OPINION

Last weekend, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) held a public meeting at the historic Ramlila grounds in Delhi. The rally was an attempt to create an atmosphere against the central government for bringing an ordinance restoring control of the national capital territory with the centre.

During the run-up to the rally Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal travelled across India to the states ruled by non-BJP parties, met the chief ministers and pleaded for the support for his cause. He also met the major opposition leaders in the states like Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by the BJP and allies and sought their support.

He also met the top Congress leadership, and pleaded for their support. While nobody said no to Kejriwal’s plea but none turned up in Delhi to join the rally at the Ramlila grounds. The only exception being former Congress leader Kapil Sibal. Kejriwal’s public meeting in the summer of 2023 at the historic ground would go into the annals of history as a non-event.

This is in sharp contrast to the rally which was held for days together which Kejriwal mobilised at the same ground a decade ago as the part of India Against Corruption (IAC) movement. The platform of IAC had the permanent presence of veteran agitator from Maharashtra, Anna Hazare. 

The Delhi University administration even in the 101st year of its existence has continued to carry on with the centenary celebrations. These celebrations are meaningless if the university slips on the scale of academic excellence.

In the recently announced ranking by Ministry of Education’s National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF), Delhi University continues to lag behind many, positioned 11th on the list. While it’s not just the younger universities like the Jawaharlal Nehru University who have remained ahead of DU, it’s even the older institutions like the Banaras Hindu University, Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia who re ahead.

To be pithy with expression, it can safely be said that DU has been beaten by both the new and the old alike. The university officials have nevertheless tried taking credit for the successful performance of some of the colleges in the ranking. But then this is nothing more than mere a few oasis in the dreary desert called DU.

With just about 30-odd colleges of Delhi University figuring in the top 100 colleges of the country, the university’s publicity department cannot really go around trumpeting that of nine of its colleges figure in top 15. The question is why the 50 plus other colleges do not figure in the list of top100.

Let’s start with the disclaimer that today’s column on no count intends to debase the recent protest by the Olympians at Jantar Mantar. It’s just a few extracts from a reporter’s diary who has covered such protests for long years.

The protests at Jantar Mantar have always helped democracy and more also reporters in retaining their jobs. While leading team of cub reporters at a national daily during the late 1990s and early 2000s, one would often advise them that in case there was nothing happening on their beat, they could visit the Jantar Mantar to get a story.

This advice did help the reporters to file their daily quota of copy but sometimes they also came with stories which made to the front pages. During those days, during the Parliament session, the protestors were allowed to march from Jantar Mantar to Parliament but to be stopped outside Parliament Street police station, which also housed the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), New Delhi.

Delhi University under the current dispensation, led by vice chancellor Yogesh Singh, is facing a dilemma, whether to uphold its autonomous character or make it subservient to the government. This dilemma arises from largely two reasons.

First the university head is not well conversant about the culture of Delhi University. Second the people in his team are not scholars of eminence, who would use their intellectual gravitas to give him the strength to sustain university’s standing.

Delhi University’s growth has mostly been moistened by government grants but the university has always considered itself to be independent of the government and fiercely guarded its autonomy. This has been possible because the people at the helm have been scholars who on the sheer strength of their intellectual metier withstood the aura of government.

This tradition could be traced to the pre-independence era, when Sir Maurice Gwyer, one of the best known vice-chancellors of Delhi University, gave the cultural shape to the 100 years old academe. It’s mentioned in the book titled ‘University of Delhi: 1922-1997’, published on the occasion of the Platinum Jubilee in 1997, that when Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow once asked Gwyer to come and see him, the vice-chancellor replied that Delhi University was very pleasant and the Viceroy might enjoy a change of environment by coming over.

With the onset of summer in 2011 had begun the Anna Hazare’s India Against Corruption movement. A very anglicised and stylish name of a public movement gave sufficient indication of it being rooted in the rise of the new educated middle-class pushing for a change.

The new generation middle-class, which largely has been the beneficiary of the economy of the country opening up two decades earlier, pushed for change, not just of government but the culture of governance. This movement, outside Delhi-NCR, had maximum traction in Bengaluru. No wonder both being the hubs of new age industries.

A decade later, the only visible surviving outcome of the India Against Corruption is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which a few days back celebrated the getting the status of national party. For getting a national political party status, among other criterions is the party getting recognition as a state party in at least four states.

To be a state party it requires polling eight percent or more of the votes polled in the last legislative elections. With governments in two states and having fought elections in almost all states including the last one in Karnataka, getting recognised as a state party in four states would not have been difficult for AAP.