A Humble Proposal for Defeating Dissenters to Semesterization

Peccavi
For some time now, there has been a lot of unnecessary noise and controversy regarding the implementation of a semester system in Delhi University. Much of this has come from a small but very vocal bunch of leftist pseudo-intellectuals, who have over the years lost all sense of decorum and propriety (even if it is granted that they ever had any). It is unfortunate that they continue to occupy any space at all in university life, in this day and age indeed, their opposition to the process of semesterization of the University stems substantially from the fact that this vital reform will ensure that they and their archaic ideology will be squeezed out of our system altogether. Their dated views may not have any meaning today, but we must understand that not everyone is equipped with the intellectual discernment and practical common sense that can perceive this. In fact, it is precisely their naive insistence on equality that renders them blind to the necessary inequalities of life. But I hasten to clarify, in normal circumstances I would not advocate that their opposition to semesterization be silenced: after all, we are a democracy, and if suffering them is the price for upholding democracy, then so be it. For above all, as I am sure we all agree, democracy and democratic processes must be prized, and respected, whatever the costs. Therefore, I would normally be the first to defend their right to be in the University, indeed to oppose the University. For now, therefore, they ought to be heard with patience and humoured, as children who may not ever grow, and we have every hope (as I will propose below) that their disappearance can be hastened. Every age, as one of their thinkers has observed, has emergent, dominant and residual strains in it and these poor anachronisms do not recognize that they are no more than the residue of a by-gone era. There are none so blind as those that will not see. Having said that, there is a genuine problem posed today by their continuing presence and insistence on being heard which is of course, that an urgently required and invaluable process of reform is being stalled. Their vehement refusal to understand the wonderful benefits of the proposed changes to our higher education system would, in itself, have meant little under ordinary circumstances, it would have been just one more instance of having to tolerate and humour them patiently, till they faded away. However, as we all know, this time around, they somehow seem to have got the attention of many wellmeaning, democratically inclined people like us. Somehow, their allegations about the failure of democratic processes and the collapse of institutional mechanisms seem to have touched a chord with many among us who, perhaps because they share my enormous respect for the democratic process, have therefore been somewhat swayed. This has led to a high degree of confusion and doubt, and has begun to adversely affect the smooth transition to the semester 1

system. I have perforce had to meditate long and deep on these developments, and converse extensively with similar-minded friends, on possible solutions to this deepening crisis. In what follows, I hope to present, as the outcome of those cogitations, a convincing method for dealing with this problem, swiftly, efficiently and to calm the consciences of our more scrupulous friends democratically. But before I embark on that project, I must briefly revisit the virtues of the proposed reform, so that we may be reminded of what is at stake in this controversy. To that end, first let us be reminded that this change was proposed initially by a whole galaxy of well-meaning, erudite, visionary people. Three successive vicechancellors, scholars and administrators of the highest merit all, cannot be wrong. The governments commission on knowledge, constituted of the brightest minds from our higher educational institutions and of our captains of industry and commerce, cannot be wrong. Indeed, since they too have had a stellar role to play in the design of this change, our esteemed Prime Minister, our beloved HRD Minister and our highly enlightened Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission all trained at Harvard, Oxford or Cambridge, besides being affiliated to global institutions like the World Bank none of these can be wrong, as I have no doubt you will agree. After all, these intellectually gifted, far-sighted and also highly democratic individuals have sacrificed much to take over the helm of affairs in our blessed nation, to guide it through its troubled experiments with various attempts at democracy, to global standards of excellence. We must remember that it was our prophetic Prime Minister who, as Finance Minister many years ago, reinvigorated the meaning of freedom in our understanding of democracy, by continuously freeing our markets, to achieve global standards of economic excellence, reflected in our current GDP growth rate. Is this a mean achievement, I ask? From license raj to licensed raj (to the various dynasties we have come to venerate and adore) to licentious raj, we have seen our fledgling democracy and its nascent freedom grow wings and sustain long flights all the way to Switzerland, in fact. Some may quibble that, one fallout of this has been a phenomenal increase in disparities, inequalities, corruption and absolute poverty. But we must not focus too much on these issues which in any case, as well all know, are mostly leftist propaganda lest we lose sight of the global standards of excellence that we must strive to achieve. The introduction of a semester system, as all these stalwarts have proposed, is only one small change towards attaining those standards but it is a crucial one, and must be facilitated. So, to say that these champions of our nation are wrong, is to call into question these very global standards of excellence, and these global ideas of democracy which I am convinced none of us want. But perhaps some of us will require more than such arguments as to point out the patent absurdity of challenging such fine minds, or indeed such a global consensus. To these then, I will speak directly of the merits and benefits of the Semester System itself (SS for short and, I hasten to add, nothing to do with the infamous Schutzstaffel, the German force known by the same acronym. Parenthetically speaking, and as matter for another discourse altogether, it is worth studying the methods of this highly ingenious, though 2

