St Stephen’s College, Delhi, has summoned all its institutional might to vanquish that most dangerous threat to the education system: a student. This week, the college suspended a third-year philosophy student after having revoked the “good conduct” medal that he was to be awarded. His offence: launching an e-zine containing an interview of the principal, Valson Thampu, without first getting the contents cleared by him. The e-zine was later taken off the web on the principal’s orders. In an act of almost Dickensian absurdity, the college appointed a “one man Inquiry Committee” to establish the student’s offence. It concluded that the e-zine co-founders’ proposal to keep the publication “completely independent” was made without proper regard to “legality/ viability”, and that it had not been “banned”, merely withheld for reconsideration till July. It ranged the ready apologies of the other co-founders against the obduracy of the suspended student. Technicalities were cited to justify what was, obviously, a personal sticking point — that the principal did not have the final word.
The academic life of a college exists in the classes that are held daily but also in the conversation that happens outside. A robust institution is meant to enable its students to form their independent opinions, whether it is through dissent, laughter or relentless questioning. St Stephen’s has always thrived on a tradition of thought that is resolutely irreverent. Students produced magazines on college life, formed societies dedicated to playing pranks and put up skits specialising in a brand of very ripe humour. The recent actions of its principal speak of attempts to enforce a culture of obedience and conformity, a rejection of the idea that an institution is strengthened by the opposition it encourages and accommodates.
