This cover picture is from the NewStatesman. 

This platform recently published an article detailing the results of a survey that intended to bring to light a variety of mental health concerns that were plaguing the student body amidst the current pandemic crisis. The ostensible agenda of this survey (and the article) was to demonstrate to the magazine’s readers the fact that students’ mental health had, in fact, been adversely affected by the crisis and, while not explicit, that the college administration had somewhat failed in addressing the student body’s needs with respect to the crisis. To the writers’ credit, they focused on a general need for greater mental health infrastructure rather than pinpointing any particular administrative shortcomings. However, this article perhaps represented the culmination of the widespread “grievance-airing” (to put it politely) that the student body has been indulging in since the start of the lockdown.

The (Misplaced) Idea of India

This first began with batch groups grumbling that conducting Zoom classes would be inequitable to the student body, due to disparities in access to stable internet connectivity. (Un)surprisingly enough, this woe-is-me attitude seemed to emanate not from those members of the community that were actually facing difficulties, but from the (usually left-liberal) elites of each batch. These well-meaning individuals took it upon themselves to champion the cause of their cohorts whom they assumed would be grateful to them for speaking out against this obvious injustice being meted out to the lesser, hinterland-dwelling simpletons. In their eagerness to virtue signal and score points in the Woke Olympics, these elites forgot to do one crucial thing – take the time out to talk to their peers, if not one-on-one, at least on the batch group, and figure out how this apparent “lack of internet access” was impacting people. And therein lies the hamartia of Law School’s elite.

If they had, they would have discovered that middle India, contrary to elitist conceptions (which seem to be an essentialist rehash of Orientalist constructions), is not a vast jungle teeming with tigers and elephants, where there is no electricity, water, or network connectivity. Most of our cohorts, author included, are not located in such far-flung locales so as to lack modern infrastructure altogether. Financial access to this infrastructure is surely limited, but this roadblock was quickly lifted by the administration when they offered to reimburse students for data packs. Despite this, we see that the experiences of the marginalised (who are invariably lower caste and class) are time and again co-opted by the elite in order to further their own agenda.

Confronting Privilege

Perceived queer, Dalit, and marginalised experiences appear to be routinely used as talking points in lengthy emails sent out to the administration detailing their apparent apathy towards students, while actual consultation and discussion leaves much to be desired. Here again, well-meaning elites dominate the discussion both on Facebook, on batch groups, and in student representative community space. Passing the mic seems to be something entirely alien to these elite tastemakers, who confidently pronounce to their batchmates what new intersectional issue they should be outraged about today.

The most vocal complainants about home confinement aren’t those students who are from Chitrakoot or Asarganj, whose families have overcome generations of socio-economic barriers to enable them to go to college, but the ones who have cushy, air-conditioned 4BHK homes in Malleshwaram, Nariman Point, or Green Park (sometimes all three!). These individuals write lengthy emails to the administration and to their batches, detailing the intense mental pressure they are under due to having to serve their grandmother 3 meals a day, where their maid would do it before. Woe is me. Of course, we are all cognizant of the different ways in which an individuals’ mental health can be affected, but at least consider not using marginalised communities’ experiences to guilt-trip the administration. Confront your own struggles and ask for leniency on that basis – don’t piggyback off on ours.

It is this tone-deafness of the elite that needs to change. We all know someone with those classic manifestations of privilege – upper caste (and invariably class), generations of parents have been educated at the best schools money can buy, doesn’t need to have a monthly budget, never eats in the mess (it’s just soooo oily, ugh!), goes clubbing only twice a month, but most importantly, never lets go of a chance to talk about how poor they are because they still use *gasp* wired earphones, or the fact that it is soooo unfair that the Aditya Birla Scholarship is only open to the top 20 ranks (“seriously, they should at least allow all us general students to apply ya”), or how they’re probably going to have to “settle” for Singapore for their exchange next year instead of Europe because they have family there.

Enough is enough.

If you’re going to fight for social justice, then begin by confronting the immense privilege you come from, rather than pretending like your experiences are the same as those of your batchmates.

Always the Victim, never an Agent: On Academic Rigour in Trim III

The college’s new Vice Chancellor has been reduced to a caricature by community meme pages and batch discussions – haha, aCaDeMiC rIgOuR, am I right? Public fora seem to be abuzz with outrage – how dare he ask us to fire on all cylinders amidst this pandemic? How dare he think of us as scamsters when we fought tooth and nail to get electives? Fair enough.

It’s also fair to scoff at this outrage when you see those same people posting their reviews of a new Netflix show every other day up until last-last day, when the tone of their social media shifts to “haha, I’m such a baller. I’m doing my projects at the last minute but can’t help but squeeze in a 3-hour binge sesh of The Office. LOL DAE?” And of course, that other breed of I’m-too-cool-for-this-class-and-any-other-class, who openly admit to logging into Zoom in the mornings and promptly going back to sleep. I digress – I’m not here to point fingers at individuals.

