Delhi University's Four-Year Undergraduate Programme will be beneficial particularly to those who are being misinformed and misled to believe that they could be its prospective victims
The prolonged protest against the upcoming Four-Year Undergraduate Programme has yet not come to an end. Despite the fact that statutory bodies such as the Academic Council and the Executive Council of the University of Delhi have overwhelmingly approved almost all of the syllabi and the courts have refused to pass an interim order for stay on the commencement of the above-mentioned course, the resistance is still continuing.
The protest has gathered renewed vigour and displayed tremendous rigour during the last two weeks. Agitators are not only aggressively protesting within and outside the campus in ways more than one, but also meeting numerous politicians and sundry others, trying, sometimes successfully, to enlist their support in order to seek an effective intervention in what they claim to be an impending disaster for the future of Delhi University.
Five eminent intellectuals of our times have also pressed the alarm button, reinforcing the idea that the university is about to disintegrate and probably die a premature death.
Such claims of death and disintegration of Delhi University may appear to be very potent and powerful for the select few. But to the overwhelming majority, they are neither cogent nor at all convincing. They indeed appear entirely rhetorical to the latter. With multiple exits and many choices for opting for a major or minor discipline of one’s own liking and thus increasing the chances of students’ exposure in their areas of academic interest, the FYUP brings to the fore new hope and promises of academic empowerment.
Each student now, particularly the one coming from socio-economically challenged groups and disabled sections, stands the chance of better exposure and enabling experience in a variety of ways.
For teachers as well, the new course is extremely exciting and academically rewarding. Those who have been speaking so vociferously about the Delhi University being all set to enter into the ‘valley of death’, and even those who have recently jumped on the opposition bandwagon against Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh should get informed of the irrefutable fact that the FYUP is the harbinger of regeneration for both teachers and students.
It is indeed painful that Mr Singh has been put into the bar of judgement by some of the finest minds of Indian academia for all kinds of reasons, most notably for initiating the process of the FYUP. It goes entirely to the credit of Mr Singh that he has not lost his single-minded dedication on the implementation of the FYUP despite all sorts of politically-motivated protests and even non-cooperation from some of the internationally-acclaimed academicians. He has so far demonstrated tremendous courage and conviction with a vision to press through the reforms that are so urgently needed.
I wish to mention two examples to substantiate the contention. The first relates to Delhi University’s cultural festival, Antardhvani, this year, which was marked by the verve, enthusiasm and confidence the undergraduate students exuded as they went about organising the event and executing their responsibilities. The exposure the students got while briefing both college and university teachers and other participants about the kind of research projects they had worked on, the sort of difficulties they had faced while working on those projects, the generous support they received from the university administration, the objectives they had in mind when they began to work and the findings they came to, and more importantly, the opportunity they got to share all those experiences with those interested in the festival, was both encouraging and tremendously gratifying.
The second is linked to the institution of forthcoming e-journals with an extraordinarily outstanding editor, professor Harish Trivedi, at the helm. Both these examples speak volumes about certain well-planned moves that have been initiated to give this prestigious university a new lease of life in order to transform it into a genuinely shining institution.
Given the nature of protests during the last couple of days and the paradigm shift which has taken place in terms of emphasis, it has become abundantly clear that earlier slogans like the ‘hasty implementation without proper consultations’ and the ‘violation of democratic norms’ have taken a backseat and the newer, politically-correct rhetoric like the ‘discriminatory character of the FYUP against the interests of students coming from the vision impaired, OBC, SC and ST sections’ has been brought to the fore.
Such clever strategising, though, embodies an inherent contradiction as the FYUP will be beneficial particularly to those who are being misinformed and misled to believe that they could be the new format’s prospective victims.
(The writer is Assistant Professor in English, University of Delhi)