The Hindu : Exams won't deter QMC protest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 27, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Exams won't deter QMC protest

By Feroze Ahmed

CHENNAI MARCH 26. Students and staff of the Queen Mary's College here are determined not to allow demolition of their college to make way for the proposed new Secretariat. They are gathering daily after their examinations to plan protests and demonstrations and ensure that the Government backtracks before annual holidays start.

If they do not protest now, they fear, they will have to come back to rubble. "Where can we go if they demolish the college during our holidays? That is why we are going to hold the demonstrations now despite the examinations," says the student president of the evening college, R.Mohana Priya.

"We are going to protest continuously," adds K.A.Venmathi, a final year M.A.Economics student and South Chennai secretary, Students Federation of India.

The students and staff are so much on hair-trigger in response to the proposed government move that about 2,000 of them gathered spontaneously on Monday to stage a demonstration. The teaching staff point out that the college offers some exclusive courses and it would not be possible to distribute them to other colleges, if it is pulled down.

"The QMC offers some rare courses such as Physical Education for women, three Home Science degrees, including Clinical Nutrition, Tourism and Travel Management degree, Music, and Functional English, besides courses in Telugu, Urdu, Sanskrit, French and Hindi," says M.R. Safra Begum, a Reader in the Tamil Department and joint secretary of the Tamil Nadu Government Collegiate Teachers' Association. The college has 21 departments offering about 25 degrees.

Dr. Safra also draws attention to the rich research facilities, adding she had left Madurai to join the QMC, attracted chiefly by its "scope for research".

Some teachers were in a heated discussion against the proposed demolition, asking whether any other college would allow such a move. "The QMC, started in 1914 as the first women's college in India, is heading towards its centenary. Do you know how difficult it is to grow and nurture a college for so long? And the Government wants to take it away in one stroke!" says an agitated K. Rajeswari, a lecturer in the History department.

Other teachers point out to the social consciousness of the college. Inside the QMC is a primary school for poor children, says B. Padmini, senior lecturer, Tamil Department. The college, they say, has a two per cent quota for disabled people, and admits a large number of blind students.

The students and staff have, for sometime now, been hearing rumours of the demolition and moves to "liquidate" the college. The greatest fear is that the `brand' of the QMC will be lost forever. That brand has not gained a reputation for nothing.

According to the teachers, some prominent women to emerge from QMC are the former Captain of the INA and the presidential candidate, Captain Lakshmi Sehgal, the vocalist Vani Jayaram, the chairperson of the State Women's Commission, V. Vasanthi Devi, the IAS official, Shanta Sheela Nair, and, ironically, Jayanthi, chairperson, CMDA - the agency entrusted with the new Secretariat project.

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