Pulpit High On Above

Swapan Dasgupta March 13, 2006 00:00 IST Pulpit High On Above -0001-11-30T00:00:00+05:53

Earlier this month, a newspaper and a TV channel reported that some iit alumni had combined to form a political party. What was fascinating was not the revelation that our engineers also have a social conscience but the remarkable indulgence the media showed to it. Would our editors have been as generous if, say, some tiresome Stephanians decided that electoral politics could only be salvaged by the intervention of the erstwhile "gentlemen (and, for that matter, ladies) in residence"?

St Stephen’s College suffers from a quaint image problem. Judged by the admission criterion, it is about as selective as the iits. Yet, while they are seen as "elite" institutions, Stephen’s is tarred "elitist". Tinpot populists of all hues have waged a ceaseless jehad against everything they perceive Stephanians to be: snooty, arrogant, deracinated, dilettante. If the college hadn’t been protected by the minority tag, it would long ago have fallen prey to the outlanders’ envious savagery.

It’s a class war centred on values. Mastery over the curriculum was never the Stephanian...