It’s not about quotas

Stephen’s in time and space. It may be a function of their love for the college. But the fact that they feel strongly about this does not prove that their advocacies are healthy.

Tradition is a dynamic thing. It is a river of life that flows from the past into the future through the present. Every living tradition, including that of St Stephen’s, stands, therefore, in need of continual renewal and re-appropriation. St Stephen’s is what it is today because it had visionary leaders who had the courage, clarity and breadth of understanding to undertake this awesome responsibility. And each time this happened, anxieties were articulated. So there is nothing unusual about the virulent reaction to what is being attempted in St Stephen’s.

Principal S.N. Mukharji, for instance, took the seemingly reckless decision to shift St Stephen’s from the Kashmiri Gate campus to its present, spacious, majestic location during the difficult years when World War II was raging. The very idea seemed reckless to many, including some very influential custodians and friends of the college. But Mukharji had the courage to pursue his vision. The foundation stone for the present teaching block was laid by C.F. Andrews in 1939 and the college became fully functional in 1941. Today, in retrospect, one wonders what would have been St Stephen’s plight had it continued on the cramped campus in Kashmiri Gate. We are all grateful to Principal Mukharji.

I vividly remember the ferocious debate that erupted in 1974-75 when the idea of St Stephen’s — the proud ‘bastion of male privilege’ — opening its doors to women students was proposed by the then principal. It seemed to many college lovers as though doomsday had come calling. Angry words were uttered, anxieties unfurled and ruin forecast. Nothing of the sort happened. Instead, wonderful students like Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghosh, and scores of others like them, joined St Stephen’s and gave it a new lease of life.

This was followed by another, and necessary, scandal, if you like. One of the six halls of residence was turned into on-campus accommodation for women students. Again eyebrows were raised. The same happened again a few years later when one more of the blocks of residence ‘fell to the girls’. Today, 60 per cent of the students admitted are women and further changes in this regard are becoming imperative. But let me not add to the current flashpoint of well-meaning, even if historically purblind, anxieties.

St Stephen’s was born in the womb of a missionary concern for India, as a protest against oppression and disempowerment. That from within the Raj, a creative revolution against the Raj could be initiated by those who should have been its supporters, is a sign of the robustness of the biblical faith. The early missionaries devoted their lives to making St Stephen’s College an investment into the India they dreamed of. It was an India that transcended class and caste barriers and activated its frozen social assets. The Stephen’s they envisioned was a crucible of India which drew into itself the myriad strands of the Indian socio-cultural kaleidoscope. This core vision must never be lost. An educational institution that fails to be sensitive to the realities around it and chooses to be blind to the unfolding dynamics of a nation, being enslaved to the interests only of a small social segment, invites assured irrelevance. This is something that St Stephen’s cannot afford to do without mocking the visionaries who founded and nurtured this great institution.

The writer is principal (OSD) of St Stephen’s College