ABVP Members Disrupt Protest by Students, Teachers Against Bifurcation Of Dyal Singh College

Hundreds of students as well as faculty members of Dyal Singh College (DSC) protesting against bifurcation of the existing campus were disrupted by members of the RSS-backed ABVP on 22 January. 

Under the banner of ‘Save DSC’, the demonstration ended with a public meeting that discussed the problems that would arise if the bifurcation took place and the existing resources got divided between two colleges.

Save DSC is a forum of students from Dyal Singh College fighting against the bifurcation of the existing college campus into two morning colleges.

While the students and teachers were addressing the gathering, some students of the evening college, including ABVP members, tried to disrupt it and manhandled the students as well as teachers.

“ABVP members manhandled and hurled sexist abuses against female faculty members and students too,” said Pritish Menon Azad, an activist from Students’ Federation of India (SFI), while speaking to Newsclick.

“Though the ABVP members tried to disrupt the proceedings, students who had gathered, more than 300, turned up against them and the ABVP members were forced to leave the campus premises”, Azad added.

Elaborating on the issues the students were facing, “The conversion has pushed nearly 9,000 students into a 12-acre campus with minimal infrastructure. Classes are held in seminar halls and auditorium; even they are trying to convert hostels into classrooms. The library has only 60 seats.”

Earlier, the college had decided to bifurcate the campus and convert the evening college into a morning one. There were more than 3,000 students studying in the evening college. The conversion had put more pressure on the already burdened infrastructure of the college. Nearly 6,000 students were already studying in the Dayal Singh Morning College.

Sachin N, a faculty member from the Department of English in Dyal Singh College, told Newsclick, “Bifurcation of an existing morning college campus into two morning colleges will be an irreparable loss to all students as they are shortchanged to accept less than optimum resources.”

“If this happens in a public funded educational institution due to the myopic vision of the current administration, ultimately the general public will be the sufferer. What we had in existence prior to this move was two colleges at two different timings sharing and optimally using common resources. Instead, this will spell disaster for both institutions and the lakhs of students who have a legitimate right to minimum facilities,” added Sachin, an elected member of Academic Council DU.

Dyal Singh Evening College has been in the news after its Governing Body “unanimously” passed the resolution to change its name to ‘Vande Mataram’. The name change, however, has been put on hold after Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar objected to it.

“Opposing such kinds of Tughluqian reforms, we are taking forward this struggle for academic justice,” Sachin said.