re-opening and offline classes have brought forward the irony and duality of being a Delhi University student. 

 

The student protesters believe that OBE mode of examination is the only form in which examination should be taken in such a scenario wherein almost 70-80% of the syllabus has been covered during online classes. 

For 2 years we have been giving online exams and online assignments and now suddenly the colleges have opened and (offline) internals have started… It will take time to adapt ourselves to the university environment; and we haven’t gotten that much time. Majority of our syllabus has been completed online. Only the latter 30% is being taught in offline (mode) and then you are expecting that we give offline exams so obviously that is a problem for us,” says Anubhav, a 3rd year UG student from Ramjas.

 

Many students have also raised concern over the fact that while all the colleges have opened, hostels have not. This means that in addition to all the other problems and issues that the students are facing, they also have to find a place to stay at a very short notice. This comes with an extreme rise in PG prices and rents, something that cannot be ignored when talking about students coming from different economic backgrounds.

I saw yesterday that the mother of a student was crying that please get my daughter a hostel, a room. They haven’t thought about where the students are going to stay. All they have said is that come and give offline exams,” continues Anubhav.

 

Many of the post-graduate students have also highlighted the problem of having to leave the jobs that they had taken up or the examinations they were preparing for.

We have already started pursuing our different (professional) lines and we have started the studies for the same. Now you are expecting that we switch over, so obviously it isn’t that easy. It isn’t easy to do so in a Master’s (degree),” said a student from Hansraj College.

 

Following these protests from Friday, a group of student protestors was called in front of the examination decision-making authority, that is, the Dean of Examinations, to discuss the issue and address the students’ demands. This was done without the presence of the Vice-Chancellor due to his absence during that time.

First of all, they said that majority of the students want to give offline exams. On that, we showed them the 7000 forms (petition forms) that had been filled after which they said that they would mediate upon this and get back to us,” said Divyanshu Singh Yadav, who has been very vocal and visible at the protests and has been constantly urging students to support the cause through the medium of videos on an Instagram page dedicated to this cause, ‘du_online_mode_2022’.

At present, no clear decision has been taken in response to these students’ protests yet.

 

Read also ‘CYSS Vivekananda College Demands ‘No Classes’ on Saturdays’ 

Feature Image Credits: YouTube (@Gaurav Doraha)

 

Manasvi Kadian

[email protected] 

In a society that is run on patriarchy, by patriarchy, how much autonomy do women get in religious spaces? Are religious spaces even made to accommodate women?


As someone who identifies as a woman, you will know what I mean when I say “male gaze”— something that doesn’t leave your side in public, something that still occupies your mind in private. This isn’t something that is found only in one aspect or one dimension of society, but rather it forms the foundational structure of the world we live in.

Women are making their choices from a menu of options that has been structured by men for men.” -Adam Swift

Ideals and practices of patriarchy or misogyny can be found in every nook and corner of the world, as easily as the potholes that are found on every single street in India. Thus, this sexism is not just a regional problem, but rather a global one.

 

But humans being humans are still sitting with their hopes in one hand and their miseries in the other. We are still trying to find places where we might not be treated differently, where we might not be unequal. One such place, where anyone would rationally expect equality in its truest sense to exist, is the “house of God”.

Religion occupies a huge proportion of importance and value in the lives of a majority of individuals living in the world— be it in the form of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, among numerous others (the list of religions that exist in the world currently is virtually endless).

 

But reality exists in stark contrast to this theoretical view and belief of gender equality. Most of the world’s religions consider women to be part of the second tier of devotees, the first tier being obviously occupied by men. They are usually seen as a sort of support system to the existence of man in the religious world, existing only to augment the male purpose and ego. Historically entrenched, women have been denied rights to property, wealth, and even things as basic as the right to freedom or opinion, while all of these claims have been held up by crutches that we call religion.

 

This is not a novel phenomenon. In early Indian history, the Vedas (which are considered as one of the earliest religious texts in India) were conceived and popularised to establish the dominance of the Brahmans and their worldview. They reflected the realities of society but also tried to shape the perceptions of those living in this society. Based upon similar ideals, modern religion has taken assistance from age-old traditions, interpreting even the handful of non-sexist ideals through a misogynistic eyehole.

 

Under Hinduism (a religion followed by a huge majority of the Indian population), women are not considered independent individuals but are only seen as attached to the authority of a man. 

According to the Hindu code of Manu,

In childhood a woman must be subject to her father, in youth to her husband, [and] after the husband’s death to her sons; a woman must never be free of subjugation.”

 

Under Christianity, the scripture in Genesis says, 

The Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet (fit or suitable) for him,”

again, suggesting that women are to play a supportive role to men. This is further found in passages in Colossians and Peter, which call for women to submit to their husbands and to stay silent in their shadow.

