Anonymous Guest Post
[This is a response to the recent political developments in the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. On 1nd March, 2013, Mudasir Kamran, a Kashmiri Muslim PhD scholar of the university was taken to the police station by the Proctor and some other professors of the university in pretext of a personal enmity between Mudasir and his erstwhile room-mate, where he was detained throughout the night without any written complaint being filed. Mudasir came back broken, asking why he was treated like a thief and a criminal. On 2nd March, he committed suicide. A section of the students since then has been demanding for the suspension of the Proctor, an apology from the university, and compensation to the family. The university administration dealt with this in a fiercely draconian manner. They refused to meet the students, they enforced police protection, they threatened a null semester, even a total shut-down of the university. They did not issue a single apology, they appeared in front of media and produced false versions of the events hand in glove with the police (that was subsequently refuted by the alleged eye-witnesses), they constituted a faculty-only Fact-Finding Committee without removing the accused from his administrative position. Rumours have been floated about the alleged homosexuality and the mental instability, thus inciting the cultural stereotype of social aberration and criminality. One unofficially Leftist section alleged that the students are spreading rumours and contacting their “Kashmiri friends” to ignite the fire of unrest in Kashmir (although there has been and still is no connection between student’s demand and what is happening in Kashmir). On 8th March, they finally succeeded in coercing the students enough to make them ask for a resumption of normalcy on the campus. The Vice-Chancellor has threatened that any political activity on the campus will result in a null semester. She has ensured that classes will commence under heavy ‘police protection’ on Monday. A section of the teachers who has refused to accept the responsibility for Mudasir’s unfortunate death has demanded for criminal cases to be filed against the protesting students. Since the protesting side has been majorly comprised of dalits, OBCs, minorities, this is an attempt from their side to allegorically (and satirically, in the tradition of Jonathan Swift who once wrote his ‘modest proposal’ that the British landed aristocracy simply eat Irish children as a way to end the problem of poverty in Ireland) express some of the horrors they have to go through to even stage a basic minimum democratic protest in a so-called elite university.]
[This text has been slightly edited and modified, mainly to allow for easier reading, and to correct a few syntactical slips, but the general tone and style, including capitalization and some archaisms have been maintained so that it is clear that this is a legitimate work of satire, written in the public interest. Kafila]
A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PREVENTING THE DALITS, MINORITIES, AND IN GENERAL THE POOR AND THE MARGINALIZED FROM BEING A BURDEN ON THE GLORY OF THE ENGLISH AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY, HYDERABAD AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE UNIVERSITY.
It is a melancholy object to any civilized student of the English and Foreign Languages University who walks through or live in the campus, when they see the streets, hostels, libraries, and eateries crowded with ‘uncivilized’ students, all spawns of reservations, quotas, minorities, spewing broken English that is enough to give a English teacher coronary thrombosis, full of dangerous political slogans and ideas, armed to teeth with primitive instruments such as drums, awfully ignorant of the charms of being wealthy and apolitical, entreating the civilized crowd to indulge in the primitive passions of ‘taking sides’, ‘protestation’, being ‘ethical’, and most seditiously, being ‘political’!
These half-humans, instead of paying for their education, taking it and leaving the premises, contaminate it with political behaviour, try to claim it to be their own, call for the forbidden fruit of ‘justice’. They are a nuisance for the peace and prosperity of the civilized students and teachers who reside and ‘work’ in this campus.
Take the recent death of this student, Mudasir Kamran, for example! We all know he was mentally so unstable that he committed suicide! Why did he do that? He had a very close relationship with another Muslim student (note, they are BOTH Muslims) for years. They shared rooms. If you think they were suspiciously close to each other, you are right! We all know, Muslims have always been homosexuals and pederasts! But unlike this other guy, Mudasir was from Kashmir, hence obviously a terrorist. When this guy, for whatever reasons, stopped interacting with Mudasir, Mudasir beat him ‘to pulp’ to silence him. That is when a few civilized non-Muslim non-Dalit people like Proctor Harish Vijra and Prof Maya Pundit took him to the police station to teach him a lesson in civility. In their shaken disbelief, they went and begged the police to make him human. Police, being the leading light of our civilizational progress, did not err in realizing what (they alleged) Mudasir was: a terrorist, a homosexual, a deranged psychopath, all of which is genetic to Kashmiri-s and other minorities. Even then—and I stress, even then—police did not teach him the lesson, since our state and our Hindu religion strictly forbids us to touch a heathen without bathing immediately, and it was wee hours in the night. Recognizing that his dirty game was over, Mudasir came back to the hostel and committed suicide. What did the uncivilized crowd do? They demanded an apology from the university! Why should the university apologize for trying to force some humanity into such devilish Muslims! They cried for the terrorist! They demanded that the Proctor should be suspended from his post for taking Mudasir to the police station, with the insinuation that going to police custody is in itself a traumatic experience! Why should the Proctor be suspended, when he did such a civilized thing?! Why should someone commit suicide when police takes them in?! We, the civilized people of India, do not commit suicide when police comes to us! We bribe them! Mudasir’s suicide is the ultimate proof that he was unfit to the civilized ambiance of our elite university.
