When you come from a convent school with dictatorial rules about maintaining a 3.5 GPA as an entry-level requirement into extra-curriculars, pretty soon you get sick of the same faces involved in everything. Same actors, same debaters, same football players, same student government leaders. Anything extracurricular my pre-teen self could conceive of was filled by the same people on a seemingly rotational basis. In retrospect, it seemed like the school was being run by overzealous, overachieving MUN kids who couldn’t let anyone else take their spots.
Therefore, Ashoka was a welcome change for me. This ‘liberal arts’ institution appealed to me big-time, where not only could you essentially ad-lib a major, but your freedom at college extended to your ability to explore as many hobbies and vocations you wanted. I thought I finally escaped from the ecological niche that MUN kids filled. But in an ironic twist of fate, the aforementioned high school mantra turned on its head. Shamelessly so.
Despite our oh-so-celebrated ideal of freedom– that people would have you believe has us living like hippies in tie dye— we only see the same small group of students participating in student politics. You know, the one thing that everyone in a ‘liberal arts’ institution would be participating in. From the debates about academic freedom flaring up earlier this year to the implementation of the new NEP policies, and even screenings of certain documentaries, more recently; whether they’re in a building over at Takshila or ninety kilometres over, near the border, it is impossible to escape the slew of politics surrounding us. This begs political awareness and involvement amongst students, to mobilise, to create impact.
The most recent occurrence were the farmer’s protests last month, which led to about a fortnight of online classes. With a university that brags of politically-aware-left-wing students who seem to have been born with the drive to ‘create change’ in their veins, you’d expect more than a modicum of empathy and solidarity for the farmers’ who were risking their lives to create disruption. Alas, the sentiment that was being parroted extensively was along the following lines:
“I don’t know how we did two years of classes online.”
“I hate being in Sonipat over the weekend but it's fine.”
“I hope that the shuttles start running today.”
“I feel for them but I hope it’s fixed soon, some way.”
Quite far from the pervasive sense of justice we’re all guilty of exaggerating in our application essays, isn’t it?
To me, it seems that the Ashokan majority is more inclined to ‘endure’ than they are to ‘participate.’ It rang true during the academic freedom talks, during the previous SG elections and it remains true now, when we talk of the farmer’s protest. Now that a month has passed, most aforementioned “concerns” have died down since classes have returned to normal, shuttles are functional albeit late, and midterms are the biggest disruption to routine most of us are dealing with. Except for those who still care about the world outside the red brick bubble, of course.
I’d like to believe I’m a part of the minority, the politically active but I fear I better
represent the majority. And so in not having the moral high ground, I want to appeal to
those like me to look across the aisle to begin to acknowledge and express a sense of
admiration for this small group of people who prove time and time again – to the rest of us – the importance of encouraging healthy, informed debate. The importance of asking ‘what can I do?’ The importance of showing up. Perhaps we can all begin to transition toward this group because they must be emulated.
Odds are your ‘too political friends’ belong to that little group, who turn up to and organise screenings, who sat during the teach-ins, the writers and reporters and activists. They are the same people you see engaging with and circulating information about a real time genocide in Gaza, participating in the boycotts and sure enough, they’re the people who were heard saying:
“Have you heard the latest updates about the farmers at the border?”
“No, not the chancellor’s, the one you should be reading in the paper.
The articles about the inhumanity of dropping tear gas via drone,
One of the many reasons you should show our farmers they aren’t alone.
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