DU Alumni approach PMO, MHRD and Rashtrapati Bhawan

Over 4,000 Delhi University alumni and well-wishers have signed a petition addressed to Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, Pallam Raju, Minister of Human Resource and Development, Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson, UPA, Hamid Ansari, Chancellor, Delhi University, Pranab Mukherjee, Hon'ble President of India to express their shock and dismay at the academic 'reforms' and the manner in which the Vice Chancellor, Mr. Dinesh Singh is bringing them about. The petition has been supported by distinguished personalities across sections of the society. Six former students handed over the petition with all 4000 signatures to the PMO, the President and the MHRD today.

From the film fraternity, film director Mira Nair, Habib Faisal, Ali Abbas Zafar, actors Siddharth, lyricist RajShekhar, Raanjhanaa fame-Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Monsoon wedding fame Tilottama Shome have signed the petition urging several others to sign too. 

The Delhi University alumni and well-wishers also highly condemn the dictatorial tactics of the administration and Delhi police for attacking peaceful protestors on the evening of June 3. The police not just tore away placards and snatched away candles, they also manhandled protestors, verbally abused them. They were forcefully taken away by the police in a bus to the Parliament Street police station. Over 200 protestors were detained for several hours and only let off late at night. The administration’s attack on the democratic rights of the protestors is not just questionable but also dangerous.

Mira Nair, renowned film director tweeted the petition saying, “Any university must teach you to question. We don’t need more scholars in the marketplace.” Rang De Basanti fame actor Siddharth mentioned urged people to help stop the ill-conceived FYUP by the Vice Chancellor.

In the petition, the signatories strongly oppose the curtailment of democratic spaces within the Delhi University, which is supposed to be a cradle of democratic thought and action. It says, “We note with great anguish that the university is being viewed as a machine for generating job-ready graduates, without due emphasis on education as development of critical thinking, not degrees-for-jobs.”

Actor Swara Bhaskar also supported the alumni petition to ROLL BACK FYUP. She writes, “I remember being excited and happy when I got admission into Miranda House's English Honours program. I remember classmates who came from small towns and villages far away from Delhi, living alone in Kamla Nagar and complaining about the expenses and rent! I remember girls using that education and that precious degree as an opportunity to avoid that unwanted marriage alliance and carve out for themselves a different future, one where they could be more than wives. As an ex-student I strongly oppose the proposed FYUP at Delhi University. This is a program that has many potential problematics and will likely give rise to an insidious segregation of students based on their ability to pay the many expenses that an extra year of studying generate. I'm deeply concerned with the meaning and results of these exit points offered at the end of years 2 and 3. It bothers me deeply that students who may only be able to afford 3 years of room rents, food expenses and tuition will have no choice but to settle for a BA (pass) degree even if they have the inclination, interest and ability to deserve the Honours equivalent degree. This to me equates education with wealth in the most dangerous way and is basically discriminatory in tenor and is fundamentally in opposition to the Right to Education and in opposition with the spirit of an educational institution.”

The signatories express their reservation against the FYUP and wrote, “The proposed course structure seems to merely touch upon several subjects without letting students have a thorough understanding of any and in the four years, the students will be studying less than what we did in our three. Several 'foundation courses' have been introduced to help students gain a wider knowledge base. However, this only will lead to them not having a sound knowledge of any of the subjects that they touch and go. This dumbing down of the curriculum will only result in dumbing down of the students that graduate out of the university. The entire structure of the course is very rigid, one that does not provide any choice or flexibility and hence, defeats the entire claim of the VC of being otherwise.”

Other signatories include Himanshu Sharma, writer of Tanu Weds Manu and Raanjhara. He writes, "I came to Delhi University from Lucknow to pursue Hindi Literature (hons) in Kirori Mal Collese and this changed things for me forever. Apart from this, I was a weak student in Math and Science and wanted to pursue Arts instead and DU gave me that option However, this choice is being take away from students in FYUP due to the compulsory foundation courses . I don't think I would have been able to achieve what I did or be fearless about what I believe in, had I been a student under the FYUP. I think the FYUP needs to be thought through before it gets implemented."

On the academic front, renowned historian Irfan Habib, feminist scholar Urvashi Butalia also urged people to fight to roll back the FYUP.

They also expressed concern about the ‘Vice Chancellor Dinesh Singh, at every stage of enforcing this 'reform', has ignored the various protests made against this imposition by students and the faculty - people who have dedicated their lives to bringing up generations and shaping minds.’ It says, ‘We are shocked to learn that hired bouncers are on the prowl in campus with the intention of curbing any kind of dissent. It was even more distressing to hear that private security roughed up and manhandled a senior professor of the university when he tried to ask the VC a question at SRCC. ‘

The petition talks about the marginalization of weaker sections, blind students and women and the undue curb on the freedom of expression of the ad-hoc teachers. It also questions the current infrastructure of the university to support the FYUP.

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