Then the conspiracy went even further. As our learned ex-JNU leftists now residing in EFLU, both professors and students, have informed the government and the administration, the half-human, uncouth, uncivilized protesters who beat a primitively loud drum all day long accompanied by violent songs and slogans in various primitive vernacular languages contacted their fellow criminals in Kashmir and spread the rumor that Mudasir died in the hands of Indian police. Their purpose was explicit, clear, and bloody: to destroy the well-earned peace we, the civilized people of India has constructed in Kashmir and elsewhere, by telling lies! Although by every means our government should exterminate the entire population of that cancerous state, our government, in its glorious mercy, only shot a few, to instill some amount of civility once more into the beasts! Can you believe these ingrates! The money and planning we spent to make their barren hills into the alpine paradise, and they dare to go against our will!!
Thankfully, the English and Foreign Languages University has a group of civilized elites who are determined to run it with the iron grip of a ring-master. They first brought police in to outnumber the protestors; they refused to listen to any of the demands of the protesting animals; they worked day and night to find enough number of docile students and told them how they will close down the university or at least nullify the semester if they did not comply. And of course, we have a large number of well-bred, English-educated, properly upper-caste and high-middle class obedient student base who harbor a healthy scorn for the half-animal ‘political’ crowd. They came out and supported our Mother, our Vice Chancellor, Ms Sunaina Singh, and put an end to all sorts of protest. From Monday onwards, policemen will conduct half of the classes on the university, and teach them further lessons in obedience and patriotism.
As we can see from this narrowly-averted near-disaster, one cannot completely humanize these half-humans. They more one gives them, the more they want. Swayed by a man like that B R Ambedkar, out first government made the biggest mistake of making concessions to them, and we are still counting the bitter fruits of that levity! An once-released animal never comes back to the leash willingly; so, trying to tame them is no longer a solution. Yet to let them be is a terrible affront to our civilized manners, to our caste and class! It is altogether bleak and indeed maddening when one starts hunting for a solution to such a terrible problem.
After years to searching for radical solutions, I have finally found one that is cheap, practical, and efficient. This Mudasir fiasco has helped me to stumble upon the brilliance of it. I HEREBY PROPOSE FOR PUBLIC CONSIDERATION: LET US HARVEST THE TENDER AND YOUNG FLESH OF DALITS, MINORITIES, POORS, TRIBALS AND SUCH FROM THE AGE OF 18 to 30. I ALSO PROPOSE THAT UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES BECOME THE HALLOWED INSTITUTIONS (DESIGNED TO SERVE) THIS END. MAY THE DEEDS OF THE ADMINISTRATION SERVE US AS A GLORIOUS FIRST EXAMPLE.
I have presented this proposal to a renowned professor of this university who brandishes his philosophical wisdom like a proverbial Syed, and I am happy to inform you all that he concurred. He also gave a very interesting suggestion that I feel obliged to present to you. He proposed that since the work of a professor does not allow them the time for physical exertion, the high and laborious game of baiting students to commit suicide should be made a mandatory sport among professors. The professor who will be able to inflict the highest number of suicides shall be anointed ‘Professor of the Year’ and receive a daily ration of student flesh at a discounted rate.
And may it be noted, that, anybody who resists or opposes this proposal in the name of old-fashioned and uncouth ideals like politics and justice will be culled first.