unfortunately discredited force while insisting of course, that we too, condemn the excesses they went to and learn from them, rather than simply dismiss them with the utter contempt that these leftists always show for anything of worth). Straight off the bat, it is evident that the SS will reign in these unprincipled leftists who resort to striking work on the flimsiest of excuses. It is clear to all of us, who find their shenanigans annoying at the very least, that they have no other intention than to prevent the rest of us from pursuing our aspirations and ambitions by constantly raising irrelevant scruples and antiquated rules and laws. I fail to understand why they cannot just let us be, and carry on with our programmes of reform (and surely whatever laws are not in our favour in this can be suitably adjusted at a later date). After all, no one is asking them to participate if they dont want to, and certainly, no one is particularly keen on having their nitpicking presence on board. Instead, they raise all kinds of ethical mountains out of procedural molehills, make us feel unnecessarily uncomfortable in our ventures, and force us to go along with their strikes and protests, lest we be seen as undemocratic. All this will be put paid to by the SS. As one former Vice Chancellor remarked so astutely, in the semester system there is no room for strikes as there is a definite schedule. Teachers associations are not supposed to strike. It is evident that, with a tight schedule in which to finish their allotted courses and attend to frequent examinations and evaluations, these teachers will have no time to politick, and certainly no time to lose through strikes. Indeed, with the teachers so thoroughly occupied, administrations can function freely and fully with total control over their employees, and do whatever it takes to improve their institutions without having to fear protests and recalcitrance from teachers. And for those of us who can cooperate wholly and fully with such administrations, there is no doubt that we will only stand to be justly and sweetly rewarded. This, for me, is one of the biggest blessings of the SS. Of course, it does mean that the students will be under greater pressure, having exam fever twice a year, instead of once under the annual system; but this will no doubt toughen them and build character, which is sadly lacking in our country. Those who will not survive this, do not deserve to survive. Which brings me to the second major blessing of the SS, which in many ways is an even bigger one than the first: with just four months available for the teaching-learning process per semester, we can rest assured that only the quickest and most well-schooled of our nations children will pass through the sieve of the SS exams. The current practice of reservations is gradually, and despite our best efforts, inexorably opening out the sacred spaces of our higher education system, to vast numbers of socially and economically backward communities. Now, with all due respect to these communities, and with absolute regard for their democratic rights, I am sure we all can agree, openly and honestly, that these people have little acumen and less knowledge, to actually benefit from the higher education for which they are clamouring. If they did, surely by now they would have all gained from these reservation policies which have been so faithfully and honestly implemented in our country for decades. 3

But of course, we cannot give them the impression that we want to exclude them from the fruits of higher education. It stands to reason that we must devise a way to demonstrate to them how little they deserve to be in the hallowed realms of higher education, without actually excluding them. (In the old days, the caste system performed this function so well, and it was clear to everyone that certain sections could not lay claim to the higher realms of knowledge, which belonged to the Brahmins; in these godless leftist times, unfortunately such a simple and harmonious solution cannot be implemented.) What better way to do so then, than the SS?! We cannot be accused of excluding them, because we will have implemented the reservation policies that give them access to the Universities; and the gruelling demands of the SS, in which their unsuitability to these realms will become patent even to them, will take care of the rest. At the end, we will be left only with the brightest minds of our own people graduating from the system and who could ask for more? Then, of course, there are numerous other advantages, such as: the SS will ensure that institutions can be privatized without pesky interference from teachers associations. This will ensure that our commerce and industry get to intervene in the designing of courses and curricula, to effectively weed out unnecessary and irrelevant content that might distract students from absorbing the commercially and industrially useful knowledge and skills that our universities ought to be imparting. What is the point of our students learning about human rights, or social history, or political economy (that tired old archaism)? What is the point, for that matter, of their having time to participate in extracurricular activities a time that the SS will squeeze out like an unwanted pimple? Will it make them more productive elements of our industrial and commercial enterprises? Will it make them better business managers? Will it get them fat salaries, housing and car loans, high value credit cards, plush offices and docile secretaries? Of course not! These activities are pointless distractions; and these unnecessary knowledges (of social history, etc) in fact, come in the way of appreciating the rich future that is possible to those who have specialised skills and knowledge, who have invested large sums of money in acquiring those, and who work hard at creating and sustaining the social networks through which these can be put into employable use. The last factor social networking is something so vital to industry and commerce, but is a skill that is never imparted in our state-run educational institutions. In fact, we have increasingly found that in these institutions, the increasing number of people coming through the reservation system is leading to the corruption and pollution of whatever social networking could take place informally amongst our bright youth. Such a state of affairs is scandalous! If for no other reason than this, we must allow the SS to be implemented forthwith, so that our young minds can interact in a relatively homogeneous environment, and complement and aid each other freely and fully. So far, our masters of commerce and industry have had to waste precious time, energy and resources in establishing private universities that will cater to their needs. It is true that these also have proved highly profitable; but, the question is, when there are ripe and available state-run institutions that can be taken over for the same purpose, why should our captains of capital waste their resources 4

