A Humble Proposal for Defeating Dissenters to Semesterization

8/18/2019 A Humble Proposal for Defeating Dissenters to Semesterization

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A Humble Proposal for DefeatingDissenters to Semesterization

Peccavi

For some time now, there has been a lot of unnecessary noise and controversy

regarding the implementation of a semester system in Delhi University !uch of

this has come from a small but very vocal bunch of leftist pseudo"intellectuals,

who have over the years lost all sense of decorum and propriety #even if it is

granted that they ever had any$ %t is unfortunate that they continue to occupy

any space at all in university life, in this day and age & indeed, their opposition to

the process of semesterization of the University stems substantially from the fact

that this vital reform will ensure that they and their archaic ideology will be

s'ueezed out of our system altogether (heir dated views may not have any

meaning today, but we must understand that not everyone is e'uipped with the

intellectual discernment and practical common sense that can perceive this %n

fact, it is precisely their naive insistence on e'uality that renders them blind to

the necessary ine'ualities of life )ut % hasten to clarify, in normal circumstances

% would not advocate that their opposition to semesterization be silenced* after

all, we are a democracy, and if su+ering them is the price for upholding

democracy, then so be it For above all, as % am sure we all agree, democracy

and democratic processes must be prized, and respected, whatever the costs

(herefore, % would normally be the rst to defend their right to be in the

University, indeed to oppose the University For now, therefore, they ought to be

heard with patience and humoured, as children who may not ever grow, and we

have every hope #as % will propose below$ that their disappearance can be

hastened -very age, as one of their thin.ers has observed, has emergent,

dominant and residual strains in it & and these poor anachronisms do not

recognize that they are no more than the residue of a by"gone era (here are

none so blind as those that will not see

Having said that, there is a genuine problem posed today by their continuing

presence and insistence on being heard & which is of course, that an urgently

re'uired and invaluable process of reform is being stalled (heir vehementrefusal to understand the wonderful benets of the proposed changes to our

higher education system would, in itself, have meant little & under ordinary

circumstances, it would have been /ust one more instance of having to tolerate

and humour them patiently, till they faded away However, as we all .now, this

time around, they somehow seem to have got the attention of many well"

meaning, democratically inclined people li.e us Somehow, their allegations

about the failure of democratic processes and the collapse of institutional

mechanisms seem to have touched a chord with many among us who, perhaps

because they share my enormous respect for the democratic process, have

therefore been somewhat swayed (his has led to a high degree of confusion anddoubt, and has begun to adversely a+ect the smooth transition to the semester

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system %n what follows, % hope to present a convincing method for dealing with

this problem, swiftly , e1ciently and & to calm the consciences of our more

scrupulous friends & democratically )ut before % embar. on that pro/ect, % must

brie2y revisit the virtues of the proposed reform, so that we may be reminded of

what is at sta.e in this controversy

(o that end, rst let us be reminded that this change was proposed initially by a

whole gala3y of well"meaning, erudite, visionary people (hree successive vice"

chancellors, scholars and administrators of the highest merit all, cannot be

wrong (he government4s commission on .nowledge, constituted of the brightest

minds from our higher educational institutions and of our captains of industry

and commerce, cannot be wrong %ndeed, since they too have had a stellar role

to play in the design of this change, our esteemed Prime !inister, our beloved

H5D !inister and our highly enlightened Deputy 6hairman of the Planning

6ommission & all trained at Harvard, 73ford or 6ambridge, besides being

a1liated to global institutions li.e the 8orld )an. & none of these can be wrong,as % have no doubt you will agree After all, these intellectually gifted, far"sighted

and also highly democratic individuals have sacriced much to ta.e over the

helm of a+airs in our blessed nation, to guide it through its troubled e3periments

with various attempts at democracy, to global standards of e3cellence 8e must

remember that it was our prophetic Prime !inister who, as Finance !inister

many years ago, reinvigorated the meaning of 9freedom4 in our understanding of

democracy, by continuously freeing our mar.ets, to achieve global standards of

economic e3cellence, re2ected in our current :DP growth rate

Some may 'uibble that, one fallout of this has been a phenomenal increase in

disparities, ine'ualities, corruption and absolute poverty )ut we must not focus

too much on these issues & which in any case, as well all .now, are mostly leftist

propaganda & lest we lose sight of the global standards of e3cellence that we

must strive to achieve (he introduction of a semester system, as all these

stalwarts have proposed, is only one small change towards attaining those

standards & but it is a crucial one, and must be facilitated So, to say that these

champions of our nation are wrong, is to call into 'uestion these very global

standards of e3cellence, and these global ideas of democracy & which % am

convinced none of us want )ut perhaps some of us will re'uire more than such

arguments as to point out the patent absurdity of challenging such ne minds, or

indeed such a global consensus (o these then, % will spea. directly of the merits