WRITTEN BY A CONCERNED AND CONSCIENTIOUS STUDENT OF THE ENGLISH AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES UNIVERSITY, WHO WISHES TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS
Kafila Readers may also like to read an earlier Kafila Guest Post on the same issue by Achuth Ajit and Ria De – ‘On the Death of Mudasir Kamran’
And another, earlier ‘modest proposal’ (in the satirical tradition of Jonathan Swift)
‘A Modest Proposal for the Castration of Male Police Officers’
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
I hope you read this. This was the status msg we Kashmiri students studying in India posted
” We are Kashmiris who live in India. Quite often, in hushed private conversations, we consider ourselves the most ill-advised of all Kashmiris. We have chosen to put our heads inside the mouth of India’s collective conscience and, eyes closed, hope not to lose them. It is a very charitable hope. We know very well that the hands of India’s collective conscience are always busy gathering morsels of people from the streets and fields of Kashmir. These are elegantly put between its judicial and non-judicial lips. Two sets of teeth, leftist and rightist, with their identical bitingly radical incisors, sharp and witty canines and liberal molars and pre-molars masticate them well to make it easier for the collective conscience to digest them. Not so much as a burp escapes the collective conscience. This too we know well, so living with our heads inside the mouth of the collective conscience, all of us are collectively hanging to hope by a rope much thinner than the one used to satisfy the collective conscience. It can hardly bear the weight of our fear.
But in our dark times, there are even darker times. When India’s collective conscience decides that it will be satisfied only if Kashmiris start to commit suicides, a blanket is lifted from our heart and we begin to shiver. So we want to convey through this open letter that we are not going to commit suicide. Neither in Kashmir nor in India. We want to tell all those who are not prisoners of India’s collective conscience that If we die and it is made to look like a suicide, please hold India’s collective conscience responsible for it. We want to live, even if we are straight, gay or lesbian and still want azadi for Kashmir, even if we are young women wearing jeans or a burqa or both and believe we have the right to give up any of them if we want to for our loved ones, even if we have a long beard and believe Islam is the best religion, even if we believe in democracy, rule of law and justice and find it nowhere in the world. We hope. A very charitable hope”.
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Thank you Gazala, for posting this comment. It says a lot. And yes, please be assured that despite what ‘the collective conscience’ says, many Indian citizens, are beginning to wake up to the fact that what is being done in their name in Kashmir is unacceptable. I hope that number keeps growing. For that to happen, people like you will need to keep writing. best,
Shuddha
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Gazala: Your comment was basically written by Arif Ayaz Parray, who is a law graduate and a noted blogger and writer from Kashmir,which must have been later copied as a status update by many.
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One important fact to be noted: The Proctor Harish Vijra shouted at Mudassir in Police station, that he is mentally ill and he is a rascal. When students present there told him Sir please dont tell this in public, and he is in the age of your son. Proctor Vijra told that He is not my son, He is a rascal.
Recturning from police station few student me proctor and asked him on what basis he sent Mudassir to the police station. He said I am a Proctor of this university and i can call police and arrest students. When student asked why in the middle of the night you sent him to the police station. Proctor replied, he is mentally ill and should be treated in Police station.
Later after his death, the news started spreading in campus that mudassir is homosexual. Now this makes even more problem. And the administration also claims it in many press release.
The act of Proctor is the worst crime in bringing a private sexual life of a person in public and connoting him mentally ill and should be treated in police station.
Many facutly are supporting Harish Vijra stating he is a college, now this become even more problem, that do the faculties subscribe to the argument of Harish Vijra. (For Harish Vijra statement there are many many witnesses). On what moral grounds EFLU faculties are supporting Harish Vijra.
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it is very very unfortunate how the “civilized”, “educated” of the university of Hyderabad have reacted to a problem amongst youth, which should be nothing new but which needs some sensitivities on the part of the elders, be it teachers or parents.but unfortunately this is not the first instance where we realise how uncivilised, uneducated in the real sense most of our elders react at the slightest “abnormal” behaviour of its youth. that a wrong feeling of shame at wrong places and times exists amongst these peoples is well known. why else would they treat the raped instead of the culprit who rapes and the homosexual, the way they do? i too think that young Mudasir could have been made to understand and solve his problems with this roommate in a better way than handing him over to the police, who we all know are even lesser sensitive towards human issues. rapes, happening in police custody reflect this behaviour best. having said that i want the elders here to not get into an uncivilized generalisation of Mudasir’s death and Kashmir issues in general.Mudasir died just as the three before him in the institute in the past few years and they were neither Muslims nor Kashmiris. why bring the issue of Azadi and other issues such as India’s collective conscience in this context unless you want to politicise every issue to “prove” your ideology. by writing “When India’s collective conscience decides that it will be satisfied only if Kashmiris start to commit suicides, a blanket is lifted from our heart and we begin to shiver. ” Gazala has touched my heart but it is irrelevant here. there are many many Indians whose collective conscience gets disturbed at the brutalities the Indian system committs on Indian girls/women/homosexuals/dalits etc. and we do raise our voices against the injustices done by our police/military or their draconian laws, much to the disgust of manywomen and men can express themselves in this very democracy much much freer than in many other places, regions and countries. i dont want to name them here. so just keep matters limited to their logical and ethical limits please.