 

Islam might be seen as holding a better position in some respects— such as the existence of alimony (nafaqah) and the provision of a right to divorce for not just men, but also women under Islamic law (khul). But in other respects, Islam also holds a similar notion where women are seen as inferior and subject to subjugation by men. It also gave men the unequal and unfair right to instantly divorce their wives by saying “talaq” thrice. This led to a massive judicial case, bringing to light the question of religious boundaries and state intervention. Ultimately, the Indian government ended up criminalising the practice of “triple talaq”, but that does not point towards a very significant betterment of the status of women in Islamic society.

 

One branch of Jainism, that is, the Digambars, does not even consider women eligible for enlightenment as they believe that enlightenment is only possible by giving up all possessions, including one’s clothing. As the female body goes through the biological process of menstruation, it becomes inherently impossible for women to give up clothing, thus, leaving them excluded from even the choice of being part of this process.

How much sense does it make— that owing to an inequality based not on one’s choice but rather on the autonomy of nature and biology— women are subjected to such rules and restrictions, not even free from this bias in a place where people turn to for finding intrinsic peace?

 

A similar incident gained a lot of media coverage in the past years, that is, the Sabarimala case. A 2018 Supreme Court verdict lifted the ban that had prevented women of menstruating age to enter the Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala. Not surprisingly, this was met by a lot of outcries from religious groups as well as the inhabitants of Sabarimala itself. The breaking and violation of an age-old tradition, that had been followed by ancestors through centuries, was enough blasphemy for the people. But does faith in a religion or God or divinity give an individual or society the right to deny women (who, ideally, should also be as important in the “eyes of god” as men) their freedom of faith and practice?

 

The feminist movement has constantly argued about the problems that exist in the religious sphere and stem from the religious sphere— the practice of Sati, the Pardah system, unequal property rights (and the ensuing social and political inequality and dependence). But this also does not mean that religion as a whole only exists as a tool for the subjugation of women (even if a majority of it does). 

Case in point would be the constant discussion over the wearing of the Hijab by Muslim women, a practice that people jumped upon as being “oppressive”, “unfair”, or “going against modern feminist ideals”. This is not what feminism truly means. Feminism gives women the right to freedom— to make choices for themselves, be it in alignment with traditional practices or with the modern. Such a blatant and blind viewpoint does not achieve anything for women and their rights. Rather it builds upon the same precept that has been put forward by the proponents of patriarchy for decades, taking away from women the freedom to make an independent choice for themselves. 

 

But coming back to the norm and not the exception, most independent-thinking women do not think that the co-existence of religion and feminism is possible. Every step that is taken differently from what your religion or its scriptures or religious leaders prescribe and preach, is also seen and considered as a step away from your faith. 

If a religion simply becomes a tool of subjugation, and not of freedom, then such a faith has nothing to contribute to human society,”said an article from dailyo.com

 

So, does that mean that in this modern world women still need to exist in parts, hiding away something to be a part of something else? Does it mean that women cannot exist as a whole, as human, but only as an anomaly of pieces stitched together as per convenience?

 

Read also ‘Show Me the YA Section, Please!’ 

Feature Image Credits: ‘Women and Religion’ by Carole A. Barnsley

 

Manasvi Kadian

[email protected]

DU students organised a protest at Arts Faculty, North Campus to attract Delhi University authorities’ attention towards their demand for online examination for all semesters of DU.


Following an earlier protest which was organised on 7th March 2022, students of Delhi University held another protest on 11th March 2022, demanding online examinations (or OBE) for all students, including those belonging to semesters other than the first semester. This protest was held at Arts Faculty, North Campus, Delhi University, and students showed up in massive numbers to support this demand for OBE for the ongoing semesters.

These offline protests were accompanied by online protests which involved sharing of posters on stories and using the hashtag ‘#Hybridmodeshouldbeachoice’ and ‘#OnlineExamForAllSemestersOfDU’. This also led to the signing and filling of an online petition form which was then to be submitted to the Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University on 11th March itself.

After the massive re-opening protests at the beginning of February, these protests highlighting the problems of re-opening and offline classes have brought forward the irony and duality of being a Delhi University student. 

The student protesters believe that OBE mode of examination is the only form in which examination should be taken in such a scenario wherein almost 70-80% of the syllabus has been covered during online classes. 

For 2 years we have been giving online exams and online assignments and now suddenly the colleges have opened and (offline) internals have started… It will take time to adapt ourselves to the university environment; and we haven’t gotten that much time. Majority of our syllabus has been completed online. Only the latter 30% is being taught in offline (mode) and then you are expecting that we give offline exams so obviously that is a problem for us,” says Anubhav, a 3rd year UG student from Ramjas.

 

Many students have also raised concern over the fact that while all the colleges have opened, hostels have not. This means that in addition to all the other problems and issues that the students are facing, they also have to find a place to stay at a very short notice. This comes with an extreme rise in PG prices and rents, something that cannot be ignored when talking about students coming from different economic backgrounds.

I saw yesterday that the mother of a student was crying that please get my daughter a hostel, a room. They haven’t thought about where the students are going to stay. All they have said is that come and give offline exams,” continues Anubhav.

