The landslide victory of the BJP in General Election 2014 has torpedoed the top-ranked DU™s four-year undergraduate programme introduced last June, with all its 64 affiliated colleges compelled to revert to traditional three-year courses THE ABSOLUTE LOK SABHA majority won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) this summer has torpedoed Delhi University™s path-breaking four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) which became operational last June in all 64 affiliated colleges including the highly-fancied St. Stephen™s, The Sri Ram College of Commerce, and Miranda House. With the BJP having ill-advisedly promised to scrap FYUP in its populist election manifesto, the Central government-funded University Grants Commission (UGC), the country™s apex higher education regulatory body which had given the green signal to the FYUP last year, made a not-so-mysterious U-turn and directed DU to abrogate the four-year undergrad programme and admit students into the original three-year programme for the academic year 2014-15 starting next month (August). On June 20 UGC, which under the University Grants Commission Act, 1956 grants the all-important ˜recognition™ and funds all 42 heavily subsidised Central universities, while bestowing ad hoc small change upon a chosen few of the country™s 700 universities and whose study programmes also need its approval, issued a stern warning to DU and affiliated colleges. œColleges shall admit students at the UG (undergraduate) level for academic year 2014-2015 only to the three-year UG programme which was offered by it prior to the introduction of the four-year system and report compliance to the UGC soon after. Any deviation or contravention of this order shall be viewed seriously and may attract action including withdrawal of grant facilities, said the order signed by Vikram Shah, director (administration) of UGC. Faced with this ultimatum, on June 27 DU rolled back its FYUP, and issued a directive to its affiliated colleges to admit students for 2014-15 œunder the scheme of courses that were in the academic session 2012-13. Behind UGC™s unembarrassed volte face, DU academics discern the not-so-hidden hand of the BJP leadership, in particular of the surprise new Union human resource development minister Smriti Irani, a former television star and frontline party spokesperson on television chat shows during BJP™s election campaign. Immediately after she was sworn-in, a steady stream of teacher and student delegations has been meeting with Irani, pressing for the rollback of Delhi University™s FYUP. On June 7, a delegation of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP, presented a memorandum demanding withdrawal of FYUP. Earlier on May 30, a delegation of DU teachers and students had presented a similar petition to the new HRD minister, even as the sprawling DU campus transformed into a war zone with pro and anti-FYUP students and teachers™ organisations voicing daily protests. The back and forth on Delhi University™s FYUP has hit national headlines and consumed hours of footage on all television news channels because DU (estb. 1922) is not just another Indian university. In all media surveys and varsity league tables, DU is routinely ranked the country™s #1 university…
