Graduating From a Ravaged University System

Last night, as I read Arundhati Roy’s recent article in The Guardian, a few lines struck a slightly different chord than perhaps intended.

“Fredrick Douglass said it right: ‘The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress’. How we in India pride ourselves on our capacity to endure. How beautifully we have trained ourselves to meditate, to turn inward, to exorcise our fury as well as justify our inability to be egalitarian. How meekly we embrace our humiliation.”

As a final year undergraduate at the University of Delhi (DU), I could not help but instantly think of the Indian education system – more specifically, the public university landscape and how it is choosing to respond to the health crisis.

Education in India has always been about testing endurance, not just through one cut-throat exam after the next but the time in between as well. It is characterised by sacrifice and hardship – of course in extremely varying degrees, often linked to privilege. It demands operating in high-pressure situations almost as if life after formal education is a war to be fought, and the purpose of education is to build resilience for this war.

The reality, however, is that life is not a war. At least I believe it is not meant to be one. If anything, the current crisis reveals that what we need most is individuals who have the capacity to be empathetic and considerate, good team-players who can think critically and in collective interest. These are qualities that our universities have never prioritised or appeared to be remotely interested in nurturing.

Many of us are taught from a young age to not question the status quo, to accept and endure our circumstances however unjust they may be. This is further ingrained in our time at university, where the right to freedom of speech and protest is actively discouraged and often penalised – a good student is one who complies and plays by the rules. It is this culture of deeply ingrained endurance that has brought us to where we are now. “Don’t question the university”, eventually becomes “don’t question the government”.

I remember staying at a dilapidated hostel at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, during a workshop in the summer of 2018. The host professor openly told us that it was because of these living conditions that their students were prepared to endure whatever life brought their way. My experience at DU was not too different, between crumbling bathroom ceilings and bouts of food poisoning.

Hostel infrastructure is only the beginning and one aspect of what students have to endure. As women students, for instance, we are forced to comply with discriminatory curfews, policing and surveillance – also a form inculcating endurance.

It begs us to ask, what kind of world are students being prepared for? It appears that the end goal is to accept and therefore endure a cruel world, do whatever it takes to ensure your individual survival – not to question the world you inherit, not to question your privilege (or lack of it), and definitely not to think in terms of furthering collective interest and equity.

The decision of DU, like many other universities, to go ahead with final-year examinations is the most recent test of endurance. As the health situation in India began escalating in early April, and we saw most of our student groups turn into make-shift relief coordination units, at the back of our mind we wondered how it would be possible for the university to go ahead with the scheduled semester exams from May 15. It wasn’t just that students were preoccupied with volunteer efforts, seeing as the government absolved itself of all responsibility, but that students were falling sick themselves, at home or in hospitals and sometimes succumbing to the illness. Many were losing family members and becoming primary caregivers for relatives themselves.

Much to our surprise, given how disappointing past exchanges with the university have been, immediate relief was provided in the form of postponement to June 1. But we wonder how likely it is that the situation will improve (if not worsen) by then? There appears to be no guarantee. This postponement just delays anxiety and distress.

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The Open Book Examination system rolled out by DU last year was already exclusionary, with many students wanting to go back to campus to avail IRC facilities to give an exam – so many do not have their own devices, access to a stable internet connection, or personal space to give a four-hour long exam. It is impossible for people to go back to Delhi now. What do they do on June 1? Where do they go?

Some of us began fundraising in November last year ahead of the previous semester exams, and were able to put together funds for laptops and internet connections (apart from semester fees) for a tiny fraction of DU students. For those outside the university, DU is much much larger than the few elite colleges you hear about. It’s one of the largest universities with students from a very wide range of socio-economic backgrounds. This time, we are not even in a position to raise these minimal funds to support students, because all funds have to be diverted to trying to hold up a crumbling health system.

And these are just the physical and logistical constraints. What happens to students who are ill, caring for others, grieving personal losses, grappling with mental health issues? If universities go ahead with exams at a time like this, many students (predominantly from low-income and/or marginalised sections) will lose a year if they are unable to give the exam, and for many who do scramble to somehow give these exams, they will do so at a real cost to their sanity.

Recently, we heard the news of the death of a 23-year-old student at the O.P Jindal University, and the crass response of the institution to remember the student for their CGPA and class participation in his obituary. This is unfortunate but not surprising – symptomatic of an educational system that prioritises academic performance over everything else and at the cost of everything else.

To university officials reading, this is not the time to test our endurance. It is the time to hear your students, engage in dialogue, commit to values of empathy and consideration, give primacy to student and staff well being. So many of us young people are just not prepared to grieve, not sure how to process the ensuing loss and trauma. Given how inaccessible and stigmatised mental health resources and services are, it is important for universities to step in and facilitate access and encourage awareness. We’ve had enough of universities taking unilateral decisions, it is time to involve students and staff, after all we are the most important stakeholders. DU boasts of being a diverse space, but providing entry is simply not enough, there are many steps towards accommodation that must follow. How then is the university accounting for the varied challenges its students are facing during the pandemic? How does the university intend to generate a renewed sense of confidence and purpose in the student body that is distraught?

If students and staff members endure one crisis after the next, and somehow, almost miraculously, continue to put their collective best foot forward, know that this is not because of the university system, but in spite of it.

As my batchmates and I prepare to graduate I can’t help but think of what an incredibly broken and ravaged world we are graduating into. Are we prepared for this? Can one ever be prepared for this? Our universities certainly have played little role in this direction.

Nevertheless, an enormous task now lies ahead, of reimagining a kinder and fairer world, and I hope we are able to find the collective strength and solidarity to take that head-on. While we may not have much to take back from the university and its character, we draw from the courage of a distinct section of students and staff who have dared and continue to dare challenge the status quo. They are a reminder that while it takes resilience to endure, endurance is not enough. The need of the hour is that we (university administrations, staff and students) look beyond the act of enduring, if we are to reimagine and rebuild.

Evita Rodrigues is an undergraduate student of Political Science and Economics at St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.

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