The point here is that there is a definite culture of academic apathy amongst Law School students – from the entitled attitude towards extensions, to the dismissal of certain teachers as ‘scams’, to the pride taken in writing projects at the last minute and in dodging plagiarism software. Taking umbrage at these comments and defending oneself through social media diatribes will not make the problem go away. The fact that so many scoffed at the Vice Chancellor’s comment that focusing on academics is a viable way to manage one’s external anxieties goes to show the utter lack of value that our community places on structured academic learning. And no, Isha (the Indian elite version of Karen), your Human Rights professor expecting students to read for class is not ironic. Maintaining a routine and a semblance of normalcy is often calming to individuals prone to anxiety (and who are, more often than not, queer/Dalit folx).

While the value that one places on academics is entirely a personal decision, the answer cannot be to structurally do away with rigour altogether. There will always be reasons to deviate from academic expectations – some argue that this pandemic can be existentially terrifying, causing one to procrastinate. After this, we’ve still got to deal with climate change, with institutional casteism, with the unsustainable inequalities of global capitalism. Reducing the workload – which, if we’re all being honest, is not unmanageable to begin with – is not the answer. Rather, calls for strengthening of mental infrastructure and for the creation of community spaces that value and preserve mental health are the way forward.

Aditya Rawat’s group initiative is a great start. While the issues with online group therapy sessions were detailed in the survey article, it is also important to create spaces by and for marginalised communities as well. Elites cannot be a part of this process – not because they don’t have the right intentions, but simply due to the fact that a vast majority of the Law School community does not feel connected to these urban elites. We do not feel comfortable airing our thoughts and our grievances within that bubble, where an opinion that does not fit in neatly within their world-view is immediately placed under intense scrutiny, and the person holding that opinion castigated. Many of us have generations of patriarchal, caste-dominated, anti-poor, and anti-minority ways of thinking inculcated in us. It takes time to undo these ways of thinking – but elite impositions of right and wrong will not help. Give the marginalised a space to articulate her thoughts. Listen to what she has to say.

Pass the Mic – and Leave the Room

On a more sober note, we’ve been quick to co-opt the institutional murder of a class X Dalit girl (apparently due to a lack of resources and access to online classes) for our own agenda against the Vice Chancellor, implicitly making the statement that many of our own cohorts are in the same situation and being denied empathy by the institution. To this, again, we need ask ourselves the question – are we all really in the same situation as that girl was in?

We see the usual suspects scrambling to think of potential catastrophes that could befall a student during the exam and are quick to vilify the administration for a perceived lack of empathy towards the same. Yet, somehow, the wider community is yet to hear of a single incident of actual laptop / network failure. True, this exam set-up required us all to proceed with caution and not leave submission to the last minute, given the tendency of laptops to start hanging exactly when you need them for time-sensitive tasks. However, it appears that the students who were running from pillar to post concerned about this situation are, unsurprisingly, not those who are actually getting through Law School on a scholarship-funded laptop, but those with the latest MacBook (pardon the crude simplification).

The Law School community, to me, has failed in its social justice goal when we have this repeated romanticizing of the lesser-privileged as nothing more than a victim, dealt an unfair hand by the administration. The fact is that even now, public discourse is dominated by the privileged rather than there being a real platform for the lesser privileged to discuss their situations and grievances.

What do the disabled have to say about this new model of learning and evaluation? How is our compatriot in Kashmir coping – has the admin been responsive? What do the people besieged by Cyclone Amphan need? While it is easy to draw conjecture (see a certain student’s widely shared SBA Noticeboard post) and assume the worst of their situations, the only real way for a community to grow is by listening, not assuming.

A previous article here attempted to draw attention to this, but was sadly dismissed by some as being woke posturing by other elites. Perhaps it is telling that we see discourse that threatens to be more progressive than status quo as merely posturing while anything less so is dismissed as regressive and not even worth a conversation. A lifetime of living (and arguing) online seems to have hardened us all – it seems the only thing that brings us progressives joy is to smugly comment on how someone else’s progressiveness lacks nuance (present company included).

It’s time, then, to not just to pass the mic and give the sub-altern a platform from which she can actually speak, but also to stop seeing the sub-altern as nothing more than a victim of the administration. Robbing her of her agency to express her actual thoughts and feelings about administrative decisions and their impact on her mental health will reduce her to a talking point, an agenda to be championed in the pursuit of Woke Olympic points, but will never actually empower her or make her feel heard and seen by the community. Adding a few progressive buzzwords to your Twitter bio doesn’t make you a champion – and neither does posting smug commentary about how deluded those other champagne socialists are. You are doing nothing to better the lives of the people in your community, so don’t delude yourself into thinking you are. Social media activism is a minuscule echo chamber – instead, let your praxis show how you care about the marginalised.