 

Many of the post-graduate students have also highlighted the problem of having to leave the jobs that they had taken up or the examinations they were preparing for.

We have already started pursuing our different (professional) lines and we have started the studies for the same. Now you are expecting that we switch over, so obviously it isn’t that easy. It isn’t easy to do so in a Master’s (degree),” said a student from Hansraj College.

 

Following these protests from Friday, a group of student protestors was called in front of the examination decision-making authority, that is, the Dean of Examinations, to discuss the issue and address the students’ demands. This was done without the presence of the Vice-Chancellor due to his absence during that time.

First of all, they said that majority of the students want to give offline exams. On that, we showed them the 7000 forms (petition forms) that had been filled after which they said that they would mediate upon this and get back to us,” said Divyanshu Singh Yadav, who has been very vocal and visible at the protests and has been constantly urging students to support the cause through the medium of videos on an Instagram page dedicated to this cause, ‘du_online_mode_2022’.

At present, no clear decision has been taken in response to these students’ protests yet.

 

Read also ‘CYSS Vivekananda College Demands ‘No Classes’ on Saturdays’ 

Feature Image Credits: YouTube- Gaurav Doraha

 

Manasvi Kadian

[email protected] 

Do you also get your daily news from Twitter? Was the last time you opened and actually read a newspaper never? Then this journalism is for you.


“Russia invaded Ukraine”, you said, after getting an afternoon update on your phone. Scrolling, you could see notifications coming in from various news apps and digital platforms. You could feel the urgency behind these; the need to be the first one to cover it, the one that takes on a different angle. 

 

In the 21st century, when our eyes are glued to our screens and our hands to our phones, traditional forms of journalism have been, slowly but steadily, losing relevance. While many of those in the older generations would still rather read the news fresh off the press, waiting for it at its designated daily time and savouring it like a meal, a majority of the younger audience prefers to consume news in the form of bite-sized snacks— considerably low effort and easy on their time.

Social media journalism has been called the fifth pillar of society, just after the traditional mass media which is considered the fourth pillar. Putting this into perspective, in a country where almost 60% of the population lives in poverty (UNU study), we see that 68% of the total population ends up consuming news through their smartphones (TOI article based on Reuters report). This creates an incessant (and almost crazy) need for journalists to be on their toes all the time— to grab news leads as soon as they come onto the social media space, to update ongoing stories, and to be the “winner” in this race of social media journalism. Going beyond the ambit of honesty and reality, this fast service journalism comes with its own fallacies. With WhatsApp forwards being an up and coming “news house”, it sometimes feels as if rationality gets thrown out a window. Put into this mix the rightly-placed notion of “too many cooks spoil the food”— with anyone and everyone having a platform to voice their opinions, which, more often than not, are partially-informed and poorly analysed hearsay-bearing gossip- news and sources get diluted to their best.

Disinformation is worse than misinformation, Disinformation is purposeful misinformation,” an article from Youth Ki Awaaz

Last year, media houses like Tatva India and Yuvadope ended up publishing false news pieces about communal unrest and post-poll violence in Bengal. Does this mean that a race to be the first justifies such infringement upon the truth? Does it entail that a paucity of time needs to be accompanied by a paucity of integrity?

 

But nothing is all good or all bad. Social media journalism goes hand-in-hand with citizen journalism, enabling stories from across the world to find a voice free from state control (except in cases when the state has banned the internet itself). It ends up giving a platform to journalism, to step out of the shadows of money and political power, to be a channel of the people, by the people, and for the people, and to sometimes truly be what it is meant to be— the plain and simple truth.

 

Feature Image: theatlantic.com

 

Manasvi Kadian

[email protected]

Big fat Indian weddings remained a fairly constant occurrence even while all of the world was hit by the far-reaching and dire consequences of COVID-19, with the booming wedding sector seeming practically unaffected. But are these lavish Indian weddings just a synonym for conspicuous consumption?


“The big fat Indian wedding”— a phrase whose meaning we understand with no explanations, one which has a story of its own. Considered as a day when an individual’s importance sits on a pedestal, the wedding day itself gets placed on a seat of high importance. “It is the most important moment in your life” is a tagline that we get to hear from numerous wedding brands (from the couture lehenga makers to the wedding planners and shaadi websites). Weddings are seen as this watershed moment in one’s life so it isn’t very surprising when we see people spending huge amounts on a single wedding, leaving the wedding sector booming as a 50 billion dollar industry

 

Human beings live in societies comprising of social circles ranging from those within the family to those that exist through your professional as well as educational lives. The people involved in a person’s life keep increasing with time (that is unless you are Squidward); and in an Indian wedding, no one gets left behind (literally). Everyone from your dur ki bua to the brother of your dad’s office colleague gets an invitation and most of these people end up in front of food counters on your wedding day. After all, no one denies an invitation to gorge on free food and judge as if all the decisions for the Last Judgement have just become their sole responsibility.