and benets of the semester system #SS for short$ itself

Straight o+ the bat, it is evident that the SS will reign in these unprincipled

leftists who resort to stri.ing wor. on the 2imsiest of e3cuses %t is clear to all of

us, who nd their shenanigans annoying at the very least, that they have no

other intention than to prevent the rest of us from pursuing our aspirations and

ambitions by constantly raising irrelevant scruples and anti'uated rules and

laws % fail to understand why they cannot /ust let us be, and carry on with our

programmes of reform #and surely whatever laws are not in our favour in this can

be suitably ad/usted at a later date$ After all, no one is as.ing them toparticipate if they don4t want to, and certainly, no one is particularly .een on

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having their nitpic.ing presence on board %nstead, they raise all .inds of ethical

mountains out of procedural molehills, ma.e us feel unnecessarily uncomfortable

in our ventures, and force us to go along with their stri.es and protests, lest we

be seen as undemocratic All this will be put paid to by the SS As one former

%t is evident that, with a tight schedule in which to nish

their allotted courses and attend to fre'uent e3aminations and evaluations,

these 9teachers4 will have no time to politic., and certainly no time to lose

through stri.es %ndeed, with the teachers so thoroughly occupied,

administrations can function freely and fully with total control over their

employees, and do whatever it ta.es to improve their institutions without having

to fear protests and recalcitrance from teachers And for those of us who can

cooperate wholly and fully with such administrations, there is no doubt that we

will only stand to be rewarded (his, for me, is one of the biggest blessings of the

SS 7f course, it does mean that the students will be under greater pressure,having e3am fever twice a year, instead of once under the annual system? but

this will no doubt toughen them and build character, which is sadly lac.ing in our

country (hose who will not survive this, do not deserve to survive

8hich brings me to the second ma/or blessing of the SS, which in many ways is

an even bigger one than the rst* with /ust four months available for the

teaching"learning process per semester, we can rest assured that only the

'uic.est and most well"schooled of our nation4s children will pass through the

sieve of the SS e3ams (he current practice of reservations is gradually, and

despite our best e+orts, ine3orably opening out the sacred spaces of our highereducation system, to vast numbers of socially and economically bac.ward

communities @ow, with all due respect to these communities, and with absolute

regard for their democratic rights, % am sure we all can agree, openly and

honestly, that these people have little acumen and less .nowledge, to actually

benet from the higher education for which they are clamouring %f they did,

surely by now they would have all gained from these reservation policies which

have been so faithfully and honestly implemented in our country for decades

)ut of course, we cannot give them the impression that we want to e3clude them

from the fruits of higher education %t stands to reason that we must devise a

way to demonstrate to them how little they deserve to be in the hallowed realms

of higher education, without actually e3cluding them #%n the old days, the caste

system performed this function so well, and it was clear to everyone that certain

sections could not lay claim to the higher realms of .nowledge, which belonged

to the )rahmins? in these godless leftist times, unfortunately such a simple and

harmonious solution cannot be implemented$ 8hat better way to do so then,

than the SSB 8e cannot be accused of e3cluding them, because we will have

implemented the reservation policies that give them access to the Universities?

and the gruelling demands of the SS, in which their unsuitability to these realms

will become patent even to them, will ta.e care of the rest At the end, we will be

left with the brightest minds of the upper castes graduating from the system &

and who could as. for more

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curricula and pedagogies with them %t is true that they will have to charge

somewhat higher fees & but /ust imagine, our bright and talented minds will have

whole educational supermar.ets of choice before themB And do not get swayed

by ridiculous leftist propaganda that only the rich will benet* every ban. worth

its salt is already o+ering fantastic education loans, which the student can pay

o+ slowly, through the course of his career And if the student is not able to gain

employment, for whatever reason, well then, % must reiterate to my dear readers

that we cannot a+ord to waste tears on slac.ers and laggards? the SS is truly a

nely calibrated machine to eliminate the wea., and if they delude themselves

that they can survive it through loans, then they must nd out the hard way (his

has a further advantage* through this process of elimination, our ban.s will

become enormously richer and simultaneously, the numbers of s.illed and semi"

s.illed unemployed available for cheap labour will also go up e3ponentially & a

perfect condition for economic growth % am sure you will all agree then, that it is

absolutely criminal to stand in the way of such progress

(here is one additional advantage of the SS, among many more, that % must

foreground* it is admittedly somewhat in the realm of speculation, hope and

anticipation, rather than a provable outcome of the SS, but % must mention it

because of the rich possibilities it has :iven that the SS will wor. with clinical

