Delhi Musings: Art College hived off from DU

There was a dharna outside Delhi CM’s House and thankfully our man AK was not the one staging it! This was staged by the students of College of Art and AK was at the receiving end for once.

Students have been protesting against Delhi Cabinet’s decision to disaffiliate this prestigious institute from Delhi University (DU) and merge it with B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi. Some of the protesting students believe that there are multiple motives, some malicious, behind this move. One such aim being to hike the fees.

Earlier, a committee of DU that had members from the Executive Council spurned this proposal while emphasising the need for the COA to stay affiliated with the DU. Things changed when a new Vice Chancellor took over and he did the obvious – reconstituted the committee to look into the issue. Sadly this issue of de-affiliation, and the related tussle over it, resulted in a failure of initiation of the academic process for the 2021-22 session.

The case of COA, however, is not an aberration when it comes to higher education under the Delhi government. Remember there are those 12 colleges run by the Delhi Government where salaries of the staff run up six months in arrears. What makes all this look kooky is that our man AK prides himself to be one politician who focuses on education!

A renowned poet with considerable credibility, someone who was a part of AK’s close group when the Aam Aadmi Party was being formed, created a furore by accusing our man AK of hobnobbing with Khalistani elements. Since the poet is neither a political figure nor aligned to any political party, these accusations assume serious implications.

AK’s rejoinder, however, was laughable to say the least. He did not issue any clear denial. He simply came out claiming himself to be “world’s sweetest terrorist”. And the reason why he wants you to believe that he is a “sweet terrorist” is because he claims to be focusing on education, building hospitals and fixing electricity.

Should a CM be allowed to hobnob with separatists because he has revamped some government-run schools or has helped build a hospital or has set up some primary health centres? By the way, even my housing society guard fixes electricity, collects money for a hospital that is coming up in his village in Bihar and focuses on the education of his clan. And it is amply clear to ‘guard bhaiya’ that if the RWA finds him entertaining shady elements in the guard room he will be fired immediately.

The ‘sweetest terrorist’ saga does not end here. Our man AK went on to state that the British used to fear Bhagat Singh and because of that fear called him a terrorist. AK then went on to claim that he is a disciple of Bhagat Singh.

This must have displeased the faculty at IIT-Kharagpur, the alma mater of AK, on many counts. The prestigious institute prides itself in developing a scientific temperament among students that enables them to draw relevant corollaries. This Bhagat Singh analogy reflects a complete absence of logic.

Also, the concept of events being ‘mutually exclusive’ seems to be all jumbled up in the CM’s mind or else why would he not come straight and deny any association with the separatists instead of talking of unrelated stuff. The thing to worry for Dilliwalahs, however, is even grislier.

They are left wondering as to how come our man AK is suddenly sounding as absurd as one Dr. Patra on TV debates.

(The writer blogs at stateofdelhi.in)

(This was first published in National Herald on Sunday)