Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Poltu Fiction

There are something which we don't realise or ignore until we get a chance to get that 'something'. These series of incidents doesn't date back to when I won the elections to be the Deputy G.Sec of BSA. I was happy and content to think that now I can directly influence matters and improve the irregularities as I see them today in the IIT system. After one month of being elected, I gave in to the thought that students are more or less powerless.

After the first meeting of SAC, I'm sure there ain't any visible changes that SAC can bring about.SAC representatives are the little donuts for the satisfaction of us students because we 'assume' they'll make the system better. This superficial perception among students that the SAC reps have a say in non-academic matters is indeed an 'asumed' one. They're puppets to the cruel IIT system. Every issue raised by the SAC reps is rejected by the faculty with lame and arbit reasons that makes me doubt whether they even listen to what we just said. I can clearly see that they ain't bothered

There's a clear mismatch among the responsibility and authority in all the student representation posts. No SAC member has any authority to take a decision even for making the slightest of a change. I am astonished when I see so many misconducts in my day-to-day life at the campus. What are we supposed to do? Wait for the next SAC meeting only to get our suggestions rejected. I am not saying this in any sort of anger but it is indeed, what has been going on. A tubelight in the Reading Room falls inches away from a student and not only nobody listens to us ( I don't even know where to complaint about it). A student literally fell off from the IIT bus due to over-crowdedness and everyone is merely a spectators. And even after raising the issue of increasing the bus frequency, no one bothers to listen.


One of the worst nightmares of every student in IIT Delhi. Even DISCO should compromise of elected student representatives as well. It can't consist of a chair comprising of just professors. The students need to have a say in the working of DISCO because there should be someone to defend the student as well. When the terrorists are allowed to get a lawyer, we're much less dangerous and the charges, I guess are not as severe. Why is the lack of trust prevailing so widely in our system? I wonder whether IIT Delhi is primarily for the students or for the administration and academic staff?

The boards constitutions looks elegantly framed but still there are loopholes. When it gets down to the biggest issue i.e finance where except for the Board President no one else have a say. When we ask them to give us more power, the simple reply is -"you can 'misuse' it." I am ashamed by the level of trust they expect from us and the extent to which they actually trust us. It just makes me feel we're the most corrupt people in the whole IIT system. If it's true then I wonder what'll be the future of this country if the next generation is assumed to be corrupt.


These international rankings and recognition for the istitution stands dismal if the students who actually study here feel disgusted about the system. We're given a sweet candy by stressing on the fact that yes, the student bodies comprises of elected people but the kind of freedom these people enjoy is too less to make a change. There's a strong need for the decentralization of power as the history tells us. We don't want such a democracy where some dictator rules and the Prime Minister just writes in his CV that he was once the Prime Minister.

IITian's Dilemma

There is always an debate going on " Do we" IITians justify with the image associated with the built up studious character. Are we the same as the outside world perceives us? and most of the times, this debate nevers ends with a conclusion but more questions itself and with a newly generated random permutation of pointing fingers. I agree, we are not justifying 'the' image of 'IITians". We may exclude the 10 % people who do study and may achieve wonders and be the sole founders of 'the' image.So why is it like the rest 90 % of people spend only one tenth time of what's 'required' to study . The main question which stands is - " Does anyone care or have a genuine interest in knowing why don't we study?" Does IIT administration really wanna know the reason behind this?. I mean they take an exam called JEE which is supposed to be one of the toughest exam in the world. Why're such intelligent minds having less or literally no interest in studying after coming to IIT?

Since there's a lack of scientific study on this subject and humans, tend to reason everything by what they know, I'm sure the administration or the professors in the office think we're too much involved in extra currics , preparing for the numerous events in BRCA and BSA. I am sure if they look into facts and co relate the academic performance of a student, they won't find much relation. I guess it happens this way that when a student looses the interest, he has to do something to pass time , to amuse himself and to get a challenging spirit which he doesn't enjoy in the academic framework of IIT.

The majority of guys we meet have created a mind set that you have to study one week before minors. Prof's will always keep on advising students to learn by heart but still the rotting method works 9 out of 10 times and the grades are counted as a fair judgment everywhere. I believe when the 75 % attendance rule was implemented, the poor grades were the only indicators. I mean we're not kids, most of us are above 18. Doesn't the authorities count that it's their limitation that they have failed to attract students to attend classes or have a genuine interest in studies? ... Believe me, even if lan ports are not there in the rooms, laptops are disallowed or nesci's are closed, things won't change. A bounded system with compulsions may create a good corporate but an open system may create some marvelous engineer. Creativity hardly flourishes under compulsions. And from one compulsive system to another earning a money to withstand those compulsions is what most of us end up doing.

Clearing JEE is an indicator that the student can study, the potential is there, but no one's there to tap it and hence it flows in some other direction. Many a students are stressed about their life in IIT and I haven't seen anyone talk about the Student Counselling Service and I haven't seen the profs in general worried about the students. They seem satisified answering the queries they're subjected to and assume that those who wanna understand the stuff are doing it and the rest of them don't have a problem because they're not interested to study but why are they not interested is the question? They can try picking up random people at times and try experimenting and knowing them. We all hate, at least I do, spending our time in a course throughout the semester where the prof is not even interested in knowing our name (It has happened to all of us). Is this what we deserve? If someone is not even interested in knowing who we are, it's a bit tough to heartly dedicate towards the course.

Getting to my point, we have got a seperate humanities department and the courses are floated for around 1000 students each semester which makes it quite a big department. All I want and expect is a survey, a scientific one, to be conducted by this department or for the sake, any other responsible person for knowing the concrete reasons and if someone has already done a similar thing, please publish it somewhere along with the data. At least if we can't change anything, let's make our 'image' clear, let's not keep people in dark which includes our parents as well. I mean it'll be shocking if such a scientific data is published on the first page of a national newspaper. If anything can be changed, it should be changed else let the image be declared a 'myth' .