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Sunday, April 22, 2012

Editorial: Infantilizing Youth with Our Arrogance


A 25-year-old MA student, already ‘adult’ enough in the 2009 assembly elections to participate in the process to elect a government for Sikkim, was recently served a notice by the Sikkim University. This notice, signed by the Registrar, irrespective of what the student in being officially charged with, was clearly because of a letter he had written [published in this newspaper] commenting on how the students will dearly miss some of the teachers passed over in the regularisation process. It is offensive enough that an institution of higher learning should dredge the barrel so arrogantly when it comes to accommodating voices that are not sycophantically celebratory. It goes without saying that the decision to harass a student because he holds an opinion different from the university administration is reprehensible. Those who seek to justify the SU administration’s actions on the grounds that it was required to “maintain discipline” or under some clause of the elaborate “Act of Parliament” which instituted the University, are either trying to cover up for their own lack of spine for having failed to protest the hounding of students, or they just don’t care. It must be borne in mind that at worst, the students being charged have complained and questioned, not levelled allegations. Now, with their teachers and even fellow students having distanced themselves from the situation, one hopes that other groups will speak up for them. Pre-empting comments of “politicisation” which might follow when some groups do speak up, as the Students Union of Sikkim has done, one is forced to point out that when agencies and representative groups like the concerned teachers and the civil society prefer to hold their silence and do not engage, the space is bound to be occupied by other groups, even those inflected with ‘politics’.
But this is not just about the disciplinary action being taken, it’s more importantly about how it is being done. No one denies the university its right to take administrative action whether against teacher or students, but when it comes to dealing with students, one expects better educated minds to rise above stereotypes and engage students as individuals, not try and browbeat them by talking down to them. We already have enough of that with politicians sermonising about proper conduct expected of students. And the University has stepped down several more rungs by behaving like a gaggle of sulking toddlers and threatening to “tell” the parents. This is where the reference to the age of one of the students made earlier comes in. This 25 year old has been directed to bring his parents to meet the Registrar to discuss his “indiscipline”. The allegation of “indiscipline” is in itself in conflict with everything a University should stand for and an obvious overreaching of whatever powers are invested in the various positions at the institution. It is bad enough if the officers in the university are only shadow-boxing, but extremely worrying if they themselves believe that parents need to be brought in to “discipline” a 25-year-old or even be tattled to. We are already a country of people who see nothing wrong in over-parenting. When our children finally go to college, it as much to learn more as it is to finally grow up. In Sikkim, however, the process of infantilizing them continues with the imposition of a dress code [an actual uniform in college] and a course schedule structured to keep them too occupied to become their own persons. Now, the arrogance does not go away in university either. A person old enough to vote, decide whether he wants to drink and smoke, marry and take any other life-changing decision on his own is infantilized with orders to bring in his parents to discuss his conduct. Even cops, seldom credited with fine sensibilities, when they find a 25 year old on the wrong end of the law, do not ask the person to bring his/ her parents when s/he, say, processes a bail application. If the university feels it needs to ‘take action’ against the student, they should treat him as an individual responsible for his actions, not a toddler who needs to be talked through his parents. By taking the course they have taken, the authorities at the university have exposed their incompetence in delivering on the responsibility of providing higher education to the future of Sikkim.

9 comments:

  1. This was bound to happen.....as with every person in power...they will not stand anything that goes against them ...and they all utilize various methods to subjugate the overtly vocal amongst their dissenters!!! If u recall dear Editor in a letter to that very same letter i had written about the very same fact of friends- ‘needless also to say that your very friends might just stop recognizing you and even talking to you.....this so happens in the realistic jaded world of Sikkim....where one cannot dare to say anything against authority” – as can be made out from yr edit, the very same has happened and happens so frequently here! I just hope the courageous boy will be able to see it to the end, and that his parents will stand by him for his act, seems his friends and teachers have deserted him. This sure is a good sign for Sikkim ....that some one somewhere is learning to raise his voice against what he thinks is wrong...unlike the folksys down there at SU!!!

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  2. Trust this to come out of SU.......what a combo MPL & JPT make?? One thinks too much and the other hardly does and does what he is told to!!!! The indiscipline of it all is a letter to the Editor....i am expecting the same fate for the boy who has raised the issue of scholarships at SU in Sikkim Express!! Lets wait and watch!! The LOGO of SU was selected through great drama, seems its going to be an easy task choosing the motto, which should be adopted as "MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY" !!!! I surely deserve the monetary gift the Univ had instituted!!!

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    1. I loved your context. Thank you.

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    2. I think MPL and JPT are on the highway, literally.

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  3. The powers to be at SU seem to be taking the adage " do in Rome as the Romans do" rather seriously!!!! The above described acts sounds so similar to the vehicle torching and various other incidents that one reads from time to time!!!!

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  4. Thank you for this commentary, Mr. Editor, you put it together very well.
    I hope it gets political (not necessarily of a party), this assertion of self respect by the students.

    I hope there are rabble rousing speeches made, I wish, the 'have-your-job-keep quiet' faculty members are shamed into forsaking their dereliction of duty towards the students and the institution.
    I wish the moral bankruptcy of, the 'sword is mightier than the pen (death of madan tamang)', 'decentralisation', 'democracy', the MP Lama regime is exposed thoroughly that no one again will believe his incompetent glibness.

    From the claims of a model university to this state of affairs, where students are threatened in closed rooms by respectable professors masquerading as henchmen, Lama's tenure, has unravelled, soon.

    It appears the only 'institutionalisation' in SU was the Hon'able Founding Vice Chancellor but as he repeated many times, individuals, do not matter.

    Perhaps, Prof. Lamaju, you never did matter, despite the 'ride in the jeep' and vacuous headlines, lazy journalism provided you with.

    I would recommend MPL to join Bimal daju in his GL odessy, as an 'advisor' of course.
    The post of advisor, remember, comes with no responsibility and all talk. All that is done, is done due to the dynamism of the advisor and all that is not done or does not succeed or goes bad, can be blamed on the practitioners. Think Hydel Projects and Nathula.

    And now, MPL, has proved, he is cheaper than the bad ass politicos from Darjeeling to hold onto the chair. He has passed the test.


    Is this the jewel from the Darjeeling hills? Is this what we send out?

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    1. For sure...u have said it correctly....individuals do not matter...esp at SU....as long as his purpose is served....calling his cronies for every seminar, hiring his known people ....Hon'ble VC has this dirty habit of making people slog like donkeys and after the load is unloaded, labelling them corrupt, spies of the govt and what not!!!! The rest who are there must be waiting with bated breath! and none of the dajus will take him in methinks....as they know how he works for himself in the garb of betterment of the hill people!!!

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    2. These days one can't vouch for the purity of the gems that one buys.....so MPL is but a mere ambitious soul.....who thought he could take the "lata" hilly billys for a ride, but he seems to have forgotten that times have changed and that all the students enrolled in SU donot belong to Sikkim........

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  5. Dear Editor,
    Kindly update on the situation at SU. What has happened to the lone voice of the student. We would all like to know!

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