 

Enter into play Rousseau’s ‘Amour Propre’— a need for comparison and approval by others to measure your own self-esteem— leaving the day to become a parade of impressing and cajoling absolutely anyone you have ever met (or sometimes haven’t), a task so important that it rises above the will and desires of everyone else (including the bride and groom). It becomes a day of your reckoning— your societal status, your wealth, your miserliness, all come under the scrutiny of your not-so-friendly rishtedaars. 

More than anything else, it is a matter of prestige and social standing— to be able to throw a lavish wedding and to be able to spend all that money. In a very basic sense, yes it can just be seen as a way to show off,” says the father of a recently-wed bride (who spent crores on the particular wedding day), in conversation with a DUB correspondent.

This leaves anyone in their right mind (so to say) with only one viable option— spend all your money on the people whose you might never meet again.

 

In addition to this, weddings also end up being considered as a two-way process. “They invited us to their daughter’s wedding so obviously we have to invite them to ours” can be heard numerous times from the room while the guest list gets drafted.

screen clip weddingSource: The Indian Express

But people alone cannot be blamed. Cinema has a huge role in shaping our lives while constantly shaping its own ideas based on societal traditions. Shows like ‘The Big Day’ or ‘Made in Heaven’ and movies like ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’, ‘Shaandaar’, or ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’ are the perfect examples of the romanticisation of these huge Indian weddings with choreographed dances and colour-themed events. But when such scenes try to be implemented in reality, they leave families with bills understandably rising up to a hefty amount.

For that top 1%, this sometimes comes as more of a boon than a bane, providing them with an opportunity to dust their hands off the accumulated sums of corrupted “black” money with most of the wedding transactions occurring in cash.

 

More than the upper middle classes or higher economic classes being affected by this, the brunt of the “wedding craze” can be felt by the poorest of the poor who end up taking loans (mostly from informal institutions such as that of the moneylenders or large zamindaars) and spending the rest of their life trying to repay them. An average Indian ends up spending around one-fifth of their lifetime earnings on wedding celebrations, an amount that seems absurd when put into this perspective.

Indians are known to mortgage properties, take as many personal loans as they can afford, or beg and borrow just to ensure that there’s enough display of gold at a wedding. In certain regions, people explicitly demand gold as dowry in the name of ancestral tradition. Even the poorest of parents will try to give at least one gold chain to their daughter to save face,” explains Dr Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, a New Delhi-based think-tank.

In the worst of the worst scenarios, many end up committing suicide as they are unable to bear the burden that comes hidden under the veil of “celebrations”. More than a private, happy affair, wedding days end up being something you need to worry about and start saving for from the day one’s child is born.

When analysed more carefully, this ends up perpetuating not just economic inequality, but also a certain gender bias, with parents preferring to have sons over daughters as it entails less spending (in the form of dowry) and a transfer of a majority of wedding expenses to the other family (in India, traditionally, the bride’s side pays for the all the preparations and bears all the costs of the ceremony). This, in turn, provides a reason for a huge majority of families in India to engage in practices like female foeticide, beginning a vicious cycle with no end in sight.

 

So, it all boils down to one question— is it all worth it? Is all this spending on that one “magical day” worth all the efforts and hard work that went into earning that same amount of money? Have weddings just become a day to satiate our people-pleasing tendencies? Are big fat Indian weddings really viable in a capitalist economy?

 

Read also ‘Whimsical Wisdom in Children’s Books’ 

 

Feature Image Credits: theknot.com

 

Manasvi Kadian

[email protected]

Two SOL students were attacked, harassed, and abused during the peaceful protests held in front of the SOL building on 18th February 2022. Read to find out more.


On the second day of the reopening of Delhi University colleges, that is, 18th February 2022, SOL (School of Open Learning) students along with Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) members staged a protest outside the SOL building in the North campus. 

 

The protestors raised their concern about the various problems that the SOL students were facing such as a lack of clarity on the status of the reopening of physical classes (academic counselling session), distribution of incomplete study material to first-year students, and a general lack of apathy of the administration towards SOL students. They also raised their concerns regarding the offline mode of examination for the fourth and sixth-semester students and urged the administration to reconsider the decision, taking into account the different backgrounds the students belong to and the difficulty they might face in coming to Delhi at such short notice.

These batches of students would be taking examinations in the physical mode for the first time without any grounding. People from across the country are enrolled in SOL and would find it impossible to come to Delhi for a physical mode examination. As such examinations should be conducted in Open Book Examination (OBE) format, and both online and physical modes should be offered,” demanded the press statement.

This is not the first time that SOL students are facing such a problem of lack of study material or ignorance of their concerns and demands by the administration. A similar situation arose during the December examinations when students demanded a postponement of exams due to a lack of printed resources and study materials.

 

This allegedly peaceful protest took a turn for the worse when, upon being called in, two students went into the SOL principal’s office to submit a memorandum of the protestor’s demands and were subsequently locked in, harassed, and beaten violently. Both parties ended up filing FIRs in the Maurice Nagar police station.