precision and will ine3orably ease out the wea. and unworthy from the system, it

has been historically shown that such wea. and unworthy souls resort to suicide

in the face of di1cult odds 8e have already witnessed this happening with

deluded small farmers, who believed they could compete with better e'uipped

private players in agriculture Fortunately, our government has not been swayed

by the same leftist voices who have shouted themselves hoarse about thesedeaths, but instead has resolutely ignored them, in the hope that the numbers of

such deaths will only increase 8e have good reason to hope for a similar

outcome with the privatisation of higher education & and here too, we must not

be swayed by wea.".need leftist soft"heartedness, but must soldier on resolutely

% need hardly point out how this will contribute signicantly to decreasing our

burgeoning population? but more pertinently, it will inspire others to wor. harder,

and will be a salutary warning to those whose reach is greater than their grasp %t

is true that, in the process, some of our own will also fall by the wayside, being

not of the best stoc. )ut these numbers can be minimised by /udiciously

activating our social networ.s to ensure that even the wea.est among us

manage to survive the system & and those that still do not, must be considered

collateral damage in the larger cause %f this is the only way that people can be

made to understand that we are not all e'ual, then so be it & and, as is evident to

all, there is nothing undemocratic about adopting this procedure at all %t is only

our leftist friends who continue to shout that it is so, and below, now, % will

outline a method for dealing with this menace comprehensively

@ow, as everyone .nows, a fundamental tenet of leftism is that those in power

do not relin'uish power & rather, it must be ta.en from them by force (his

childish doctrine o+ers us a wonderful opportunity to silence these pes.y voices

% am inspired in this instance by the enormous successes of our wily Home!inister in the /ungles of the eastern parts of our beautiful country %t is a .nown


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feel happy that along with clearing the way for the SS, we will have also

unearthed illegal arms amongst these leftist groups & and %4m very sure that our

paramilitary forces and army will be very cooperative and alert in producing and

locating these %n these matters, our forces should be encouraged to shoot rst

and as. 'uestions later, since some of these wily leftists may well try to

surrender in the hope of living o+ honest ta3"payers4 money in /ail, only to live to

ght another day & and needless to add, that day should never come Finally, for

good measure, we can also auction the belongings of those found in possession

of such material, to enrich the co+ers of the University

@ow, some of us may 'uibble that these fellows are hardly li.ely to have

anything very much worth auctioning & and that is true )ut % must respond by

reminding my friends that there is a great value to the symbolic power of the

auctioning of the loot of war !oreover, we have a collective responsibility to

ensure that no trace of these rascals remains on the campuses So, if the auction

is ob/ected to very strongly, as not worth even its symbolic value, then % mustinsist that we at least torch these materials and their owners right out of

e3istence & an auto da fe that will ensure there will be no recurrence of such

maladies in our higher education processes of enlightenment et others have

already told me that it may be simpler to follow an early predecessor of mine,

and simply propose that we .ill and eat these unhappy dissenters, as an

e+ective and also useful way to terminate their activities and simultaneously

improve our own health % have however, baul.ed at proposing this rather

e3treme, albeit highly savoury step, for the following reasons Firstly, we must

.eep in mind that many of us, in the upper echelons of our society, remain

committed vegetarians, and it would be very di1cult to persuade these noblesouls to participate in such an activity, even in the name of national interest (his

would lead to a surplus of meat in the mar.et, bringing the prices of meat down

all around & which is /ust not good for the economy Secondly, there are many

among us who are very fastidious about hygiene, and it is very di1cult to say

anything too generally about the 'uality of the meat that will come from these

leftists & who .nows where they might have been, and what 'uality of life they

have lived (his alone militates against the venture (hirdly, there are still many

among us who would ob/ect to this practice as being cannibalistic, and no

amount of persuasion that these are actually subhuman creatures, and not

human at all, will wor. (his will result in unnecessary controversy, and we would

have to repeat these actions against these new protesters (his is of course not

in itself a problem & but we must avoid opening battle on two fronts

simultaneously %t is therefore best to nish the leftists rst, before dealing with

other dissenters, who are otherwise currently with us Finally, for those of us who

insist that this wanton .illing of dissenters is simply not acceptable, % wish to

remind them that we will only be following well established and accepted

precedents, within the democratic framewor. that % whole heartedly endorse, of

our glorious republic (here is no need therefore to let such minor doubts beset

us in this un'uestionably righteous venture (herefore, let us ma.e haste wisely

and implement these measures forthwith* %4m sure we can all agree that % have


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maintained a ne balance of convenience between scrupulous adherence to the

law, and forward propulsion of the proposed reforms Satyame

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A Humble Proposal for Defeating Dissenters to Semesterization