Dyal Singh College prefixes ‘Vande Mataram’ to its evening college; Controversy erupts

NEW DELHI, MAY 4: Under severe criticism for pre-fixing ‘Vande Mataram’ to its evening college, the Dyal Singh College management has indicated the continuation of the new name even as the approval for the same remain pending with the Delhi University.

Dyal Singh College Governing Body has justified the renaming of its evening college by saying that only a prefix of ‘Vande Mataram’ has been added to the erstwhile evening college’s name and there is nothing wrong in doing the same. The University of Delhi (DU), however, is yet to approve the renaming of college as per the University rules.

Earlier, Union Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar had assured that the Government would not allow the college to be renamed as Vande Mataram Dyal Singh College and he also had assured action against the management for doing so without the consent of the University authorities concerned.

Amitabh Sinha, Governing Council Chairman has said that the management had done nothing wrong as the name still retained the legacy of Philanthropist Dyal Singh. Sinha also questioned why would anybody have a problem with the prefix ‘Vande Mataram’.

The row erupted over a banner with the name ‘Vande Mataram Dyal Singh college’ on the annual prize distribution function of the ‘evening college’ held on April 25. Many of the teaching and non-teaching staff of the college termed it as a move to insult Dyal Singh Majithia, after whose name college has been named.

Though the Governing Council and its Chairman say that they are only renaming the evening college and everything else would remain same, the teachers of the college are claiming that it is being done to bifurcate the resources of the college leading to starting a new morning college within the same campus.

As per P.K. Parihar, President, DSC Teachers Association, “Dyal Singh College faces the imminent prospect of bifurcation as the evening college which exists on the same campus is sought to be converted into a morning college which will be functional simultaneously on the same campus with similar timings. Instead of the existing arrangement of optimum use of the existing infrastructure by having a morning and evening shift, this imposition will wreak havoc in the name of day-to-day sharing of already scarce resources at the same time.”

A large section of students along with the staff members of the college are against any such move as they are of the view that any renaming exercise would completely destroy the teaching-learning environment in the college.

Many teachers alleged that the College Governing Body(GB)  and its Chairman Amitabh Sinha have taken an easy route to legitimize this illegal bifurcation by renaming the Evening College as Vande Mataram College. By this blatant act, they have not only denigrated the glorious educational legacy of Sardar Dyal Singh, the founder of the College but also willfully violated the terms of the transfer deed which insist upon status-quo on the name of the institution, they said.

After the DSCTA had brought the issue into the public domain, the HRD Minister Prakash Javedekar gave an assurance in the Indian Parliament that the name of the college will not be changed.

“The mindless act of carving two morning colleges out of the existing land is not at all academically or administratively sound and the whole spectacle of using 'Vande Mataram' to cover up this questionable deed exposes the deep malice and fault lines at the core of the system that allowed this move in the first place,” alleged another teacher.