Written by: Anshuman Singh
4 min readNov 29, 2022 12:00 PM IST
First published on: Nov 29, 2022 at 12:00 PM IST
Indian classrooms, particularly within the precincts of institutes of higher education, have a distinctly feudal flavour. The students are reserved and respectful, trained in the habits of obeisance at their schools. They have been made to forget that debate and discussion are the essence of education. They listen respectfully, their minds dulled by mindless conformity to outdated ideas about the teacher-student relationship.
The professors take full advantage of this silence, interpreting it sometimes as awestruck admiration of their erudition and forceful personality. The lack of debate and argument within the classroom also makes the professors irresponsible in what they say and how they say it. They indulge in irrelevant digressions and let loose a foul stream of invective and prejudice against those who are in dire need of help and redressal of past wrongs.
This reality was very much evident in the recent video that has gone viral on Twitter and other social media.
In it, a student belonging to a minority community is taking his professor to task for calling him a “terrorist”. He is clearly outraged not only by the fact that he has been targeted for being a Muslim but also that the aggressor is his teacher. In the video, the student repeatedly asks the professor if the latter would treat his own son in the same way, his agonised question typifying in one clear poignant moment the deep insecurity and alienation of the Muslim youth of this country.
Berated, heckled, and stereotyped in the public sphere, their self-respect is constantly torn to shreds in public spaces where the threat of violence against them is never far away. The youth from India’s largest minority is in constant search of safe havens, social spaces where their loyalty to the country and their patriotism will not be questioned. The desire to feel normal, to be unnoticed, the wish not to be targeted for having a name like Mohammad instead of Rahul — can such a desire be fulfilled in today’s India? The answer lies in how much effort we (as a society) can make to preserve and rejuvenate liberal spaces in our society — the archetypal liberal space being the university itself.
Sadly, the university as an arena of debate and discussion has been in slow decline for many years. However, in recent years, the university’s ability to stand apart from the rest of society and its ability to guide the latter by producing top-notch intellectuals has taken a severe beating. The reasons are not far to seek. Universities within the new educational discourse are seen as places of skill development, as providers of manpower for industry and commerce and not as places where new ideas germinate, where ideas of social and political transformation can be debated.
The marginalisation of the liberal function of the university has heavily contributed to its depoliticisation and a decline of any form of solidarity. The professor who targeted the student based on his religious identity was not the sole aggressor. The classmates of the victim who tittered, laughed, and found the whole exchange funny — the vast crowd of the cynical, depoliticised majority — refusing to call a spade a spade are equally to blame.
The writer is associate professor, Department of English, Dyal Singh College, Delhi University
Sadly, the university as an arena of debate and discussion has been in slow decline for many years. (Representational) 
Share
