At IIT Delhi, cultural fests and competitions is a matter of concern for all the students. While the whole world and the Brain Drain activists may question about the patriotism which every IITian keeps in heart for his motherland , but those who have been in the student life at IIT , are in least oblivion to the patriotism that every student has here for his hostel at IIT . Often, the students arrive in number to the dance and music competitions to cheer up for their hostel, and as expected from the most competitive people on the planet, there is cheering down activity for other hostels as well.
Winning is everything. If hook does not work , then let the crook work. The conspiracy theory about NASA's 1969 moon travel , included american government ordering NASA that "if you can not make it, then fake it". Seems like India's brightest minds, caught it well. When the experts in newton's laws of motion start competing in entertaining others, mistakes are bound to happen. And of course, this competition is a necessity rather than a luxury that motivational books for IIT preach to the middle class of this country. From the past many years the recruiters had focussed on the EQ of the students, which basically means the participation in the dances and dramas. And these competitions prepare best for the roadies show that people are prepared to participate in..
It was Music Manoranjan, a cultural competition organised by the Music club at IIT delhi, and the Aravali hostel was on the stage ready to present their show. And as it appeared in next few minutes , India's brightest minds chose the Draupadi cheer haran to be staged and get entertained with. The performance included a male student dressed up in a sari with its pallu ready to be pulled by another male student. Contrast was that this draupadi had grin in her whole script. And as the script unfolded , the draupadi's pallu was pulled, and to add to entertainment, draupadi smiled, and laughed, enjoying her strip out. And as the stage which once witnessed the Nehru's speech for the technological vision he had for the nation and how IIT will help that out, it now witnessed the laughs of the audiences, laugh of the draupdi herself. But the stage had a saviour.
While the draupadi's cheer haran was in progress , one of my friends in the modern-minded audience rushed towards the stage. As a staunch religious hindu from lucknow ,he jumped on the stage, slapped the draupadi, Krishna , and the one with pallu in his hand. It was difficult to guess that it was not a part of the show. For one reason that IITians can do anything for winning .People thought if it may had a message to be unfolded. It took a while for the audiences to understand that this is not the part of the show. But it took a bigger while for draupadi to react to do something different than what her script programmed her for. While my friend was busy in slapping down others, the citizens of the Aravali hostel behind the stage realised that he was from Nilgiri Hostel , and here arrives the hostel patriotism. The citizens of Aravali jumped into the stage and avenge the spoil of the show.
2 days later, My friend was taken in front of dean, to get the verdict of the mistakes he had done. The dean found him guilty of spoiling the entertainment that draupadi cheer haran had to offer, and issued him a warning. This was a victory of modern ideas over fanatism. A victory of tolerance over revolution.
But what Dean did had very less to debate with anyone at IIT. The punishment system at IIT, is solely on discretion of the professors in the great institute. Hardly anyone is in oblivion to the "Disco" at IIT. The disco is acronym for the "disciplinary committee" at IIT. Members of the disco include non nobel laurates (as almost all professors are) at IIT, willing to award punishment to someone who is accused of a crime or deemed to be a crime. The disciplinary committee is a "high level punishment" awarding agency , known to have given nightmares to the rule breakers and people accused of breach of discipline at IIT.
The disco meeting is similar to Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) of India. It is not like a criminal code, where you are innocent until proven guilty. It is like, you are guilty until proven innocent. The innocence may be justified by someone in the committee itself. Often the member students try to speak some words in favour of their classmates, the choice of words often is subjected to whatever does not put their own degree at stake. The student-criminals often try to negotiate in the committee in attempts of minimizing the punishments and divert the academic punishments to some social ones.
Often there have been questions on the choice of punishments. Some of those choices, like Hostel Expulsion have a reason back in 2007, when the Human Resource Development Minister of India increased the seats at IITs to counter the criticisms on the reservation policy he was going to introduce. The increased number of seats have affected the living conditions of hostels at IIT, that many in India would not be aware of. Hostel Expulsions as punishments often attract the Disciplinary Committee, for it not only serves as the most lenient possible negative incentive, but also serves to relax the continuous burden that IIT hostels are facing. Since major revenue generation is happening through the government funds rather than student collection, and student actually pays less than the lodging, messing and internet services that IIT pays for him, hence , there is little that is cared about the loss in the IIT treasury through hostel expulsion, it actually relaxes that.
Often there have been negotiations in the punishments, where students have demanded the social service or NSS hours as substitutes to the punishments awarded to them. In one such incident, student was replied with the possibility if he could sweap the premises of the Bharti Building at IIT during the day hours. Where as Social service as a mode of punishment has reached so many research papers in the legal research, but the absence of department of law at IIT, has made the people in the administration into oblivion to the world of rationality. This oblivion has often put the student-teacher into ego clash, which often reaches to prey-predator relationship, where prey's degree is at predator discretion.
Similar such disrespects to the student community has been evident in the disco meetings. Since disco consumes a lot of time of the professors of the great institute, it obligates the verdict to necessarily have some punishment for the offenders, thereby justifying the time wastage . In one of the cases in the third week of November, 2010, regarding the proxy hacking by the students of the nilgiri hostel at IIT Delhi , it was straightforwardly informed by a member of jury, that disco rarely comes out without any punishment to the students, in order to legitimize the time wastage of honorable members of disciplinary committee, and it later turned out, three students were punished with "only" hostel expulsion, keeping in mind the recent suicide at IIT Kanpur, while at the same time , giving hostels more space for better accommodating the students left.
Much of the student punishments are provocative to extreme steps , because the embarrassments that punishments bring to "once upon a time school toppers", but also massive publicity that IIT administration does, to each and every offender. Minutes after the verdict is announced by the jury the final verdict reaches all the students in the institute in their email inboxes. No stone is left unturned for penetrating the embarrassments for the offenders and victims of the disco committee, into the IIT community through Notice Boards at all the hostels and the whole academic area.
To be continued ...
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