To
The Principal
Sri Venkateswara
Benito Juarez Marg
Dhaula Kuan
Sub: Student
accommodation and students’ rights
Dear ma’am
With all due respect, I am writing to inform you
about the ordeals and the tribulations faced by the students of your college on
various grounds right from administrational autonomy and rude behavior of
office bearers to lack of even the most basic amenities needed the most by
students like ample campus housing, lack of proper drinking water and excessive
use of force and guards on student campus and not only will I point out the
problems but I will also guide you to the solutions to these problems. Moreover,
I would also point to you the consequences should you choose not to heed to my
peacefully put solutions for a better and more student friendly campus. In the
end, after having created a viable and substantial argument from the
perspective of a common student, I would then give your good-self an ultimatum
to heed to our demands which would be firm, resolute and absolute. I hope that
by the time you reach the end of the letter, you would be so convinced with our
issues and agenda that you would be sympathetic to us and give us the proper
treatment we so deserve as students of Sri Venkateswara and students of Delhi
University.
I would start by pointing to the autocratic nature
of the college administration and the hierarchal setup the office bearers who
misuse their power for all but students’ welfare and leave no transparency in
the working of various aspects of college to students even on their demands.
First of all, the counter system of the office is in itself flawed in many
ways. The counter system puts pressure on students as students wait in long
queues for even the most common work like verification of bus pass forms had
the administration not acted so prejudiced and arrogant. We are students, not a
bunch of lepers whom you don’t even let inside your office. This is a
malpractice that you must eradicate or else the student activists will
eradicate it for you. There should at least such amount of official forum
between students and administration where a certain level of personal contact
or even an emotional one can be possible.
Further, it has also come to notice to certain
student activists that a child with disabilities was mistreated by the ICT lab
authorities when he went there to avail the username and password for college
Wi-Fi. I take it you are well aware that the college internet connectivity is
more mine than yours and in fact the whole college is more mine than yours, me
being the whole student community here. It is for shame that the college
authorities don’t understand this and resort to such fascist sentiments. It has
come to notice to certain activists that even though the officials were free
and were just lounging around in their ICT office, they said they were busy and
the student couldn’t make it out as he was blind. In a way, the officials made
a joke on his blindness which is completely unacceptable in a college where
there is an active and working Equal Opportunity Cell. This is a direct
violation of students’ rights and therefore the administration is liable to
action. This is the kind of dictatorial regime the college apparatus of Sri
Venkateswara has become and somewhere the student population is to be blamed
for all this because we remained silent and let the forces that be take over us
our rights, our freedom and our space.
Let me enlighten you with some words about the
student population. You might think that ‘student power’ or student
mobilization’ are words people use in a speech to make it more rhetorical and
fiery. A student is the loneliest person in the world. Students who come from
small states or different states will tell you the difficulties of being a
student. They are the most miserable, downtrodden and ignored sect of our
society, especially here at Delhi University, and more so at Sri Venkateswara. A
student from a small city has to cope with many problems than just the course
work and the studies in the college and he cannot be called a ‘student’
anymore. When the University ceases to take responsibility of students’ housing
and accommodation, food and travel, books and other services, it throws the
student into a web of darkness and myriad problems. This is unfair for the
student as he is only a student, and he is only supposed to be that way. He is
not supposed to be caught in the finance troubles of juggling rent of paying
guest accommodation, three-course meal and cost of buying the semester books.
As you might know, the University has implemented the Four Year Undergraduate
Program Under which there would be four years of undergraduate courses, and
under which there was an over-admission of students in almost every course. But
the hostel facilities were granted to only one or two students per course. The
College authority cannot hide behind the reason of ‘not having enough funds’
because Sri Vekateswara receives bi-annual funding from both Andhra-based TTD
committee and Delhi University (Central Govt.). Please understand the
compulsion which enabled us to do such extensive research and to go to such
extent for our rights. Please try to grasp the fact that we students are humans
too, we are a minority too, but there is no Party, no committee, no pressure
group for fighting and protecting our rights so we fight our own battles and we
take arms to protect our own rights. We take the path of protests and break the
barricades of the fascist setup that enslaves us. But we do not do it for our
pleasure. We do it just because of the situation you arise, your authority
arises and your administration arises. You violate our rights and you expect us
to be quiet and then you impose yourself on us even when we are silent.