on making their own? It is most unfair to them. (As for the ones they have already made, well, once the state run universities come into private hands, these can always be converted into luxury hotels and resorts for our global elite and made even more profitable). So, by the same laudable logic of minimum input producing maximum output that underlies the implementation of the semester system, it follows that the sooner we hand over higher education (and very many other fields, for that matter but that must be argued separately) to private players, the better it is for all of us. Yet another advantage of the SS is that it will bring our institutions in sync with a global semester system, so that the best and brightest of our minds can move freely between universities, from semester to semester, picking and choosing their educational menu to meet their career aspirations. Conversely, the best educational institutions in Europe, the US and Australia are just raring to come in and participate in our higher educational programmes, bringing their advanced curricula and pedagogies with them. It is so profoundly infuriating that, in the name of some hypocritical anti-imperialism, these leftist friends of ours are preventing the well-intentioned and purely altruistic interventions of our advanced colleagues in the west. It is true that they will have to charge somewhat higher fees but just imagine, our brightest and most talented minds will have whole educational supermarkets of choice before them, right here, at home, rather than having to travel far from home, and sometimes be locked with radio-collars like cheap criminals, just because they are hungry for those foreign degrees! Is this what we want for the youth of our country, I ask! And do not get swayed by ridiculous leftist propaganda that only the rich will benefit: every bank worth its salt is already offering fantastic education loans, which the student can pay off slowly, through the course of his career. And if the student is not able to gain employment, for whatever reason, well then, I must reiterate to my dear readers that we cannot afford to waste tears on slackers and laggards; the SS is truly a finely calibrated machine to eliminate the weak, and if they delude themselves that they can survive it through loans, then they must find out the hard way. This has a further advantage: through this process of elimination, our banks will become enormously richer, thereby adding to the overall wealth of our nation, and simultaneously, the numbers of skilled and semi-skilled unemployed available for cheap labour will also go up exponentially a perfect condition for economic growth. I am sure you will all agree then, that it is absolutely criminal to stand in the way of such progress. There is one additional advantage of the SS, among many more, that I must foreground: it is admittedly somewhat in the realm of speculation, hope and anticipation, rather than a provable outcome of the SS, but I must mention it because of the rich possibilities it has. Given that the SS will work with clinical precision and will inexorably ease out the weak and unworthy from the system, it has been historically shown that such weak and unworthy souls resort to suicide in the face of difficult odds. We have already witnessed this happening with deluded small farmers, who believed they could compete with better equipped private players in agriculture. Fortunately, our government has not been swayed by the same leftist voices who have shouted themselves hoarse about these 5

deaths, but instead has resolutely ignored them, in the hope that the numbers of such deaths will only increase. We have good reason to hope for a similar outcome with the privatisation of higher education and here too, we must not be swayed by weak-kneed leftist soft-heartedness, but must soldier on resolutely. I need hardly point out how this will contribute significantly to decreasing our burgeoning population (indeed, we should research more intensively into discovering more such policies, to accelerate this process and I already have a few suggestions on these scores too; but that must be for another time). But more pertinently, it will inspire others to work harder, and will be a salutary warning to those whose reach is greater than their grasp. It is true that, in the process, some of our own will also fall by the wayside, being not of the best stock. But these numbers can be minimised by judiciously activating our social networks to ensure that even the weakest among us manage to survive the system and those that still do not, must be considered collateral damage in the larger cause. If this is the only way that people can be made to understand that we are not all equal, then so be it and, as is evident to all, there is nothing undemocratic about adopting this procedure at all. It is only our leftist friends who will continue to shout that it is so, and below, now, I will outline a method for dealing with this menace comprehensively. Now, as everyone knows, a fundamental tenet of leftism is that those in power do not relinquish power rather, it must be taken from them by force. This childish doctrine offers us a wonderful opportunity to silence these pesky voices. I am inspired in this instance by the enormous successes of our so-very efficient Home Minister in the jungles of the eastern parts of our beautiful country. It is a known fact that every Vice Chancellor has certain Emergency Powers to bring in administrative changes and to maintain discipline on campus. Indeed, the early implementation of the SS in Delhi University was undertaken through invoking precisely these powers but this was, in my considered opinion, too tame an exercise of what is patently a very powerful tool. I propose instead and I hope the judicious reader will not think me too circumspect in my approach because I insist (as a committed adherent to democratic processes) on following due procedure that the Vice Chancellor begin by immediately declaring a state of Emergency in the University (and by extension to its colleges), on the grounds that the various activities of the anti-SS lobby are becoming disruptive of discipline, and pose a serious threat to the law and order situation in the University. For good measure, this can be supplemented with the cooperation of the government with the imposition of the AFSPA on all campuses. This will, delightfully, no doubt be met by strong opposition, with various leftist groups coming out on the streets in protest: this is an inevitable part of the doctrine noted above. It should immediately be followed therefore by the deployment of at least paramilitary forces I think the CRPF and the CISF, along with the DAP should be sufficient for the job if not the Army (since we will have invoked the AFSPA anyway) with orders to shoot to kill. This will lead to two possible outcomes: either these cowards will run away, and leave the space clear for a proper, thorough and final implementation of the SS and this, I insist, must be done following due procedure, by passing it through the various committees, 6

