The Othering of Learning

Once a magical place for learning, universities have become a space of conflict, of tension, a space to be derided and ridiculed

- Pankaj Butalia

THE university is a unique place. It seeks a safe haven from everyday life so that the scholar can focus on things undisturbed by the rigmarole of daily life. It lives on a campus designed exclusively for it—where the outsider is excluded, thus introducing a state of perpetual tension with its neighbour—the rest of the population.

It raises fundamental existential questions, does not concede to the rhythms of daily life, which others have got used to. It bursts into protest and then recedes, only to regroup its resources to launch yet another challenge to its alter ego. It appears at once to be a site of questioning and ferment. The society ‘outside’ and often, even the disenfranchised within the university, have an uneasy relationship with it. It is both revered and reviled.

A significant part of the world’s population has received a college education. For many it was also the most memorable time of their lives. People associate the university with freedom—with a liberation of the mind and the spirit—with learning, with ideas, and with knowledge. We also acknowledge that the mind needs space to grow, that it needs to fight boundaries, and that it needs to be fearless in this endeavour.

These are truisms we shouldn’t have to ‘rediscover’ every few decades. But it does seem to happen. Every now and then, we lose sight of how magical this learning process is, and become cynical about what we once valued so much. The university, once again, becomes a space of conflict, of tension, a space to be derided, ridiculed, ironically for living in the same ivory tower that we valued it for. Perhaps this is the very paradox that generates the ambivalence towards it.