According to this report, two SOL students, Jatin and Bhim, were called into the SOL premises to meet the principal, Uma Shankar Pandey. They were accompanied by a police constable Vinay. Upon entering the premises, SOL guards allegedly locked the gates and started slapping and kicking the students without provocation. They were then taken into the principal’s office where 20 people gathered and started beating, harassing, and verbally abusing the students in front of the principal as well as the constable. After some time, they were allowed to leave the principal’s office but the gates were still closed. The students had to climb over the gate to escape and even called the police. 

One of the students, Jatin, also sustained an injury in the form of a fracture in his arm and had to be taken to Hindu Rao hospital where medical tests were done and MLC report was obtained.

They were pulling my jacket, my hair and constantly saying abusive things right in front of the principal who was just watching. The police constable was trying to defend us but he was outnumbered. They also snatched our mobile and said they will fail us in exam,” 

 

In his complaint to the police, SOL Officiating Principal Uma Shankar Pandey said, 

Some agitators entered the SOL building and misbehaved with female security guards and manhandled staff of SOL…. they threatened the SOL staff, and provoked other agitators to enter the premises…” 

He also claimed that “stern action” must be taken against them and tried to justify the SOL administration’s actions.

 

Following this, KYS demanded an immediate dismissal of the SOL principal as well as a public apology from the SOL as well as Delhi University in a press release dated 18.02.22.

KYS demands that DU must immediately sack the SOL Principal for his criminal conduct. DU and SOL must issue a public apology for this condemnable incident and adopt a zero-tolerance policy to ensure such an incident does not occur ever again. KYS condemns these dastardly attacks on students and pledges to intensify its movement for the educational rights of deprived and marginalised students,” stated Bhim Kumar, a member of KYS, through the medium of the press release.

 

A similar stand was also taken by Abha Dev Habib, secretary, Democratic Teacher’s Front (DTF), condemning this attack on the students and demanding an inquiry into the same.

The fact that students were violently attacked in the Principal’s Office with the direct involvement of SOL Officials is extremely unfortunate. DTF condemns this criminal attack on students in no uncertain terms. Peaceful protests and demands of students cannot be handled in this manner. When there is zero tolerance for physical assault on students, are the SOL students being treated in this manner as they come from marginalized backgrounds? University should set up an inquiry into the incidence and take action.”

 

Read also ‘DU Reopening Protests: Plan of Action Day 3

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat Archives

 

Manasvi Kadian

[email protected]

Isn’t it ironic to see the romantic confessions made within those four walls fall silent in public when all you want to do is scream about how much that person means to you? Seems quite perplexing. Read to find out more.


Since time immemorial, India has existed in a constant state of “Log Kya Kahenge?”. From when we were students in a school to now when we are students in a college, Indian teenagers and young adults have washed their hands off the freedom of individualistic romance in a very paradoxical sense. When we talk about romantic relationships— specifically relationships that exist outside the rigidly set arranged marriage norms— we attract uninvited wrath, not just from our immediate family (who could be believed to be just showing their concern for us), but also from our extended family, the neighbours, and society in general. Ironically enough, in India, the number of people concerned about your life and choices is almost always more than the people you know.

Our generation has constantly been trying to address concerns like sexuality or sex-positivity in our homes and our families when most of them aren’t even able to accept the concept of emotional attachment beyond the platonic. How do we even get ourselves to talk about PDA’s problem (or lack) in India when affection in a very private setting is also shunned?

Society acts as if we live inside a typical Bollywood cinematic experience where we can only subscribe to a single stereotypical character trope. This complexity leads to most young adults in India leading a double life (and no, it isn’t as glamorous as it sounds). One personality is donned when in familial circles, around people who might gossip. Then that same gossip gets delivered right to your home, another which is the true manifestation of your realities and desires and freedom, the one that rarely gets to show itself.

In Indian households you just condition yourself to be okay with dealing with relationship problems or heartbreaks alone because you CAN NOT talk to your parents about it. It’s not only about society’s judgement, but a major part is just the judgement and shame you get from your own family. It just ends up making things so suffocating.” –a first-year student, anonymous (case in point).

This emotional and mental stress an individual has to go through, not because of the relationship itself, but the ensuing lack of acceptance and the shame attached to it, becomes the seed of more significant issues— self-doubt, anxiety, depression (Dr Nair to The Swaddle); but the problem is not limited to this. This rigidity and retrogression trigger an even bigger issue— the direct involvement of society. 