faculties and council meetings (and the presence of some paramilitary personnel at these august gatherings should ensure complete cooperation) lest the more scrupulous amongst us are troubled; or they will try to be heroes and battle with the forces in which case, of course, we can get rid of them once and for all. And, it will be observed, all of this is in complete consonance with my insistence on following the democratic and constitutional procedures adopted throughout our country. Assuming the latter scenario since in the former, the process will flow smoothly and without occasion for complaint the process can be accelerated by following the methods adopted by our forces in the jungles. We can constitute an Empowered Force for the Implementation of the Semester System, from amongst the more cooperative of the teaching community, along the lines of the SPOs in the jungles. We shall train and arm them with the aid of the army, relieve them of all teaching duties for the period of the duration of the EFISS, send them out into the campuses to gather intelligence and to sabotage the leftist networks, and pay them a hefty honorarium for their loyalty and efforts. (Their training in arms, incidentally, will also stand us in good stead later, when the irate parents of students committing suicide confront the university authorities. This should be the beginning of a redefinition of the role and function of teachers in higher education.) This alone should win the complete cooperation of many of the protesters, and perhaps win over many others, even from among the hardliners. We can also institute house-to-house searches on the campus houses, to investigate for material related to anti-SS activities and hence the importance of first imposing AFSPA here, since there should be no legal hurdles to this process. And if there are a few encounters as doubtless there will be we can feel happy that along with clearing the way for the SS, we will have also unearthed illegal arms amongst these leftist groups and Im very sure that our paramilitary forces and army will be very cooperative and alert in producing and locating these. In these matters, our forces should be encouraged to shoot first and ask questions later, since some of these wily leftists may well try to surrender in the hope of living off honest tax-payers money in jail, only to live to fight another day and needless to add, that day should never come. Finally, for good measure, we can also auction the belongings of those found in possession of such material, to enrich the coffers of the University. Now, some of us may quibble that these fellows are hardly likely to have anything very much worth auctioning and that is true. But I must respond by reminding my friends that there is a great value to the symbolic power of the auctioning of the loot of war. Moreover, we have a collective responsibility to ensure that no trace of these rascals remains on the campuses. So, if the auction is objected to very strongly, as not worth even its symbolic value, then I must insist that we at least torch these materials and their owners right out of existence an auto da fe that will ensure there will be no recurrence of such maladies in our higher education processes of enlightenment. Yet others have already told me that it may be simpler to follow an early predecessor of mine, and simply propose that we kill and eat these unhappy dissenters, as an effective and also useful way to terminate their activities and simultaneously 7

improve our own health. I have however, baulked at proposing this rather extreme, albeit highly savoury step, for the following reasons. Firstly, we must keep in mind that many of us, in the upper echelons of our society, remain committed vegetarians, and it would be very difficult to persuade these noble souls to participate in such an activity, even in the name of national interest. This would lead to a surplus of meat in the market, bringing the prices of meat down all around which is just not good for the economy. Secondly, there are many among us who are very fastidious about hygiene, and it is very difficult to say anything too generally about the quality of the meat that will come from these leftists who knows where they might have been, and what quality of life they have lived? This alone militates against the venture. Thirdly, there are still many among us who would object to this practice as being cannibalistic, and no amount of persuasion that these are actually subhuman creatures, and not human at all, will work. This will result in unnecessary controversy, and we would have to repeat these actions against these new protesters. This is of course not in itself a problem but we must avoid opening battle on two fronts simultaneously. It is therefore best to finish the leftists first, before dealing with other dissenters, who are otherwise currently with us. Finally, for those of us who insist that this wanton killing of dissenters is simply not acceptable, I wish to remind them that we will only be following well established and accepted precedents, within the democratic framework that I whole heartedly endorse, of our glorious republic. There is no need therefore to let such minor doubts beset us in this unquestionably righteous venture. Therefore, let us make haste wisely and implement these measures forthwith: Im sure we can all agree that I have maintained a fine balance of convenience between scrupulous adherence to the law, and forward propulsion of the proposed reforms. Satyame Vijayate!