Whither Values?

Robert Browning the poet had an axe to grind. He was extremely unhappy with William Wordsworth. His grievance was the Wordsworth who once stood by the French Revolution had gone back and become a part of the establishment. I too have an axe to grind, but for reasons that are the exact obverse of Robert Browning's. I see that teachers (read University Lecturers and Professors) who have become a part of the establishment firmly have turned revolutionaries. I have no problem with revolutions when they are required. But when revolutions are sought to be created for the furtherance of very personally derived agendas then I have a problem. Let me get to the point without too much ado. I went to my University as I would every day. I found that there was a "Chalo Warangal" programme of the TRS party for the Telangana Garjana which was being organized there. There were more vehicles at the university than there were students. I now conflate this with what I read in the Hindu newspaper of today. It quotes students who on the condition of anonymity complained that they were not willing to boycott end semester examinations and that they wanted their academic schedule to go ahead. They wanted to put politics and agitations on hand and academics on the other, with the former not interfering with the latter. They believed that they needed to get on with the studies, finish them and look for employment. They also said that mainly Ph.D scholars who had nothing to lose since they do not have a semester bound programme were trying to disrupt the academic schedule. I have no reasons to doubt them. In fact in the past I have been told that they were encouraged by some teachers also to boycott exams and continue with the agitation rather than with studies. That brings me to the point of revolutions and revolutionaries.

Herbert Marcuse while examining the causes for the Marxist revolutions not happening, claimed that only students and the lumpen proletariat had a revolutionary potential since they had nothing to lose. The lumpen proletariat bit maybe right but not the students bit. He should have said University Teachers had the potential to be revolutionaries. Having been assured of salaries, pension and a total lack of accountability to anyone or anything, university teachers are the true revolutionaries. They can go and look beyond where any student dares to go. Today's Hindu while talking about the discussions in the Andhra Pradesh State Legislature on the subject of the new bill for the appointment of Vice-Chancellors (which empowers the Governor of the State and the University Grants Commission of India in the appointment process) quotes Chukka Ramaiah (a renowned educationist, apparently for overseeing the coaching of generations of students for the IIT-JEE exam) claims that the appointment of Vice-Chancellors of Universities in the Andhra Pradesh should be the sole prerogative of the State Government since a democratically elected government was accountable to people so would a Vice-Chancellor appointed by the government!!!! I still cannot believe he said that. The Universities in the State of Andhra Pradesh without exception have gone to seed, because of Vice-Chancellors who have been political appointees. Governments have fallen but never have Vice-Chancellors faced the wrath of the people. In fact, a few names of Vice-Chancellors who have curried favour with all political parties and different governments come to mind, but I shall refrain from actually naming them here. Mudslinging is not the purpose of why I write. But the Vice-Chancellors of the above mentioned category have sometimes had tenures of a decade or two (no exaggeration here) when the humble politicians who have appointed them fell out of power in a period of five years.

What stumps me totally is that even a few private college managements who are sympathetic to the Telangana agitation have closed colleges and postponed exams scheduled for today. Strikingly the students wanted to get on with it since some of them are from out of Hyderabad and had reserved tickets to leave on a particular day but the postponement now affects their travel plans. Fortunately the teachers or the management have no such problems. I think it is time that scholars of Marxism and revolutions re-examined the traditional ideas and come back with new theories. In the meanwhile I am impressed with this whole thing of taking salary from the government only to fight it. I think the Idea mobile ads can use this and say "What an idea Sirji".

P.S: Not proof read. Apologies for the many errors of spelling and grammar that you will find.