A college degree is a valued commodity, a sheet of paper that decides your worth in the growing economy of India. Entrepreneurship may be the latest fashion trend but, it will be wrong to dismiss the fact that for a large section of Indian society, both the middle class and lower class, education and its accessories of school certificates and college degrees are still the safest risk for a bright future. Even though, this proposition of a bright future is debatable as no college degree ensures an employment guarantee. Adding to this is the crumbling affairs of the Indian Educational sector, whose highly regulated nature and complex regulations have created a wide range of issues.
The person who suffers the most out of this is the student, who becomes the part of this rat race, taking vast risks, both in terms of emotion and finances. This branding of a competitive academic process as rat race and the student as a rat is sad reality but the idea here is not to hanker after the oft-quoted debate of how students make uninformed choices and destroy their life in the name of career devotion. But, the issue, which has become serious today, is the issue of college governance. The issue of the lack of student interests in being part of college administration. You can blame it either on the career oriented mental attitude or aversion to politics because of its so-called “dirty” nature or on the cultural tradition of being obedient to one’s Guru or the fear of backlash from the college authorities.
But, be assured that this pathetic behavior of keeping oneself aloof from the college administration and governance, is a major factor that has contributed to the declining state of Indian education institutions, especially, government colleges and universities. A serious lack of student participation ensured that a few hooligans entered the student politics and gave it a bad name. Delhi University and so many other universities still reminiscent the horror of the violence committed in the name of the student union. This was a major alibi used by the authorities of other universities to ensure that the term ‘Student Union’ remains alien to their students and their academic campus. This effort was equally supported by a large section of parents who ensured that the term politics, was no more than the f-word whose mere mention derogates your character.
This also ensured that growing up as a student in a college, one only spoke about academics and career. The participation of students in college governance was reduced to a mere meek crowd of rats whose only participation was a strict obedience to college rules and regulation. The effect of which is clearly visible in present day India as the vast section of society plays the role of a mute spectator watching the democracy going to the dogs.
I write this article because facing these issues at my own universities has made me restless. I haven’t slept peacefully for a few days and hopefully my sleep is going to be disturbed for some more time, until I find out the answer to the question of “Why am I being a rat?” and, hopefully, I will find the answer to the question of “Why all of us are being a rat?”
(There may be certain backlash towards me, but being a student of Law I think the silences will take me nowhere. let there be some rumbling and grumbling, it may not create a revolution but will hopefully and surely create a spark.)