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As a long time reader of Kafila, I can say that this is a new low in the history of the website. Publishing an article about something so sensitive, without knowing the facts, is irresponsible. The matter is very complex, it should not be reduced to something so simple. Please republish (or at least read) this for a better understanding of the issue: http://www.sify.com/news/mourning-mudassir-s-suicide-the-tragic-tale-of-a-kashmiri-student-news-columns-ndjazPjbdhd.html
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Thanks for the link. I read the article, and it’s good, but it isn’t really saying anything more or different from the post here. It didn’t have a “better understanding”, and its conclusion – that “Mudassir’s suicide has exposed the callousness of a university administration that hands over a Kashmiri Muslim student, suspected of homosexuality-based criminality, to the police” – is pretty much what is being said in this post too. The only difference I could notice was in the tone – here it is satirical, there, extremely self-righteous.
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This is not satire. This is slander. And by allowing it to be published, Kafila has stooped to a new low. I am a student of The English and Foreign Languages University, and let me ask a few questions: who are these “protesters” to speak for us students? Since we have not elected them through a democratic process, what right do they have to speak on our behalf? These are some self appointed “professional protesters” who have no support, and had no support among the majority of students. And when did a unilaterally declared and enforced bandh begin to be part of our democratic process? If at all a bandh–as against a boycott–can be construed as democratic, it can be so only after the majority has voted for it? During the entire length of the protest, when did the self-appointed protesters ask for our views? And why should the administration enter into a conversation with these self-appointed student leaders, when, as I have already pointed out, they have not been elected by us students as our leaders or representatives? Also, what about the rights of the majority of students, who have been denied their right to access the library and computer lab, who have been forced to stay away from their classes? Do we have no rights?
What is being published above as a “satire” is an attempt to settle some personal scores. I am all for freedom of expression, but spreading baseless allegations can not be interpreted as an exercise of the right to speak. The right to speak and the right to malign are two different things, and this distinction is recognized and accepted in our constitution by allowing the aggrieved to seek legal remedies. And it is precisely the possibility of a libel suit that has forced the shameless writer to hide behind a veil of anonymity.
For democracy to function democratic institutions should be respected. If the students have filed a police case against the Proctor, then they have a responsibility to wait for the police investigation to be concluded. Summary judgments and executions are not in the spirit of democracy. If you are pro democracy, then you have to stick to democratic procedures, and follow the rules of engagement and protocols laid out by constitutional bodies. The Vice Chancellor has already constituted a fact-finding committee to look into the events that had led to Mr. Mudassir’s suicide. If the protesters’ demand is that they should be part of the committee, on what grounds will they justify such a demand? After all, they are not elected members; and what justification can the administration offer for despotically handpicking certain students to the fact-finding committee?
Has Kafila inquired into whether the “facts” incorporated into the “satire” and its preface are indeed facts? If not, what is the justification for allowing its anonymous publication? If untoward consequences were to follow from the publication of this article, and if the article along with its long preface were to be proven baseless later, who will take responsibility? If the slandered philosophy professor were to commit suicide, or suffer a heart attack, who will take responsibility, and who should we EFLU students hold responsible for? Knowing the protesters, I have no doubt even such a death will be the result of an “administrative conspiracy”; and for sure, he will be their new martyr. Enough. Give us our university back, please.
