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It can't happen here? In the mid-70s when I was a student at St Stephen's College, the Debating Society stumped competing teams by setting this topic for an extempore contest: "It can't happen here". In our time, extempore debaters were locked up in a room, then, teams were called up as selected by a draw of lots, taken to another sealed room 10 minutes before their turn to mount the dais. Thus nobody derived an advantage from speaking later, nor could they marshal arguments listening to preceding speakers. I recall this to be among the most riveting debates of my years in college, one in which my friend and now The Pioneer columnist Swapan Dasgupta excelled. Very few speakers knew the context of the subject on which they had to hold forth for five full minutes. That it was a famous statement about Communism overpowering the US one day was quite unknown to most participants. So, speakers were terribly confused about what "can't happen here" and fumbled when facing characteristically witty or loaded questions from the highly intelligent Stephanian audience. If even one year ago I was told my alma mater were to reserve a whopping 60 per cent seats for supposedly disadvantaged categories of admission seekers, my reaction would have been a dismissive "It can't happen here"! But it has. Many of us were saddened when the Supreme Court ruled that minority educational institutions could reserve up to 50 per cent seats for their respective communities, and St Stephen's College gleefully announced it would enhance the Christian quota straightaway. We were distressed because, somehow, to our mind, St Stephen's College wasn't a Christian institution: It was a centre of excellence, pride of India, a national heritage. Of course, the Principal had to be Christian and the Church of North India apparently ran the governing body. Also many Christian students, especially those facing indigent circumstances, were admitted by relaxing the stiff merit requirements, just as sports types got in despite scoring relatively poorly in their school leaving exams. But the numbers were not massive, and quota entrants were not at all obtrusive. Lest all this be misconstrued as a middle-aged alumnus's nostalgia for the mythical golden age of yore, I fully appreciate that St Stephen's College cannot continue to exist in complete isolation in an age of rampant quota-peddling. If Arjun Singh is hell bent on demolishing temples of modern India such as IIMs, IITs and AIIMS, sections of the Christian community may quite legitimately feel they need to guard their turf. Accordingly, they would rather transform the character of St Stephen's College from a great, inter-faith institution of higher learning into an escalator of Christian upward mobility. Ever since Missionaries came to India following the East India Company's territorial acquisitions, they contributed immensely to the furtherance of modern education. Today if we are taken seriously by the rest of the world for saying the 21st Century will be India's Century, this claim is largely based on the educational system created by the colonialists, and the proficiency in the English language that was an integral part of this educational structure. At the risk of being dubbed a despicable Macaulay-putra, I must reiterate this long-held belief. Established in 1881, St Stephen's is probably the finest example of this contribution. It really came into its own after the Capital shifted fully to New Delhi in 1931 and the new premises were built 10 years later within Sir Maurice Gwyer's dream project - the Delhi University campus, away from the bustle of Cashmere Gate where the college was originally located. When I entered its hallowed portals 31 years later, it was the high noon of Stephen's. It ruled India through the bureaucracy, academia, social sciences, the arts, and even politics. Today's distinguished leaders, Natwar Singh, Arun Shourie, Mani Shankar Aiyar, to name just a few, had already passed through it. Even the earliest stirrings of infantile left-wing disorder in the shape of fashionable Naxalism, led by towering intellectuals Rabindra Ray and Arvind N Das, were first registered here. The rabid Trotskyist rebel Tariq Ali addressed a jam-packed auditorium in 1973 mesmerising his listeners including yours truly. St Stephen's throbbed with vitality. Its detractors who dubbed it elitist out of frustration could not comprehend what was it that made the average Stephanian superior to his contemporaries. Actually, what was it? Surely it wasn't the faculty. Stephen's was head and shoulders above the rest because it attracted the best student talent from all across the country. The peer group, the intellectual challenge of bettering the best was the driving force for its students. Without meaning to be disrespectful to the teachers, I must say other Delhi University colleges had more academically sound and articulate lecturers than we did. Stephen's often suffered because university toppers from the college were readily inducted as lecturers, but they treated it as a parking lot till they cleared their civil services. I can name a dozen who taught me and now hold key positions in the PMO, MEA, other Ministries, Security Forces, Army, State Governments and even PSUs. The permanent faculty was largely mediocre, but they were culturally seeped in the College tradition. It was a teacher like Mohammad Amin who made us proud to be Stephanian. And he was not the only one. I was touched to see him trudge to the India International Centre last Thursday for a felicitation gathering for the new OSD (de facto Principal), Rev, Valson Thampu. Amin Sa'ab's loyalty to College will die only with his death, not a day earlier. That finally brings me to Rev Thampu, who joined College as a lecturer in English in 1974 and became my Block Tutor in Rudra South. He was a kind, if somewhat uncertain loner, deeply disturbed by raucous undergrads like us whom he was supposed to keep in check. He and I had many brushes, but eventually became good friends. At his felicitation, I was moved when he called me "the flame" of his early years. But, I am saddened that he has been chosen to carry out an agenda that can only reduce St Stephen's College to rank mediocrity. I have no quarrels with 30 per cent Christian reservation. But why wasn't the so-called Dalit Christian quota carved out of that? Bishop Karam Masih says 80 per cent of Christians in North India are 'Dalits'. If so, they should have bagged the bulk of the seats reserved for the community. Obviously that did not happen. So, 40 per cent seats have now being earmarked for one religious community, and another 15 per cent for non-Christian SC/ST/OBCs. But, why only 15 per cent? SC/STs have a 22.7 per cent quota nationally and Arjun Singh wants to block another 27 per cent for Dalits. Christian plus other Depressed Classes would then take reservations to 90 per cent. Add to that five per cent sports and disabled. That totals 95 per cent. Sorry to see St Stephen's go down this slippery slope. A great national institution is hurtling inexorably towards its doom. I can only pray its reputation rests in peace. Amen.