 

Valentine’s Day is seemingly the best opportunity to let your partner hold your hand and walk by your side. Yet, for some, the agenda of that day is far away from the thoughts of adoration. While it is believed that love has no religion and is free of any biases, some states in the country have certainly overruled this belief. For starters, the infamous “Love Jihad” law or the UP (Uttar Pradesh) Vidhi Virudh Dharma Samparivartan Pratishedh Adyadesh 2020 (prohibition of unlawful religious conversion) states that a marriage will be considered null and void if the sheer purpose of that marriage was to change the girl’s religion. Rather than being guided by the thought of protection, this law sows the seeds of injustice. There is no concrete evidence to support this heinous act, but it is merely an act perpetrated by the “Hinduistic” feelings. Under this law, the Lucknow police got the authority not to let Raina Gupta and Mohammad Asif cherish their togetherness even when the families agreed. The Muslim community of the country is already under religious persecution. Yet, not only are they getting harassed under the law, but the interfaith couples who were married long before its enactment are subjected to a questionable amount of harassment. Apart from UP, this law is present in Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, Haryana, and Karnataka have expressed their intentions to follow the same path.

If this law seems too much to digest, then what would be your thoughts on Hindu far right-wing groups who target couples, especially on Valentine’s day, and resort to violence to teach them a lesson for their “unacceptable” act of love in the public eye? These anti-valentines day groups believe in the “saintly” power that marriage holds, and it is an “offence” to indulge in “love” or “physical relation” before it. If these groups find someone who opposes this mindset, they resort to violence to make it “right.” It has become a tradition for the groups like Bajrang Dal, Sri Ram Sena, Shakti Sena, or Bharat Sena to punish people indulging in acts of love that, according to them, belong behind closed doors. The Hindu Sena had previously issued a notice in Delhi stating that if they caught any couple indulging in obscenity, they would be handed to the police. Meanwhile, the Hyderabad unit of Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) (group formed by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Samiti (RSS), the parent group of Bharatiya Janata Party) gave out the statement that if they found any couple wandering, they will be given a lecture on patriotism.

 

The irony is that people are said to be free yet are expected to act “cowardly.” People become embodiments of coward demons, and when we say the word “demon,” we imagine longhorns, red skin, a trident in their hand; so why have we resorted to such a distorted version of emotions? Why have we chosen to demonise love?

 

Ankita Baidya & Manasvi Kadian

 

[email protected]

[email protected]

Human beings have never existed in isolation. Everything that has been a part of our history, has both influenced and been influenced. Charles Darwin and Adolf Hitler are two non-contemporary individuals who find themselves at a similar junction— “survival of the fittest”.


Darwin and Hitler are two names that have woven their way into our lives— be it through education, literature, or even popular media. When you say these names, you hardly ever expect someone to not know of them; that is the level of fame (good or bad) both of them have ended up garnering over the last many decades.

 

Charles Darwin, the mind behind the godly concept of evolution, has been very popularly known for telling humans one thing: the fact that humans and apes shared a common ancestor. The outrage was far beyond anything anyone could imagine; after all, it isn’t usually taken well when you imply the comparison of the “developed, far superior” human to an animal like the ape. Darwin ended up penning his ideas and theories in two books— ‘The Origin of Species’ (1859) and ‘The Descent of Man’ (1871) — leaving behind a legacy for others to ponder upon and most often than not, dissect and distort.

 

Fast forward to 1914, to the story of a young man, Adolf Hitler, who had recently volunteered to fight in the Bavarian army during World War 1; the same war that ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and brought “great humiliation” to Hitler’s fatherland, Germany. Being one amongst the many who believed that Germany could have won the war, Adolf Hitler became (in a sense) disturbingly obsessed with these concepts and ideals in that post-war era. With rising anger and profoundly deep blame that hadn’t found its mark yet, Hitler joined a small nationalist political party (which later came to be known as the ‘Nazi Party’) whose members carried antisemitic sentiments in their hearts as well as minds.

These sentiments did not just leave an indelible mark on Hitler’s life but ended up forming the very foundation of German society, politics and emotions. But a question rises— how did Hitler end up convincing hundreds upon thousands of Germans to follow what he preached? How did intellectuals and learned individuals (including doctors and scientists) give in to the gory reality of something as twisted as genocide?

hitler and nazisImage credits: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

In the 19th and 20th century, modern society, specifically in Germany, was filled to the brim with numerous new and developing ideas. This meant that Hitler did not have to step onto the stage holding a clean slate in his hand; rather he was armed with the ideas of those before him. He truly understood the meaning of learning from the past to influence the future.

In his writings and numerous speeches, Hitler might have presented varying ideas but at the very core, all of them were born from the same racial and imperialist seed, sown into the belief that humans existed in a state of hierarchical races and that the Aryans were at the top rung of this figurative ladder. This division of humans into races, which we now consider a social construct, found a scientific justification with Hitler holding the reins.

Hitler confidently claimed that the existing racial differences amongst human beings ended up manifesting themselves in terms of an individual’s intellectual and moral capabilities, a claim whose origin can be believed to be traced back to Darwin’s ‘Descent of Man’. This claim allowed him and the so-called “superior races” to exercise free will, because, after all, they were the most intellectual and morally capable beings. But as we have seen through the windows of historical writings and sources, this was not where it stopped. Combining these biological but distorted Darwinist claims with the German Völkisch ideals (that the German people were connected to each other and the German soil), Hitler came up with a fool-proof way to fuel a superiority complex amongst the Germans.

