As a student of the Zakir Husain Delhi College, I have had a front-row view of the protests against the government’s new policy of financing central universities, which are being carried out by the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) and the students.
These protests have been going on for a few weeks now, with active participation from both the teachers and the students of my college. I too decided to join, to support the movement and the cause. At times, I would come back from college quite early since classes got cancelled after 11 AM, and later get to know from my fellow students about how the day’s protest proceeded. I would learn about how they protested in the sun for hours – and this happened several times over the past month. But what would amuse me the most was how, when I mentioned these things to students from ‘prominent’ colleges, I would get a blatant response about how their colleges are not affected by any such protests. That their teachers are extremely serious about their classes, and how they are not as lucky as students like me who get such frequent ‘holidays’.
Fast forward a week and my Instagram feed was flooded with posts describing why it was important to participate in the protest of March 28, while also encouraging students to boycott classes. Naturally, I was excited to see that now, students from even the so-called ‘prominent’ colleges were actively talking about taking part in the protest and the movement itself. As a student who had been talking about this issue and the problems that might come up with this new policy, I felt enthralled to see more people now taking part in it.
But as some time passed and I saw even more people posting about the protest, I could not help but wonder – how did this sudden surge in interest come about? How is it that the same people, who talked about how their colleges are immune to such protests, are now taking very strong and vehement stands against this policy? That’s when I decided to find out how these posts started.
The post was originally written by a well-known student from a highly reputed college in the north campus of Delhi University. It was confirmed that the said student is popular on social media. I could not help but wonder – was it because the student belonged to a particular college, besides being popular on social media, that people finally decided to pay attention?
I am not against the student who wrote about the protest, nor am I against more people taking part in the protest and posting about it. What worries me is how the nature of the protest has changed. The more I talked to people, the more I found out how less or ill-informed they were about the issue at hand.
While it is true that DUTA is bringing out bulletins regarding the protest, we must remember that the people in DUTA have political affiliations too. Depending on their word is not enough. We talk about how it is the students who will be most affected, but do we know how? Do we know why the fees may go up? Do we know what the policy says in detail?
If we are the prime targets of this policy, then it is important that we should know what the policy is all about. Students have been talking about how the fees might rise astronomically to ₹1 lakh, or (even ₹5-6 lakhs) if this policy of autonomy is implemented. But who gave out this estimate? What is the calculation behind this estimate? Why will our fees suddenly multiply by a manifold because of this policy? And most importantly, why haven’t we discussed these figures and instead, blatantly accepted this Trump-esque behaviour?
It is of immense importance for us to know that DUTA has its own agenda too. There might be a reason why they are choosing to focus on our fees going up to lakhs, instead of talking about the other points which have been mentioned in the notification.
For example, the notification put forward by the University Grants Commission (UGC) states that there shall be a 20% reservation for foreign faculty and an attractive incentive structure to attract talented faculty members. How is that beneficial for the students? It will lead to a decrease in the number of highly qualified professionals who decide to work in private universities because they are provided with better research facilities and are paid much more compared to the central universities. This means that professionals who have had their education abroad and who are highly qualified will be more willing to apply to central universities. By doing so, the job security of the current faculty members does come into question. But never once has this been brought up even though it might be highly beneficial for the students.
The notification also says that the given autonomy will help the central universities break free from the shackles of getting permission from the UGC with regards to starting open and distance learning centres, hiring foreign faculty, engaging in academic collaborations with foreign institutions, etc.
The reason why most of the students decided to take part in this protest was because of the terror of our fees going up to lakhs that was instilled in us. The point that I am trying to make is that since our main issue has been that our fees might go up to lakhs, we must at the least understand why and how this might happen. In order to defend our stand of affordable higher education, we need to know what we are up against. But the sensationalisation of the march took away the attention from the crux of the issue and transformed it into a social media event. And that is why I decided to boycott the march on the March 28.
The truth about the protest on the 28th is that it became a vogue event, it became a fad. It became the place to be, because it was the ‘in’ thing to do. And the reason I say so is because of how quickly people changed their opinion about these protests after it was shared by people who belong to the established upper strata of social media.
As people started posting videos and images from the protest on the 28th, I started to realise how the march had changed from a march against anti-education and anti-student laws to a march where people were carrying placards which did not have any relation to the issue at hand (“Even Hogwarts was not privatised” – I get the humor but question the relevance!) and where people went for pictures to add to their ‘feed’. But, why do I say that? Because even though this was not the first sit-out or march or mass protest for this cause and against this issue, this was the first time social media was flooded with such posts. The posts showcased ‘innovative’ placards and pictures of people with their friends screaming at the top of their voices.
But then again, why do I feel that this was wrong? Why did I decide to write an article about it? I am doing so because I feel this march became another example of how certain sections of the society actually took away the spotlight from the people who will actually be most affected.
It moved away from the actual cause of being a movement for change to something which might now become a one-time event. And in a world where people already talk about how the younger generation does not have enough depth or knowledge about the issues at hand, about how the privileged people are overthrowing others, this march may have become another example of it. And that is something we should all pay attention to. Otherwise, this movement will soon succumb to the 21st-century adversity of getting lost on the internet.
Details regarding the facts stated about the notification passed by the UGC are from Ministry of HRD (UGC) notification dated February 12, 2018- “UNIVERSITY GRANTS COMMISSION [CATEGORISATION OF UNIVERSITIES (ONLY) FOR GRANT OF GRADED AUTONOMY] REGULATIONS, 2018”.
I have decided to keep my name anonymous for the moment due to certain personal reasons and have hence published this article under a pen name.
The post Ignorance About Order, Marching For ‘Likes’: Why I Decided To Boycott The DUTA Protest appeared first and originally on Youth Ki Awaaz and is a copyright of the same. Please do not republish.