Delhi School of Economics (DSE) was established in 1949 in the model of London School of Economics, and over the years, the college has produced India’s finest sociologists and economists in the country and contributed to the critical studies of Indian society and economy.
After the introduction of NEP 2020, there has been both academic and media reports of saffronisation of education and the University of Delhi being its laboratory. In this article, the focus will be given to the Delhi School of Economics and its recent policies towards right wing politics.
Last October, the Department of Sociology’s Friday colloquium—which was not cancelled even during the Emergency under Indira Gandhi—was cancelled by the administration without giving any sufficient reasons.
Following this, during the May semester examinations this year, students across Delhi University had to write their end-semester exams on Eid. Although some departments, including the Faculty of Law, approached the court over the issue, students in the remaining departments, including DSE, had to sit for their exams on the day of the festival.
Adding to the list is the recent administrative action which led to the cancellation of DSE’s decades-old canteen contract.
DSE canteen was famous for its mutton dosa and mutton cutlet for decades and also for selling it at relatively cheaper prices. During the start of this academic year in July, the canteen contract was revoked, despite the owners having made significant efforts in renewing the canteen. But the DSE administration was not satisfied with that renovation. For around three months, the canteen facility was shut until the new contractor restarted the service.
On 24 October, the new canteen became operational under the ‘Dilli da Adda’ cafe chain which has multiple outlets across Delhi. On the day of inauguration, there was free food for guests and students who were vegetarian. Following the inauguration, the canteen has been opening regularly since 1 November with only a vegetarian menu.
When students questioned the canteen authorities on the menu, the response they got was that “it will take a few weeks till the end of 2026 to even make the full vegetarian menu available, so we can’t give an exact timeframe for when we will launch the non-vegetarian dishes in the canteen.” This makes the entire DSE campus a vegetarian space as the JP tea stall was already vegetarian and now the new canteen has also become a ‘non-veg free zone’.
Apart from the menu changes, the prices of the items including tea, coffee and rice have been hiked—making the once affordable canteen become a cafe like any other in nearby areas. A tea priced at Rs 20 or a coffee for Rs 25 remains a luxury for majority of students who are largely depend on the pocket money they receive every month from their parents, especially for those who have come to Delhi from other states and have moved here to pursue their education.
Here I am not trying to make an argument that, the administration made a deliberate or conscious decision to make the campus a vegetarian space, but while making decisions, the authorities have to be more careful to represent the campus diversity, especially when it’s a central university campus, where students from different regions, caste, class, religion and cultural backgrounds come to study together.
Adham Rafeek is a student of Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. Views are personal.
Also Read: Ayudha Pooja & Vijayadashami—Ancient wisdom for a confused generation