This theory of racial superiority ended up becoming a justification for anything and everything that Hitler thought would benefit the fatherland. He claimed that Germany was overcrowded (a completely baseless and false claim for that matter) and it was a requirement for the Germans to expand into the East, that is, the regions of the Slavs. Now this was considered a problem because the Aryans being a superior race to the Slavs, could claim better resources, or in this case, more land. 

Darwin said that

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”

and Hitler ended up drawing from this the only logical conclusion he could— that war and extermination of the savage races was inevitable. While Darwin had talked about a natural phenomenon, Hitler zeroed in onto the only plausible conclusion in his eyes, that is, human interference as the only means to this end.

Thus, Hitler found a way to justify prioritising the Aryans and their needs over everyone else.

hitler and salute
Image credits: https://biography.yourdictionary.com/

 

But it wasn’t as if being an Aryan gave a free pass of safety to a person. Hitler found his way to another one of Darwin’s ideas. 

In the ‘Descent of Man’, Darwin compared the evolution of human beings with the breeding of animals and said

Thus, the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man,”

allowing someone with a one-track mind like Hitler’s to see this as an opportunity and a necessity to propagate the existence of only the superior races, thereby creating a “perfect” Germany and later a “perfect” world. Cue the entry of eugenics (the practice of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits) to an already messed up, beyond-repair reality. This meant that people with diseases, weaknesses, and mental or physical deformities, began to be seen as a burden upon German society. This ideology of Hitler did not function within the racial hierarchy concept, for now, everyone was equal in Hitler’s eyes. He launched the Akiton T4 or the Euthanasia program, a systematic murder of all those who were seen as anything less than the “perfect Aryans.”

 

Amongst all this, the Jews were in an even worse position (yes, it does get worse than this). They were seen as inhuman creatures who could not even be given the “privilege” to be part of this highly biased, but still human, racial hierarchy. The Jews were seen and represented as the devil incarnate, or microbes, or bacteria; nothing fit for a human being.

propagandaImage credits: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

There is nothing that sums up the atrocities the Jews had to go through and the Holocaust that changed not just the lives of people but the path of history itself. 

 

Hitler built such a reputation for himself, not just through his eloquent speeches, but by using scientific arguments as a defense, that he convinced people to cold-bloodedly murder those who had been a part of their country just a few years ago. But it wasn’t just a one-man show. Hitler wasn’t alone. The one thing that needs to be credited to him is the vast knowledge he built upon. From being inspired by Ernst Haeckel to picking up ideas from Francis Galton, he made the most practical application of theoretical knowledge than anyone else ever did.

 

So, when we ask— did Charles Darwin trigger the holocaust, I might just have a really simple answer. None of the things that Hitler did have a monocausal explanation; none of these ideologies can be pinned to a single person or a single theory. So yes, Darwin did play a very important role in providing Hitler with the necessary shield to defend his twisted ideas with, but also Darwinian ideas cannot be blamed for having caused the Holocaust or making Hitler, “Hitler,” singlehandedly.

In conclusion, Hitler was the true embodiment of a “self-seeking maximiser” who used a novel, scientific idea to justify his actions and minimise the ensuing public reaction to his policies. Charles Darwin cannot be blamed for the holocaust because if the holocaust was dependent upon a single someone, that someone would only be Hitler.

 

Read also ‘Fresh or Stale: Looking at the Construct of Freshers’ 

 

Feature Image Credits: evolutionnews.org

 

Manasvi Kadian

[email protected]

The Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University laid down the foundation stone of a new academic block at Kamala Nehru College on Monday, 31st January 2022. Read more to find out about this new building.


The foundation stone of a new academic block was laid down at Kamala Nehru College by the Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh at a ceremony on Monday, 31st January 2022. This event was organised in two parts: the foundation stone laying ceremony, held at nature square in Kamala Nehru College, and the felicitation and address which took place in the auditorium hall of the college. The entire event was streamed live on the YouTube channel of the college to maximise the viewing capacity even with the COVID restrictions and guidelines in place.

 

This new academic block was proposed as part of the Other Backward Class (OBC) Infrastructure Expansion plan, implemented in the college in 2017. This plan can be interpreted as one building upon the past attempts to expand infrastructure after the implementation of the 27% reservation policy of 2009. 

 

According to the statements by the college, the new block is to be built upon an area of 1250 sq. metres with a basement, a ground floor, a mezzanine floor, and a first floor. The ground floor is set to have a lecture hall with a 180-people seating capacity and a green room, equipment room, storeroom, and washrooms, while the basement would have nine tutorial rooms, a staff room, and lockers. The mezzanine floor is to have a loft and storerooms, and the first floor will have a classroom, a terrace porch, and a bridge connecting the new block with the old one. All the classrooms in the block will be smart classrooms. The college also added that this new building is an environmentally friendly structure, reflecting the college’s commitment to environmental sustainability.