A great example of your dictatorial stance is the
daily appointment of a uniformed guard at the College gate. Let me enlighten
you as you may not know properly because your house falls inside the college
camps but the guard standing at the gate is dressed in Khaki and enjoys the
power that comes with it. I remind you again that the college is a student
space and not an LOC border or a terrorist liberated zone where you set up
uniformed men. I urge you to stop turning the college campus into a police
cantonment.
Actions like these could have been taken silently by
students in the past but we have suffered too much now to remain silent. I
myself have been at the helm of the ordeals that have cast me now to the path
of student activism and fighting for students’ rights. I come from the small
town of Andaman and Nicobar and I came to study English literature with
aspirations of greatness and ambition but the beasts of real life and the
hounds of struggling in a big city gnawed and teethed on my intellectual soul.
I was thrown out of my paying guest accommodation because I was contesting for
the Delhi University Students’ Union Elections. Consequently, I had to pay a
month’s rent for the room in which I stayed for just two days and then I had to
pay the full rent, plus the advance and the security deposit for a new room. I
was broken, disheartened and totally financially bankrupt. It took me some time
to get out of the depression state which I was in.
Then hidden
among the jungles, I find a place of escape, the opium of intellectual mind,
Jawaharlal Nehru University and I get more and more engrossed in the campus
lifestyle, the witty debates and discussions and the laid out overall
environment of a University Campus whose semester fee is just about 200 rupees
and the hostel fee is 20 rupees a month and every potential student is given a
hostel. Then I analyzed the reason for the establishment of such an idealistic
society and this was where I found out about the history of student activism at
JNU. The students of JNU are more than aware of their rights and not only are
they aware but they are also willing to readily fight whenever their rights are
violated. And they don’t stop there. The students there also fight for issues
that affect the society in which they live like gender sensitization, minority
witch-hunt, fake encounters, peasant revolution and corruption. They have
always been at the forefront of activism be it their issues or not, and so they
reaped the benefits of their labor.
They have set the example for the next generation of
students, us, which you being the educator, the system, could not and they have
inspired us to fight for our rights because we have right on our side. They
taught us that there is nothing wrong in questioning you vocally, and if need
be physically because you are employed because of us and in a way we are your
employers. We are the ones whom you should provide the finest service that you
never do, not in terms of academic education, or self conduct or basic civil
necessities. Let me ask you why there is over a dozen blocks of staff housing
when there is not enough housing for students. At least the staff gets a
regular salary with which it can afford a lavish house and on the other hand, a
student has to spend thousands in college fees, not counting the thousands more
on accommodation. This is totally unfair and is a slander of basic students’
rights. Teachers are supposed to be the example for students and here the
teachers themselves are money-minded and selfish and the worst part of it is that
they are money minded and selfish at the cost of the students.
But now the students are organizing, they are
mobilizing. They will not tolerate the lack of housing for their fellow
comrades. They will not tolerate the autonomy of college administration and
complete opacity in their working. They will not tolerate being shouted at or
ignored over by the college staff. They will not tolerate cheap drinking water
that is too old to drink just because the maintenance staff is unable to keep a
proper water purifier and stabilizing cooler at every floor. They will not
tolerate the fascist hierarchy that has been prevailing for long in the
college. They will not tolerate the deterioration of any and every student
right that is entitled to them, to us, as a part of the Venkateswara student
community, as a part of the Delhi University student community.
I have been very respectably and cordially giving
you the problems faced by the student community and the solutions that you can
opt for that would work towards a mutual benefit but now I must levy upon you
the charges, the sentence, the accusation and the ultimatum that we as
students, the heartbeat of the education system, the youth and immediate future
of the country, and your indirect employers have decided. We would occupy the
college ground with every bit of luggage we brought with us as a student
because it is the college’s and the University’s combined responsibility to
take care of our housing and our belongings which are supposed to be in a
college hostel rather than an expensive but worthless paying guest
accommodation. We will not vacate the college premises as long as we are not
transferred to a college-controlled permanent housing for which we are willing
to pay too. This is not just a movement for student accommodation but for every
student right that has been incessantly broken down and violated by the whims
and fancies of the college authorities. The occupy movement will be convened at
an unspecific time if in three days there isn’t a
valid assurance for your side. I hope you heed the gravity of the situation,
the serious tone of this letter and of the moment and the prime importance of
time which you should follow through in your correspondence. This is propaganda
of the deed. The whole student community of the college is expected to be a
part of this. We have nothing to lose but the chains that enslave us. We have a
world to win.
Hoping for a favorable reply from your end.
Yours sincerely
(Kamran)
Mobile no: 96503438756
Email: kamrancrazzyfrog@gmail.com
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