The COVID-19 pandemic and the ill-planned and hastily executed nationwide lockdown that ensued as a combative policy, have exposed the grave fault-lines intrinsic to the Indian higher education system like never before. With colleges and universities being shut down and the scope of physical interaction between students and teachers being cancelled out completely, a set of online resources including social networking platforms and video-conferencing apps became the only interface for dissemination of formal education. This complete and sudden shift to an online mode has been the source of a plethora of problems for the students, who are major stakeholders in this system. It is vital to address and highlight these problems from the students’ perspective as their viewpoints and opinions have been deftly ignored by the UGC-appointed committees and the various university administrations while taking important decisions about examinations, academic calendars, and admissions. I will attempt to focus on the apparently non-academic problems faced by students, which have been unique to this particular pandemic situation but have their roots in the inadequacies of the Indian higher education system in general. These problems have largely not been taken into account by the decision-making bodies due to their evident (and deliberate) lack of knowledge of ground realities and a lack of empathy towards the affected students.
To focus on the problems in greater detail, it is fitting to divide them into two major categories: those of the students staying in their own households and those of the students staying away from their houses in hostels or rented accommodations. The second category of problems can also be divided into two parts: those of the students currently stranded in their hostels or rented accommodations and those of students who have returned to their home states. The problems of the first major group and the second sub-group of the second broad category are somewhat overlapping, barring certain instances. I will begin with the problems of the first category of students. These individuals, living in their houses, apparently enjoy comforts and privileges and are taken to be in well shape. In spite of having some legitimacy, this statement cannot be considered to represent a complete picture.
Apart from the problems regarding access to online resources and classes, conducive atmosphere in household spaces for studying and completing college and university assignments have been a rare luxury. The imminent threat of contagion, coupled with household constraints coming as a result of the lockdown hindered the learning process quite extensively. Most of the students, especially women (due to the patriarchal nature of families), have had to take up the duty of sharing household responsibilities in a disproportionate manner. Financial crises due to the lack of job security and irregular salaries/wages during the lockdown, especially in the vast informal sector that employs about 80% of the workforce in the economy, has added to the woes of many students whose parents are faced with such uncertainties. There has been a disturbing increase in cases of domestic violence and abuse during the lockdown and such developments are liable to have detrimental effects on a student’s mental health. Students living in abusive households and dysfunctional families have faced unmitigable difficulties while trying to attend online classes and finish online assignments and meet deadlines.
As I go on to the next category of problems, it can be realised that students living in rented accommodation have found themselves more vulnerable to the threats posed by the lockdown. Relatively safer are the students who had been able to return to their homes before its commencement. However, students who have been stuck in their PGs/flats/private student hostels in the lockdown period have found it extremely difficult to come to terms with the changed reality. They have faced problems in procuring important resources, especially food. Many of these students used to depend on external canteens, hotels, college messes for their meals in pre-COVID times. However, with prohibitions on movement, these facilities could no longer be availed and students were left at their landlords’ mercy to be provided with nourishment. Moreover, a considerable number of students coming from weaker socio-economic positions were compelled to live in relatively shabbier accommodations. The sudden lockdown came as a huge blow to such students who have had to spend months trapped in deplorable living conditions. Besides these, eviction threats from landlords for the compelled inability to pay rent on time has been the most potent reason of distress for such students.
A vast majority of students have faced major financial crunches during the lockdown and have been unable to pay their rents, while some have paid partial amounts. Many landlords in different major metropolitan educational centres in India have been accused of threatening the student tenants in order to extract the rents in full amount on an urgent basis. Students have been asked to leave their premises during the lock-down period in spite of the state and central governments ordering against the same. Those not living currently in these properties have been asked to take their belongings away at short notices. To mitigate the problems faced by student tenants, some activists of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) in Delhi have facilitated the establishment of Student Tenants’ Union Delhi (STUD), which is, in all probability, India’s first union which deals with the problems of students who are tenants living in private accommodations.
I quote from STUD’s public statement to focus on their aims and objectives: “The Student Tenants’ Union, Delhi is a united student-led group formed to connect with student tenants across the NCT of Delhi. Our aim is to provide a safe space for students, living in rented accommodations like PGs, flats, or private student hostels, to voice their concerns regarding tenancy. We seek to unionize and collectively fight for our rights and make each other aware of the existing tenancy laws pertaining to students. In the face of rampant discrimination from landlords based on social location, religion, gender, caste, region, besides moral policing, unjust curfew timings, threats of eviction and other related problems, especially in the present situation of crisis, we must come together and strengthen our fight against such injustice!” According to their recent press statement, STUD has helped many student tenants by intervening in disputes with landlords, thereby negotiating an arrangement ensuring non-payment or partial payment of rents. It has filed a police case of harassment against the owner of a reputed PG accommodation in Delhi and has also written to the Chief Ministers and Administrators of all states and UTs demanding them to help students pay their rents. It further plans to file a PIL in the Delhi High Court to pressurize the Delhi Government into subsidizing rents of student tenants and is also contemplating a state-wide rent strike if its demands are not accepted.
Apart from these problems, many students from the north-eastern states of India have faced discrimination based on their ethnicity and physical features. Through different propaganda machineries, anti-Chinese sentiments have been fed into minds of the common people by the ruling dispensation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The students from the North-East have been targets of racial slurs in different metropolitan cities of India. Such discrimination has also crept into rented accommodation spaces where landlords have threatened to evict these students on the ridiculous ground that they might be the potential carriers of the COVID-19 virus. It can easily be said that structural racism has found unique channels of articulating discriminatory attitudes among certain sections of the populace during this pandemic.
Recent incidents of victimization of student activists based on false charges have showcased the brazenly vindictive designs of the ruling dispensation. Student activists like Umar Khalid, Safoora Zargar, Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and others, who had been active participants of the anti-CAA protests have been falsely charged and arrested under the amended UAPA and other draconian legislations during this lockdown. Several other student activists have faced harassment in the name of investigation for meaningless charges of instigating communal riots. Moreover, the central government has been reluctant to ensure a speedy disbursal of different student grants, fellowships and scholarships such as JRF/SRF, Non-NET, Contingency, MANF, RGNF and the single girl child fellowships from UGC, CSIR, MHRD and the Ministry of Social Justice. A large number of students and researchers depend on these aids for sustaining themselves and the non-availability of these grants has added to their problems. These occurrences expose the misplaced priorities and the anti-democratic nature of the central government.
The various problems which are being faced by the students during this nationwide lock-down should invite urgent attention to the deeper problems like privatization of education, attempts at de-politicizing students, and the pre-existing and now exacerbated class divide which has been patently manifested though the digital divide in education. Therefore, we must seek to reconsider certain fundamentally problematic aspects of the Indian higher education system, so as to radically refurbish the same. The goal should be to make education accessible and inclusive for each and every student in India, irrespective of their socio-economic backgrounds. Just as the popular political slogan went, “Not just for the few, but for the many”, Indian higher education system must ensure social mobility of students coming from all sections of the society in the post-COVID era.
Lokayata 