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I am surprised that this has been allowed to be posted. The thing is that this post does not allow any scrutiny from the part of the writer. It is anonymous so you can’t get back to the person to clarify or discuss. Then it claims to be satire, so if you take the statement as not having any basis in events, you say yes it is satire and therefore it is allowed to be fictive but if you do think there is a basis to have been found in the article you say yes it is satire critically and radically presenting some form of truth. This form allows you to be true and false at the same time. But when I was reading this, as a former member of this university, I was shocked that my former supervisor, Professor Syed who is alluded to in the final paragraph, could have said such a thing in jest. I was upset and called him to find out what happened. He said that he never even said ANYTHING relating to this issue, leave alone something that could be twisted, accentuated and caricatured. But the directions this satirical piece leaves you with, the effects it has on reading, led me to believe that some of the things reported in the satire did happen – albeit narrated – in an exaggeration/accentuated/creative tone. But when one is left with the possibility that none of the last paragraph happened at all, you are left with the shocking realisation that anybody can write a piece to Kafila in the guise of satire and manufacture the most untruthful, dangerous and dirtiest of slander without having to clarify oneself as long as one follows a particular template of opinions.
Is it not true, that It does not matter what one’s stands on an issue is , what is important – and difficult – is the principle you are willing to stake on your stand, how far you are willing to negotiate what you see as true vis a vis your stand, the willingness to think through and challenge your stand . This article has failed to principle its stand and Kafila in putting this out – with all the possible dangers and misunderstanding that can be a consequence of this – has followed suit..
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Correction for the above comment: He said that he never even said ANYTHING relating to this issue, leave alone something that could be twisted, accentuated and caricatured. This SHOULD be read as: He said he never said said anything at ALL like what is presented here – leave alone something that remotely resembles it enough to be twisted, accentuated and caricatured.
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Thanks for the clarification regarding the alleged comment by Prof. Syed.
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This post with its arbitrary connections, sweeping generalizations and casual linking of a student suicide with volatile issues like caste and ethnicity is highly irresponsible.
When such allegations of falsification, intolerance and discrimination are made against the university administration, a section of the EFLU student community and certain members of the faculty, the concerned person (anonymous author) should be in possession of evidence which he/she should incorporate into the post rather than provide the readers with ostensible claims.
As a student of EFLU, I feel that such posts claiming to be on our behalf should not be entertained on a public platform like Kafila (unless cross checked n verified) as it can be highly misleading to the readers who depend on such forums for updates on the issue.
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This is a statement from a collective of EFLU teachers:
Teachers’ Front for Justice and Democracy
We are a collective of the EFL University teachers to support the culture of democracy and stand for justice on the campus. We strongly believe that an academic space should be free from prejudices, hierarchies, dominations and discriminations and promote rational thinking and unbiased views. Teachers’ Front for Justice and Democracy is a space to intervene, debate and discuss issues concerning to the campus and think beyond the stock responses and set patterns of hierarchical affiliations that EFLU has inherited over the years. As members of a higher educational space, we are committed to self reflexive academic practices that connect to wider socio-political realities.
We are extremely disturbed by the events that have lead to the current impasse on campus. As we feel that we are also part of a system whose manifold failures have precipitated in the death of a student, we extend our sincere apology to the student community and the friends and family of Mudassir Kamran. Having said so, we express our disagreement with the ways in which the administration has handled this situation, going in tune with the opinion and interests of certain dominant and conservative groups. We are worried that unless corrective measures have been designed and implemented at this particular moment the stubborn administration may further bring forth tragedies in the cases of students like Sreeramulu.
EFLU-TA for the past few years has been functioning as stooges to the administration. It is not transparent democratic or secular, but has been used by casteist and communal elements to propagate their ideas and interests. This defunct association invokes the teaching fraternity and comes alive only to save certain vested interests. We feel that the administration and TA cannot shrug off their responsibilities in aggravating the general air of discontent among the student community mourning the death of one among them. By failing to engage with the demands raised by the students, and acting in a defensive mode the administration has brought in the suspension of one week’s class and now is further proposing to complicate the situation by instigating strife and polarization among the student community. We are shocked at the reluctance of an accused to step down from his office to face the enquiry and all the more startled by the stubborn reiterations that ‘we would not allow him to resign.’ We are uncomfortable about this antagonism towards the students, denying them a space for negotiation. If there are problems with the modes of student-protests we feel that it also is due to the continuous indifference and disengagement that the university administration has extended towards grave issues relating to student lives on campus. We feel academic activities are not to be done under police protection or through totalitarian measures. We demand the administration to budge from its obstinacy and democratically engage with the demands made by the students.
