A day after the University Grants Commission ordered Delhi University to go back to the three-year course, the campus saw celebrations as well as protests and minor scuffles with various groups expressing their support or dismay over the UGC order.
The BJP-backed Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad put up billboards and distributed sweets in the campus to congratulate the those campaigning against the four-year undergraduate programme.
A scuffle broke out between a professor and an ABVP activist at the Academics for Action and Development (AAD) press conference, organised to oppopse the UGC’s June 22 order asking DU colleges to admit students “only” for the three-year course.
According to eyewitnesses, the student activist hurled a chair at the teacher after a heated argument over the virtually scrapped FYUP.
“The Congress-led UPA Government had supported FYUP by all means and, in fact, it was their plan to introduce foreign universities in India that led to FYUP being implemented,” said ABVP Delhi State Secretary Saket Bahuguna.
“We made FYUP a poll issue by suggesting to political
parties to include it in their manifestos. The Delhi unit of BJP listened to our demand and included it in their manifesto. Today, we thank the BJP for fulfilling its poll promise on this genuine students’ demand.”
The student wing of AAD, however, burnt an effigy of UGC chairman Ved Prakash at Jantar Mantar for impinging upon university’s ‘autonomy’.
“UGC’s diktat not only is violation of the long-standing autonomy of DU… but is also in contradiction to its own rules, regulations, and letters to DU where it clearly states the freedom regarding the duration of course with cap being only on the minimum number of necessary years for awarding a degree,” the AAD Aditya Narayan Misra president said in a statement.
Meanwhile, BTech students under the banner of Save FYUP turned up in large numbers for a peaceful protest. “We don’t know what is the fate of FYUP. But the university should definitely not scrap the BTech courses,” said Ansh Goyal, a student from Maharaja Agrasen College.
Delhi University Students' Association welcomed the move. “If DU still does not respond to the UGC order, Central government has to then decide what action to take against a VC who is so defiant,” DUTA president Nandita Naraian said.