A few have been busy writing obituaries on St. Stephen's College. Ram Guha started it all with a catchy title,
Murder in the Cathedral? Though attired only in the innerwear of a traditional Oracle, he predicted, back in 2007, the imminent demise of St. Stephen's and issued a demented call to organize a tearful burial. I saw the same Guha the other day on the
NDTV programme anchored by Sonia Singh, my former student. He sounded angry: angry that St. Stephen's had the temerity to fly in the face of his Doomsday prophecy. Sheer impertinence, sure, on the part of the College not to have obliged. I was reminded of an episode that I heard, half a century ago, in my village. The doctor certified a patient to be dead. While being taken to the ghat for cremation, the 'deceased' stirred slightly, then coughed once or twice and produced further un-obliging signs of being alive. Those who were carrying him became indignant. "The doctor says you are dead; how dare you behave otherwise?"
Sorry, Ram. No matter how loud you rave and rant, St. Stephen's will not oblige you. It is not free to, for the love of the youth of this country.
Well, I am grateful that Swapan Dasgupta, whose son graduated from the College only recently, acknowledged that the College is "a cherished rarity". A million young men and women from around the country would agree with him, even if this leaves Ram Guha gnashing his teeth like in the seventh circle of Dante's Hell.
Let me put simple facts against Ram Guha's co(s)mic charges against the College.
1.
The plural character of the College is in shambles. Truth to tell, the plural character of the College had attenuated by the time I became Principal. The student body looked, barring a few instances, almost homogenized. That was not a problem for Guha, because this homogenization favoured the social elite. (I don't expect him to appreciate that 'elitism' is de facto 'anti-plural'. Or, elitism is a homogenizing principle.) It was precisely to revive the plural culture of the College - to include the excluded - that I brought in reservations, not only for Christians, but also for the SCs and STs. It was for this offence that Ram Guha damned the College to hell. You have to be a Ram Guha to afford the right to bash up an institution for taking steps to preserve pluralism and also, in the same breath, to damn the institution for killing pluralism. But, mark this - he is not as self-contradictory as he appears, prima facie. He is for pluralism. But his pluralism must be accommodated strictly within the confines of social elitism. Sorry, Ram, that is not the vision of St. Stephen's College. It should never be.
2.
"Christianisation" has ruined the College. Why should Christians, who are 2% of the population, Ram thunders, occupy upto 50% of the seats in St. Stephen's? The answer to this silly argument was given eight years ago by Kabir Bedi, a fellow Stephanian. Of course, Ram would not listen to him. He must be heard, but don't expect him to listen. Kabir said, quite rightly, that Ram's argument could make sense only if 2% of seats in all educational institutions are reserved for Christians, which will never be the case. To insist that admission of Christian applicants to a Christian institution should be limited only to 2% , proportionate to their demographic size, is a fallacy that only Ram Guha can flaunt in public without attracting ridicule.
3.
St. Stephen's, Guha laments next, has become irrelevant. There are better institutions - Ramjas, LSR, SRCC, NLS. Here he loses his track completely. According to him, the National Law School is producing better "social scientists" and geniuses of humanities than St. Stephen's. Till I heard Guha, I thought NLS taught Law. I now stand corrected. Ram, please come and ask the current students of St. Stephen's as to how many of them would want to migrate to Ramjas, LSR and SRCC. Then repeat the exercise in the reverse. You will be lucky, if you are left smiling at the end of it.
4. Now, it gets almost bizarre with Guha.
According to him, the only department in St. Stephen's College that is worth anything at all is the Department of Philosophy. Being a historian, Guha does not know that the cut-off for Philosophy is lower than that of all other departments, except Sanskrit. It is lower than that of the BA Programme. And that too, when we take only 10 students per year. This is the only course for which 10 students per seat are shortlisted for interviews; for fear that otherwise we may not get the required 10 of some merit! This, incidentally, is an old problem. Well, I feel embarrassed to have to embarrass Guha. But I need to tell him that this is the problem when you bury an institution prematurely and out of prejudice. You stop doing any research. You get completely out of touch with facts. And you pontificate, generating heat, not light.
5.
Now a quick word about my excellent friend Mani Shankar Aiyar. He has a Mani-esque thesis: Principals don't matter. Students carry 90% of the burden of merit, teachers 4-8%. The remaining 2% - he does not mention this - is carried, I supposed, by karmacharis or Rohtas. Well, I have taught for over three decades. Mani does not seem to have the faintest idea of how unprepared students are at the entry level, given the school education they come from. All through my time as a teacher in St. Stephen's, I had to help my students build their foundations, brick by brick. Mani may have been a genius, but not many are. Mani is an instinctive myth-maker, an invigorating story-teller. He means no harm. But he loves to cook up and dish out. Here we have a typical Maniproprism (on the analogy of Malapropism). Given a chance, he will surely tell you that the PM is also irrelevant, the babus are 90% of the Government, and the MPs 4-8 per cent. Don't take him too seriously. If he offers a cup of chai, accept it and listen to him for as long as the chai lasts. The moment you suspect he sees a Maken in the chai cup, spring up and run for dear life!
6. Now, this one is not to be missed at all.
This is Swapan at his very best. He knows Mani has gone quite over the top. But, in the typical Stephanian fashion, he doesn't goad Mani. Instead, he slips in a banana peel, so to speak. "Why should a student magazine interview the Principal?" he asks with smirking innocence. Mani bites the bait. He raises his right hand in ready approval. Swapan smirks, knowing that he has got Mani this time around. Why would the students want to interview the Principal? Well, the answer is that the Principal matters! Matters a great deal. By the way, Mani, "the interview" runs into some 2,000 words. All because the Principal doesn't matter, no?
7.
Further contradictions follow. Swapan laments the decline of values all over the country. One of his fellow panelists snorts - "Discipline, be damned". If a student betrays the trust reposed in him, he should not be disciplined, but rewarded. What better can we do to make values thrive? It is well and truly said that India is being built in her class rooms.
8. One last thing.
Why can't issues be sorted out, a panelist wonders, within the four walls of the College, as it used to be in the past? Well, well.... Those days are gone, my dear fella. Media 24x7, the Internet, social media.... the accoutrements of the brave new world... with an assortment of new-fangled stuff, from smart phones to road rage... where the right to question is cut adrift from the duty to be answerable... and the right to think is devoid of the duty to make sense.
At the end of the day, if anyone were to ask you, "Friend, where are you headed?", you could answer, like the German philosopher, "I wish I knew...."
Keep watching... St. Stephen's being buried alive again and again, while in robust health, by those who learned to dig, thanks to the College.
(Valson Thampu is the Principal of St Stephen's College, University of Delhi.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.