A ‘Liberal’ Tale Of Apathy: The YIF-UG Story

By Gaurav Nandan Tripathi (Batch of UG 2020)

The distance between Young India Fellows and the Undergraduate body keeps resurfacing in the Ashokan environment. Examples of this can be found in several recent events including the ‘Banjaara’ mail by an outraged YIF who would not be able to witness the fest as a result of the postponement. Another incident that solidifies this claim is the email by YIF Anagha Basu to the OSL regarding fumigation and mosquitoes on campus. This email was met with criticism from the UG body in the form of agitated replies to the mail thread and memes all over. Events like these beckon us to deeply analyze this divide between the two distinct parts of the Ashoka student body.

Young India Fellowship (YIF) is marketed as the flagship program of Ashoka University and is considered the manifestation of the Ashokan dream of establishing a world-class liberal arts university in India. However, this glorified image of the YIFs shatters when we realize how alienated they are from (and by) the larger undergraduate body. Today the YIF population on the campus is restricted to a separate cult comprising 250 people, and the only time UGs get excited about the existence of YIFs is when they need to crash the YIF dinner party organized once every year. This is reflective of a vast degree of indifference in the dynamics between the UGs and YIFs.

There seem to be two major reasons behind it. The first reason is based on the quantum of the sizes of both the student bodies. The sheer disparity in numbers of the UGs and the YIFs is the biggest reason behind the lack of interactions between them. It is practically impossible to interact with these many people, and keeping in mind that YIFs stay only for one year, there are very little incentives and time to build interpersonal relations.

The YIFs, constituting only a small fraction of the campus population (roughly 250 people out of the total 1500 on campus), are also sidelined in most of the club activities or events on campus. There are clubs like Hindvi (Hindi-Urdu Literary Society of Ashoka) where the YIFs participate in good numbers- but these are rare. Most of the times, it’s only the UGs who head and run and participate in most campus related events. However, there is another angle to this. While the YIFs are excluded from UG activities, UGs are also excluded from YIF activities. In fact, most of the UGs don’t even know the extracurricular activities which the YIFs organise. This mutual exclusion and apathetic behavior of both the student communities has created a wide rift in the student life at Ashoka, and this is something which is going to expand with time. If we analyze the causes behind it, we can see that there are very obvious reasons behind it. The first and foremost reason being the age and education gap which exists between the two student groups. All the YIFs have already completed their undergraduate education, and many of them are at Ashoka after some working experience. So definitely, their life experience is far more than the UGs, which ultimately leads to different interests, life goals and expectations from their time at Ashoka. Eventually, this becomes one of the major factors which leads to the development of a rift between the YIFs and the UGs.  

If we purely look at the demographics of the YIF, we’ll find that most YIFs belong to Universities like the Delhi University, which is culturally quite different from Ashoka. According to a survey conducted on the demographics of the YIF batch, it was found that most of the batch comes from metropolitan and tier-II cities, and around 80% of the fellows are Hindus with the majority of them being Upper class. If we conduct similar surveys in the undergraduate batches, the results won’t be much different. Therefore, clearly, it’s the extra 3-4 years of education and life experience is the main reason behind the existing cultural divide between the UGs and the YIFs.

However, despite the empirical similarities of background class and caste, the cultural divide has led to the creation of perceived notions and stereotypes about each other. The UGs think that the YIFs are loud and obnoxious as they have been seen singing songs boisterously around campus, and are very annoying. A large number of memes have popped up on the Ashoka meme group based on these stereotypes. After having conversations with the YIFs, it was quite clear that they also have many stereotypes embedded in their notions of the UGs. Most of the YIFs come from traditional and prestigious public universities and Engineering colleges of the country, and they see the majority of the UG Ashokans as being rich, privileged and aloof of the reality outside these 25 acres. These manifestations of generalizing stereotypes in the campus culture at Ashoka through memes or our conversations, further exacerbate the existing gap between the YIFs and the UGs.

The second problem lies with the administration. The Office of Students Life (OSL) seems to be totally disconnected from the YIF Program Team. There are hardly any common events or workshops among the UGs and the YIFs, as both of them have their own events separately. This lack of coordination in the YIF team and the OSL is also a major cause behind the existence of apathy in the UG-YIF relationship. If the administration takes cognizance of this problem and organizes events and workshops where the YIFs and UGs interact more and more, this problem of apathy could be mitigated.

Being cognizant of the existing problems and the reasons behind it, we should ask ourselves once again – ‘Who is an Ashokan?’.The general Ashokan perception outside campus speaks only of the undergraduates and does not include the YIF body. However, the status quo needs to change. Being an ‘Ashokan’ should include everyone who is currently residing on this campus, whether they are the YIFs, or the staff members without whom this campus will come to a standstill. It also includes the alums who have left this campus and are the brand ambassadors of Ashoka in the world outside of these 25 acres. When we look at the Ashokan identity in this wide framework, the YIFs are an integral member of this community.

It is also important to note what being an Ashokan entails for both these communities. For the undergrads, it is their alma mater, where they are giving the three or four most important years of their lives. It is the place where they aspire to be molded into their best versions so that they are prepared for the real world. For the YIFs, it’s slightly different as they have already completed their undergraduate education and are here for very different reasons than the UGs. Thus, even these slight differences become a major cause of the rift which exists between both these student communities in Ashoka.  The most important thing which could be done to reduce this gap would be to get the YIFs in the student government. The YIFs have no representation whatsoever in the student politics at Ashoka, and including them in the student government could prove to be a game changer as it will make the student body cognizant of the problems which the YIFs face. Moreover, it will remind the UGs that YIF exists on this campus too, and their voice matters! The YIFs with their experience in academics, careers, and life in general, can be great mentors for the UGs, who are at the cusp of a big transition in their lives which causes a lot of anxiety amongst them. These are the kind of initiatives which are required to build a community, and sadly, the Ashokan community is currently too apathetic to even give it a proper thought. Ashoka as a liberal space offers a wide range of options and opportunities for its students to grow, but as the students of this institution, we need to ensure that the student body remains united, irrespective of the batches and programs which divide us. Ashoka is in its budding period, and it can’t afford its petals to disintegrate in these initial days.