As a student, inculcating smart learning and technology into the physical classroom feels like a great step to me. The addition of this new building and these classrooms will make it easier for the college to accommodate the huge student body, in addition to making learning more interactive.”, says Hridya Madhav, a first-year student of Kamala Nehru College.

The addition of smart classrooms signifies a change in the educational perspective of Indian institutions as well as of individuals who are part of Indian academia. This step towards adopting a more hybrid form of learning, in addition to the proposal and implementation of a policy like NEP, signifies a rising trend of change in the Indian academic sector.

 

After the laying of the foundation stone, the addressal began with recalling the laying of the foundation stone of the original building of Kamala Nehru College by the then-president V.V. Giri on 21st November 1972. This was followed by a felicitation of the chief guest, Vice Chancellor Yogesh Singh, as well as other senior officials who were present at the event including the Dean of Colleges, Prof. Balram Pai; Director, South Campus, Prof. Shri Prakash Singh; Chairperson, KNC Governing body, Shri Jaydeep Ahuja; and Treasurer, KNC Governing body, Shri Anwar Shahid.

The college’s principal, Dr. Kalpana Bakhuni elaborated upon the various ways the college had moulded itself to function in such unprecedented times of the COVID crisis, such as through the use of online resources, technology, as well as the various aids that were provided to the students through schemes like ‘Recharge the Learning Scheme’.

Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh also addressed the audience, appreciating the college’s efforts in adapting to this changed learning environment as well as in the context of the new academic block. He also brought attention to the NEP, emphasising the role played by higher educational institutions and teachers in the implementation of the policy and the need to properly understand the intricacies of the same. He also talked about the guiding principle behind this policy, which is inculcating a more comprehensive, all-encompassing, and value-enriched curriculum rather than one which is solely focused on academic achievements of students. 

 

Read also “Guiding Lights in ‘Unprecedented Times’: DU Professors” https://dubeat.com/2022/02/guiding-lights-in-unprecedented-times-du-professors/ 

 

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat Archives

 

Manasvi Kadian

[email protected]

“Misogynism isn’t something that we will take forward. We won’t be passing the trauma of this sexist culture to the next generation.” But are you sure about that?


TW: Mentions of r*pe, s*xualisation and obj*ctification.

I come from two Indias. One where we believe that our generation will be the end of misogyny and sexism, and bring a new age of real equality; and another where we are scared of even posting pictures online because we might be scrutinised and objectified by people we know, where we are scared of stalker exes, and where rape culture is normalised and rape cases are nothing of a novelty.

I belong to both of them, and I belong to none of them.

I believe that we are trying and that we are changing but I also know that we call this a culture of toxicity for a reason—it is a poison that breeds itself, perpetuating through the generations, changing in proportion and manifestation but never really disappearing. After all, it says “survival of the fittest”, not “survival of the best” and your misogyny slips into its place in this world as easily as that missing last piece of a thousand-piece puzzle.

Human beings are social animals, but we are also hopeful creatures. We would rather believe that the next generation won’t have to live with the fears we lived in or face the trauma that we carry with us every day, than open our eyes to the reality which surrounds us. The Bois locker room case which targeted underage girls was not made by old, bored men sitting in the dark corners of their houses, but by school and college students, people we could very well have personally known. A 9-year-old was raped in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, not by grown men with twisted minds, but by boys aged 10 and 14. The Bulli Bai app wasn’t just made by a group of radicalists living many decades in the past, who wanted to silence and suppress women by fueling fears and age-old repressive methods, but by a group that also included a Delhi University student, someone belonging to one of the most prestigious universities in the country.

When we hear of these incidents, we try to separate our world from theirs. We try to build them up in our heads as monsters who exist as an anomaly. But does the world create monsters, or do the monsters just belong in the world? Are we grasping at straws, trying to be optimistic, trying to find a new explanation for these horrors every day? Are we deliberately looking for factors and reasons that are solvable, so that we can glaze over the rotten foundation we, as a society, are standing on?

Our generation talks about the end of an era of doing things wrong, but we don’t realise that the fight isn’t about the few people around us, but about the thousands upon thousands of others who aren’t. We keep hiding behind our curtains of doe-eyed beliefs that people are changing, while in reality, we are only creating walls between these different mentalities. The fact that we don’t see it every day, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist anymore. 

If you are still itching to give an argument against this, itching to add a dash of optimistic rant and talk about all the “good” people around you, think about this: If I ask you to count on your fingers the number of people you know who have never made a misogynistic comment, who have never objectified or sexualised someone, who have never made a problematic joke, wouldn’t your ten fingers end up being too many?

 

Read also “Why Is Gen-Z So Pessimistic?” https://dubeat.com/2022/01/why-is-gen-z-so-pessimistic/ 

 

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat Archives

 

Manasvi Kadian

[email protected]