How St Stephen's College was degraded into an enclave of snobbery

In 1971, as an MA Previous student of St Stephen's, I was attending the first day of the session at the Arts Faculty. A charming Mirandian accosted me during break time. I told her I was from St Stephen's.

"Oh, that menagerie of snobs," she snapped back and walked away.

What's the truth about "the college" that many covet and hate so intensely?

The college has been, admittedly, a mixed up thing. There were a few kind souls in the '70s among the faculty. But the students, on the whole, were class conscious. They gave themselves airs and bunched together, based on the schools and families they came from. I found a few faculty members extra-affectionate to them. It seemed to me that the indignation that the Mirandian felt towards the college was not wholly unwarranted.

I did not find the expected livewire academic environment in the college. Truth be told, I was disappointed and stayed so for the greater part of my time as a student. There were intellectual fads: like fleeting spells of Naxalite posturing, mostly by those whose parents were rich or influential enough to bail them out of trouble. There were those who ascended to ethereal heights - or, thought they did - on the wings of psychedelic drugs. Yet others, who sought to prove they were geniuses by scorning lectures and tutorials. Students who got seriously involved with academics were a tiny minority.

I have met several alumni over the years. Almost every one of them sounded remorseful that they failed to do justice to their times in the college. And wished they had been guided better.

A good college is one that brings out the best from every student, every teacher. To ensure this, it creates an environment in which un-academic myths, fads and posturing do not gain traction. Judged thus, I am afraid, the college would not fare well.

Over the years I found the faculty - barring proverbial exceptions - slipping down the ladder and settling down to meeting the minimum requirements of the system. Correspondingly, their attitude to "the administration" grew adversarial. As a rule, this indicates either incompetence or laziness at work, which breeds resentment towards accountability. In the 30 years that I was in active teaching, I do not recall having, or over-hearing, a stimulating conversation in the staff room, which smouldered often with intrigues and petty politics.

Faculty members who had academic interests treated the college as a transit lounge. They moved on.

Typical Stephanian conversations were spiced with artfully exaggerated renditions of past anecdotes of dubious authenticity. Several of them were so trivial, and some in evident bad taste, that the institutional jingoism that obliged you to find such tepid stuff witty or humorous never failed to discomfit me. Why was nothing significant happening in the present?

This famine in experience worsened with the passage of time.

The redeeming features of the college have been: a fairly well-defined work culture (which suffered dilution for a period), a truly serene and soulful campus, a superb library, a visionary idea of education adumbrated by the founders, and a commitment to pursuing excellence in education, which is at times taken for granted.

I noticed that the more loud-mouthed a Stephanian was about his indebtedness to the college, the less he cared for it. They were in love with their own voice, when they thought they loved their alma mater. They were, besides, aping the decadent ways of British aristocracy, and invoked the college only as a legitimising label.

This, at least, was certainly funny. British missionary educators came and established St Stephen's because they loved India and her people. The affluent among Indians infiltrated the same institution and filled it with soulless love for British decadence. They belittled British missionary heroism with upper class snobbery, which then was cuffed with the colonial hangover of cultural inferiority.

The infamous Stephanian snobbery is a clear case of this counterfeit culture eclipsing the essence of the college. Given the ethos spelt out by the founding fathers, snobbery was the last thing that the college should have been associated with. Regrettably, the core tradition of the college was hijacked over a period of time by a few generations of privileged students with outlandish entitlements, who were patronised by a handful of faculty members.

St Stephen's was an institution founded specifically for the poor and the downtrodden. Among the first batch of students in 1881, there wasn't one who could pay the annual fee of Rs 2. That such an institution was degraded into an enclave of snobbery and social elitism is a shameful story of institutional drift. This has done serious harm to the academic culture and stature of the college.

The college continues to pay dearly for this aberration. The alumni who graduated during this phase - barring scanty exceptions - see the college as no more than a glamorous label: a sort of florid plume on their ego-boundedness. Not many among them, I dare say, care a straw for the college. A comparison between the attitudes of the alumni of SRCC and St Stephen's towards their alma mater could cause many a pretentious mask to crumble.

At the end of the day, there is a curious thing. If you analyse the college bit by it, you come up against a plebian touch. But, on the whole, a genuine air of uniqueness - even greatness - prevails. I attribute it to the unique foundation of the college.

St Stephen's has the potential to be a globally competitive institution. The foremost stumbling block on this path are the teachers: the political Trojan horses among them. In 1981, when the college completed 100 years of service to the nation, autonomy was offered to it on a platter. The teachers protested. Since then, whenever any stirring from the State happened that augured well for the college, the same pattern has been repeated. The point is simple.

They fear the college attaining academic autonomy, as it might mean more work for them. This is the truth, albeit an unpopular one. I wish it were otherwise.

The continual overwhelming of the institution by teachers' petty politics is a cause for worry. It fouls the learning environment, which is unfair to the students. There are a few on the faculty, who have no qualms in dragging students into their politics. Insecurity about the tenability of their agenda makes them fire from the students' shoulders, which is downright immoral. You can't be teachers and full-time trade unionists at the same time. There are times I worry if the college is doing a disservice to the nation by abandoning young people to the charge of those who are indifferent to building up lives.

Those who love the college in truth would want to burn down the caricature that Stephania has been reduced to; so that, Phoenix-like, an authentic St Stephen's may arise out of the ashes and ascend higher on the wings of truth.