Give us the space to articulate our thoughts. Let us decide how administrative decisions affect us. Let us decide whether this “academic rigour” is too much for us. In short, let us exist. Not as talking points, not as agendas, but as real, living people with agency.

The most defining event in my student life, before I entered college, was the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula. I was compelled to think about my caste/class privilege and read Ambedkar – which left me aghast by the level of apathy and downright hostility I saw everywhere, in my family and friend circles. Cut to college and I found a safe haven, where despite its many significant shortcomings and fair share of problematic viewpoints, people wanted to talk and debate about issues our circles outside usually wouldn’t even venture into. Yes, the student body comes from all walks of life and has diverse perspectives that they were brought up with, but there are also people who proudly profess their identity and causes, and constructively engage with our not-so ‘there yet’ peers.

However, over my years here, I have become wary. The point of our liberal arts education, constant peer engagement and the painstaking efforts of some of our professors is to open our eyes to the broad contours of oppressions and discriminations that surround us. We are aware of what we are supposed to say and how to behave in our social circles. We know that womxn and minorities face hurdles that most of us cannot even imagine. We are constantly talking about discourse and changing the status quo. But is it just a smokescreen? While well intentioned and coming from a place of unlearning years of unchecked privilege, why do the privileged still hold the mic?

Now the distinction that I draw, and personally believe in, is that of being able to speak about issues and the praxis which one indulges in. So yes, I think it is okay for a cis-male to speak about womxn’s issues or a financially well off person to talk about gig economy workers. Only a particular community can fully comprehend the depth of their lived experiences, but there cannot be a bar on anyone else who wishes to engage with any social issue. However, the line that I wish we would draw is of not co-opting  a communities’ narratives and exclusively holding the mic, but making that tough journey of true empathy in our own personal/professional circles.

When we come from homes/schools/communities where we didn’t know or understand the existence of the many injustices around us, a place and ‘woke’ social circles which constantly talk about topics of discrimination is amazing. We constantly learn to question it and our inherent biases, but talk is all we do. I am wary of fellow savarna feminists obsessively talking about what they perceive as oppressions being faced by Muslim and Dalit women, without having a spent a day in the latters’ shoes and this much-needed critique captures my sentiments the best. We post that ‘feministflowercrown’ story or tweet about our Bania-Brahmin government being oblivious to the real issues, but where does this activism go when it comes to our personal lives? After all, the personal is political.

Questioning the content this magazine puts out, made it introspect and actively seek different voices to publish on its platform. It still takes an incredible amount of courage to write what Abhishek and Manisha recently wrote or to chronicle the sexual harassment womxn continue to face in elite spaces like this college, because these are and will still be issues till an overwhelming political and social will to actually make that change comes. But what else have we done? We shared those stories on our social media accounts where our friends, coming from almost similar backgrounds, commented ‘aah yes, caste is real’. We tell ourselves the lie that ‘discourse’, ‘spreading awareness’ and sharing different point of views is the major extent of our contribution because ‘so many people just don’t know yet and something is better than nothing’.

Anecdotally, but I suspect also statistically, (considering the break-up of our student population, based on this still insightful survey), a lot of people who ‘speak up’ are people belonging to the dominant castes/classes. Our committees and various representative bodies are filled with the more privileged and so it is natural that they are put in positions to speak up more often. However, while it is widely accepted now to acknowledge the questions of caste/class/gender/sexuality when we discuss any policy affecting the student body, why is the question of representation only a check box to be ticked and making sure voices are heard the end of our responsibility? We never pause to internalise why our friend circle has nearly the same upbringing/world view like us – they just happen to be from a different tier-I/II city. Or why our committees value the same set of social skills and always have a younger version of some ‘super-studly’ senior. Our classrooms, practice debates and social media are filled with heavy academic discussions but our praxis extends to attending/organising a few talks, tweeting/reposting about oppression or any non-committal gesture which helps us feel better about ourselves for being a #ally.

I am guilty of this – my social circle and every space I have occupied in college is filled with people similar to me. I have spoken about diversity like it is not real life but another cutesy high school Netflix movie. We live in an astounding cognitive dissonance where we constantly talk about woke things and ‘cancel’ people who do not fit the right-talking-points mould. We will share the latest article on accessibility or attend a webinar on the hardships of migrant workers, but our friend circles will comprise people like us (a choice we perhaps make subconsciously) or unthinkingly end up mentoring juniors who come from similar privileges. We will support affirmative action in educational and work spaces, but fill our committees and our moot and debate teams with different hues of similarly-placed people. We will pat ourselves on the back for asking tough questions, but still be the gatekeepers. We will speak and speak and speak, but not pass the mic.

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If you wish to know more about allyship and appropriation here is a recommended read by the author – Between Savior and Seller: Critiquing Preface Politics https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7312:preface-politics-does-annihilation-of-caste-need-an-introduction&catid=119:feature&Itemid=132