– TFJD
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TFJD–nice words, those last two. ‘Rational thinking’ and ‘unbiased views’–hmmm, quite nice too. A ‘collective’? What does that mean? Membership by co-option alone? ‘Certain dominant and conservative groups’–kindly tell us what this euphemism means, please. ‘May further bring forth tragedies in the cases of students like S’– so are you inciting poor S too to do violence against himself? ‘Instigating strife and polarization among the student community’–do we hear this as saying, do not dare to disagree with Mama? For more than two decades now, you have been making stone soup: clearly, it is time to taste it.
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Dear TFJD,
Why are you shocked that the Proctor has not stepped down or that he has the support of most faculty members? The case against him—and the only case against him—has been filed by a small group of students who are notorious for lodging police complaints against students and faculty members who are foolhardy enough to disagree with them. The fact that it is these students who demonize him sends out a clear signal to both students and faculty members that the charges against him are most probably trumped up. It is, at best, a case of crying wolf. Perhaps your shock and surprise arise from the fact that this might be the first time since the Mauryan Age—during which you guys got prime deanships and permanent visiting professorships and made hay for family members—when you and your band of dedicated made-in-India drones have failed to terrorize the administration, staff and students into total intellectual and physical subjugation.
And dear TFJD, it is _you_ who have been ruthlessly “instigating strife and polarization among the student community” by stoking violent caste feelings among SC/ST students and by exploiting the caste-guilt and class-guilt of upper-caste/class students, so that both groups become your willing minions, caring nothing for what the rest of the student community feels. Imagine: in such a politically aware campus, there are NO elected student representatives. What was the Dean of Student Welfare of the Mauryan Age (who was an illustrious member of the erstwhile Participants’ Association himself—and no irony intended here at all, btw) doing, apart, of course, from cherrypicking? The strife and polarization you speak of only refers to the fact that the very large numbers of students who have till now been forced to tolerate the dictatorship of your clones and foot soldiers are coming out in support of higher education and critical thinking rather than malicious political games. If you really want to hear the voice of the subaltern, please read the comments by Jonathan and Emy and Satyakami Jabala above. These are the kinds of people that wish for democracy—for you, democracy is the PR of China.
You’ve made a very honest move, however, by grouping yourselves like this and finally discarding your pretense of representing the faculty members and the academic culture of EFLU—the puppeteers have finally come out for the credits. It would have been good, however, to go the whole hog and sign your eminent manifesto—surely the guardians of justice and democracy can afford to do as much? Perhaps you are worried about looking too much like an alumni association or an overly-inbred priestly caste?
By supporting irrationality and violence among students, you have eroded the intellectual credibility that students have had in this university when they were “participants.” The students—your students—have now unconditionally withdrawn their undemocratically enforced “bandhs.” If there had been democracy on campus, students would have had a just cause to win and they would not have lost the support of vehemently pro-student faculty members like Sayeed. You had nothing to say about how his offer to discuss issues with your students when they disrupted his class a few days back could only draw deafening but moronic drumbeats out of them. I felt ashamed to see how supine, self-complacent, powerless, utterly unselfcritical (like yourselves, no doubt), and unintelligent you have made these students. It has now become more difficult for students to fight for just causes because of the goondaism that has been perpetrated in our names, both by faculty members like you (you do acknowledge—thank you very much—the “problems with the modes of student-protests” that are currently in place) and by the flock of students in your pastoral care.
And finally, Kamran (and not what we make of him): R.I.P.
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hahahhahaha.
yah lots of class/caste guilt in evidence here and on comments made by decidely upper caste/class students on other fora as well.
interesting to see how everyone is so keen to assume the subaltern tag, while at the same time banking on generations and generations of privilege, and in the same breath casting aspersions in the nature of the most overused category in India today-corruption!
indeed, we must rise, if possible!
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as for certain professors being named here, let it be known that they benefited from the same “small group of students who are notorious for lodging police complaints against students and faculty members” to secure their own jobs under Maurya-and this is possibly why they personally target them through their coterie. let is also be known that these so called pro-student professors have never been pro-student as is being claimed, instead using their classrooms to discredit protests and employing their position as teachers and the power over grades to target such students as dare to protest. as for hints about corruption, scratch, and who knows what dirt you will find, yes?
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Dear Seeta, I feel a little disturbed by the rhetoric of medieval imperial proclamations in your second posting: “let it be known….let it also be known….” It tells me something about the sense of regal omnipotence and shrill stridency that cultural studies, subaltern studies, deconstruction, and such bestow freely upon their prelates and acolytes. I fear I hear somebody else speaking through you. You must certainly go back to class and look beyond the beginner’s guide to the galaxy that you were taught.
