The subtle art of not caring- A guide by Indian Universities

I write this on behalf of countless students who are suffering because of the 2nd wave of coronavirus and are still compelled to sit for examinations. I write this on behalf of students who are graduating this year, amidst a timeline where they might as well have completed their entire academic year in locked doors behind a computer screen. I write this on behalf of countless teachers who are forced to ask for assignments, knowing and fully understanding the fact that some of their students tested positive the previous day. I write this for many reasons, but mostly because of what happened a few hours back.

Today, a week before my examinations, my university professor broke down on Google meet while giving notes regarding his subject. In an extremely sad tone, he conveyed that the situation is very dire and we shouldn’t step foot out of our houses. You could hear it in his voice that he wasn’t doing well, but he still went on to give us notes and a list of possible questions that might come in the exam. He said, “There is nothing for me to do but to live in a constant state of paranoia.”

It’s not just about student’s asking for relief during COVID. It’s about pretending that everything is fine when students are literally begging for help on social media for a bed in a hospital, where Mosques are offering their premises, gurudwaras have started oxygen langars and also temporary medical support centres with beds and other facilities. The tone-deaf attitude of a system that pretends to be idealists in every sense or form pisses me off.

Universities have never seemed so disconnected from the entire world. Teaching has never been so vacuous and nor have examinations. Universities are pretending normalcy as if the entire healthcare system isn’t in shambles.

Last year when the government announced a sudden lockdown, the first thing universities did was to shut down completely, vacate their hostel rooms and send students to their home, many of them who had to go back to their crowded dwellings.

We know that for every student who is fortunate to get a place in the hostels, there are scores who do not. Even then, the first and only response from universities was to drive students out and secure campuses from the infection. Private universities that had small classroom strength and plenty of capital claimed that their students are happy with online classes. But my point is was there a survey where the students filled up the form rating their overall online classroom experience from 1 to 10?

Forget that. Let’s talk about the migrant labour crisis. When distraught labourers were walking miles to complete their journey, where were these universities who could very well have provided them with a temporary place to stay? Universities and colleges did not deem it necessary to use their National Service Scheme to extend support to people who had suddenly become homeless.

Campuses take pride in their role in educating people into citizenship. What does it mean to be a citizen if not to recognize our responsibility to the needy?

---

The teaching process

After the lockdown, students were dispersed and online classes resumed. This created a grave digital apartheid. There is now a sense of disconnect between students and teacher. Universities simply never questioned connectivity, broadband capacity and availability of study material for students. A charade was played and everyone eventually had to be a part of it willingly or unwillingly.

Academically and intellectually too, universities made no effort to respond to the pandemic. The departments of psychology, sociology, political science and literature could have been collectively conceptualized and designed studies and research to understand the upheaval that society was experiencing. But these things never came up. There many debates and discussions about the National Education Policy, Access and Equity and vocational education – as if the association lives in a reality of its own.

Every semester we get mail flashes telling us to pay for the upcoming semester. I often wonder about the exact moment when the institution decided that its purpose isn’t educational anymore but to exhort money from its student during a global crisis.

In the end, my rant would be useless if I don’t channelize it into a vessel. And the vessel would be a request, the request to be a little sensitive. That’s all I am asking. That’s all we are asking.