You don`t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala
For once, last week, leader writers took a uniform view on something: this was the brutal death by beating of a professor at Ujjain University. But nuances are always important and I was particularly interested in seeing how the Pioneer would treat the subject: would it, like the ABVP, say that the Congress-controlled NSUI was equally to blame or would it take it squarely on the chin?
Surprisingly, it took it squarely on the chin. It was critical of the way the MP government had handled the initial response to the killing - allowed the killers to get away - and said "mounting public anger forced Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister to transfer investigation of the case to the Criminal Investigation Department."
The Hindu was indignant and full of adjectives. To fill space - it really should have shorter edits - it recounted the facts and then asked the usual set of questions. Then, in direct contrast to the Pioneer it criticized the decision to hand over the case to the CID. "To compound the outrage in the academic community, the Government has since passed on the case to the State CID — the all-too-familiar escape route regimes on the defensive take." It did niot, however, say anything about the violence in universities in W Bengal and Kerala, or even Tamil Nadu.
The Indian Express went off at a tangent about the quality of Indian universities. "The Lyngdoh report on student politics has received considerable attention. All this sounds most sensible — and misses an unpleasant truth. India is awash with second-rate universities that offer second-rate education that in turn attracts academically challenged students. This is not to say good universities/bright students and politics don`t mix. But what`s been happening in many of India`s second-rate universities is that these so-called institutions of higher education are ideal training grounds for lumpen politics…"
The Hindustan Times took only perfunctory notice, writing a token edit which had only one interesting point - provide security to polling personnel in university elections.
But it and the Pioneer did refer to the way the Supreme Court had ensured that elections were cleaned up in Delhi University. The Pioneer said "this is an opportune time to bring student politics under permanent scrutiny of the committee designated by the Supreme Court, following whose intervention the Delhi University Students Union election this year has been shorn of the vulgar display of money and muscle power."
The Deccan Herald did not comment.