I hadn’t suggested that the group of students we are both referring to here were the middle-men involved in dispensing jobs under Maurya—it surprises me therefore that you take that for granted. It looks like you know what they do better than yours very truly. In my limited knowledge at least, I know of no case in which students decided who would be hired as faculty or appointed dean. They constantly try to decide which posts should be ‘reserved’ for whom in ads, but that seems to be the limit, as far as I am aware: as a jobwatcher, I saw how a corrigendum (urged by this group of students, I’ve been told) was published shortly after a job vacancy notification was published by EFLU recently. My point was mainly about the distribution of admin largesse.
Your point about the “power over grades”: not even the students who drummed out Sayeed’s rational and democratic voice will agree with you. You should have asked his current (or past) students before you wrote that. Not all his students came to that class. Do they fear that he will penalize them for seeming to participate in the agitation or disagreeing with him? Some things are impossible even on our campus. For that matter, even in Cultural Studies, where you are likely to get higher grades by virtue of your membership in an ‘oppressed’ section of society, nobody will get a lesser grade than he or she deserves—that is why nobody raises the issue of others getting higher grades. You learn to mind your own business, while teachers attend to their troubled social consciences and make amends. You can gain but never lose grades in EFLU. Have you heard of anybody failing a course, at least in the English division? If you get admission, your degree is guaranteed, regardless of how much you work for it or not. If anybody is failed, you can expect another agitation or two (or three)!
To your last question, the answer is no. Integrity is possible and real, Seeta. You may not have met such teachers in your life, perhaps, but don’t generalize. I never used the word ‘corruption’ by the way, and as far as I can tell, even members of the TFJD can be accused at most only of intellectual duplicity and mindless careerism—not corruption as defined in the Anna Hazare lexicon, for example. We may disagree about how criminal this might be. But it is part of the respect I have for them that I try to read their words carefully and critically. It is an honour to be read carefully and critically, as my post was by you, for example, and yours by me right now. But prating about the ‘subaltern’ or the Other is vastly different from giving genuine and democratic respect to people—your cynical universalization of corruption is an insult to yourself and everybody else.
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cynical universalization or not, the point being made was precisely that anything and everything may fit under the rubric of corruption (and i agree you didnt employ the word, but given my embeddedness, i suppose it isnt too difficult/too much a stretch to read your accusations-real or implied-as such), not that integrity is impossible. and i’m very amused at your kindness, your offer of an exit in your implication that it might be someone else speaking through me, and which thus allows for you to begin to pastor me in the right direction, but shall i say, if i am allowed, that i refuse your offer?
also, what am i supposed to make of your statements about how it is impossible to fail-would you rather students did, or that members of oppressed sections were graded lower than they are?
again, you imply much more than you say, so you are welcome to have a go at it and clarify as you please. as for form, i genuinely thank you for your careful reading ,which, no doubt, would allow me to pay closer attention to my writing.
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The thing is this most of my gay friends(I’m gay too) have saying this was a hate crime.The reference as we muslims are homos anyways even in satire is denigrating on so many level not to say its tasteless.The thing which i learned on one of the national dailies that another student threatened him with his dispproval of his relationship with his roommate which was conveyed by the deceased to hi proctor in words as such.Now this proctor reported the incident to police and so on that they broke him which led him to suicide.If this version of the story is correct how come it is inconvenient to publish it as such and definitely can be used as a test case for having specifically LGBT based hate crime resolution .The thing is this it been potrayed as Hindu proctor and police killed this fellow becaue he participated in protest so it can satisfy their agendas or the guy who threatened who happens to be muslim as well and the proctor’s actions were based on homophobia create a sort of inconvenience among the Kashmiri activists.Im here with a pretty open mind.Shal i belive the homophobia verion or minority execution argument
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Dear A,
I was as confused as you were and I became more confused with passing days, although I stay in the campus and was very much present when the police had come, when his body was found and when the university was in turmoil. I WAS a part of the protests too.
You should certainly believe the homophobia argument. I believe it too, and it’s the only version the students adhere to. The students I mean, not the protesters. As for the minority argument, very few of us knew he was a Kashmiri till he died- the Kashmiri identity merely adds colour to the protests, and Muslims are certainly not minorities in EFLU.
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