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Gender Constructs In India Team Culture (2020-21) Amy Alexander, Anoushka Dominic, Aryan Kathuria, Prashasti Sarraf, Reva Chhabra, Sahil Kumar and Ujjwal Kumar Our deep dive into India’s gender constructs requires a comprehensive understanding of the significance of the word ‘gender’. Gender, against contemporary belief, is beyond chromosomes, customs, or checkboxes. In itself, gender is a social construct and is a product of societal views, to put it simply, it is what society determines to be your identity through its preconceived notions of femininity, masculinity or anything in between. This is why gender is something that we as a society create and enforce. Often used interchangeably with the word ‘sex’ that points to a more biological definition, gender is not independent of social and cultural context. Gender refers to the personal and social characteristics but not the biological traits that we associate with different sexes. Human behaviour tends to create a system that keeps society structured and functioning by organising society into distinct roles that complement each other. Indeed gender influences how we organize all of society and how we distribute power, ergo our society is largely stratified by gender. PatriArchives: How Yesterday’s Wrongs became Today’s Incorrigible Human civilizations have been experiencing major transformations since the Early Ages. The Homo sapien is often seen as a social animal adapted to live in communities from the very beginning. These societies have defined certain laws and customs meant to be practised by all. Most scholars attribute the long-standing disparities between the two genders to the lack of education and awareness in ancient times, although that does not entirely explain why we continue to exist in an unequal patriarchal society​, which is defined as a male-centric community where men are considered superior and more influential than women; moreover, women are not accorded equal stature as of men​. This system has been known to operate at the core of every sphere of many nations like India since ancient times. It is important to understand the role of power dynamics in forming and maintaining gender constructs which thrive in a patriarchal society that manufactures collectively shared norms about women’s subordinate role in society in order to perpetuate the power imbalance through both positive and negative reinforcements. The prevalence of harmful cultural practices like sex selection, child marriage, dowry-deaths, and honour killings remains high in several developing countries, reflecting the rigidity of perverse beliefs and norms. The continuation of these practices is often times supported by both women and men due to the internalisation of this power imbalance, making violence acceptable for the victim, who may be afraid of challenging shared norms out of the fear of backlash. In modern society, these gender-based differences stand out in the form of discrepancies in the income tax laws​, inequitable dispense of remuneration​, fewer job opportunities for women​ and certain​ binding marital laws​ together with ​unjustified​ ​divorce protocols​. These societal prejudices and stereotypes have such a strong and deep-rooted foundation that they continue to influence mankind by allowing male members to assert their upper hand in family decisions, whereas females are expected to subdue their thoughts and opinions, and affirm with the male decision. The working women of the upper-middle-class society are often denied permission to continue their jobs after marriage. In the rural areas, a girl-child is still considered taboo; girls are denied education and are married away at an early age. Moreover, the dowry system has been able to maintain its prominence even now, both in urban and rural societies. “Boys will be boys”- this is the phrase used to justify the pushing, shoving and aggressive behaviour of certain men. This kind of behaviour is accepted from boys and men because this is the symbol of masculinity. Boys are taught instrumental qualities such as being competitive, physically strong and confident to prepare them for the labour force whereas girls are taught expressive qualities such as empathy and sensitivity which prepare them to care for children in society. Society has specific constructs in their minds which characterise certain attributes with one gender, and then expect men and women to behave according to their respective gender roles. In India, people generally associate masculinity with dominance, strength and aggression, while femininity is often associated with nurturing, emotions and passivity. These roles are encoded within the minds of children straight from birth. We have colour coded gender labels that suggest dressing male infants in blue and female infants in pink. Be it dolls for girls or trucks and car toys for boys, gender labels could be found in every aspect of parenting. Generally, fathers are more engaged with their sons in “gender-appropriate” activities like sports, while girls are encouraged to get involved in household work. Boys are given more independence, fewer restrictions on clothing or curfew. They are often free from performing household tasks like laundry, cleaning or cooking which are supposed to be feminine. Girls on the other hand are taught to be nurturing, considerate and obedient. These characterizations continue later in life. Men tend to outnumber women in professions such as law, military and politics. This is while women tend to outnumber men in care-related occupations such as healthcare, childcare and social work. The question is, “Is this all justified?” Should certain roles be linked to biological sex and power structures? ​ Is it Structural or Conscious? Answer: Yes Gender conflict theory is a social science perspective that holds that stratification is dysfunctional and harmful in society, with inequality perpetuated because it benefits men over women, transgenders, and other gender-non-conforming people. Gender conflict theory argues that gender is best understood as men attempting to maintain power and privilege to the detriment of women. Therefore, men can be seen as the dominant group and women as the subordinate group. While certain gender roles may have been appropriate in a hunter-gatherer society, the only reason these roles persist is that the dominant group naturally works to maintain their power and status. According to conflict theory, social problems are created when dominant groups exploit or oppress subordinate groups. Therefore, their approach is normative in that it prescribes changes to the power structure, advocating a balance of power between genders. When we think about stereotypes that exist in our society we can conclude that most of them have a historic context. For example- Dalits in India were stereotyped as unhygienic on a pretext that they had to do menial jobs. Even if legally our society no longer enforces any work on a particular individual owing to his caste, creed, gender, or ethnicity, these stereotypes are mere generalizations that we are carrying with ourselves. Women face stereotypes on the grounds of being physically weak, people assume that they cannot protect themselves from societal elements that again think that they should stick to a patriarchal framework while choosing how to dress, where to work, and how to talk. Let's first think about why men have evolved to be physically strong. We have all learned in our history lessons that as cavemen females had a lot of offspring they would stay in an impregnated state for most of their lives and therefore men had to go out and hunt this requirement of being physically strong is what has led to evolution like that. ​ Initially, women in society were considered legally subordinate to men. Men were given the right to education and were considered the head of the family. They used to be their sole- earners, raising their families single-handedly. At the same time, ‘inheritance of property and fortune’ used to be the right of the eldest son in the family. On the contrary, women were ill-treated, were denied education, and were deprived of any share in the property; which made them lose their individuality. Their role in society was constrained to taking care of the household and looking after children. Most of the time, they were exploited and subjected to domestic violence, which ultimately led to their subordination in society. ​Child marriage, sati, polygamy, dowry and purdah systems​ were other manifestations of this evident disparity. Girl-child was seen as a liability because of the prevalent dowry system. And hence, as the ages pass, this gender stratification ossifies itself in the skeleton of our society. Gender stratification refers to the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege across genders. Economic and political power structures that reinforce traditional gender roles often cause more dysfunction than function. Like denying girls the right to quality education in India or keeping them from working outside has been one way that our society has kept power in the hands of men in terms of living a better life, seeking different opportunities and being financially independent. ​ Contemporary education in India is a relic of this gender stratification. According to the Census of India in 2011, the disparity in education due to gender inequality in India is easily visible through India's child literacy rates which is 65% for girls and which is far less than the literacy rate of 82% among boys. The reason for it can be comprehended from the fact that a lot of stereotypes and prejudices exist in Indian society against different genders. The benefits of a girl's education are generally seen as going to the family she marries into, thus providing little incentive to people to invest scarce resources, both human and monetary, into the education of their daughters. Also, given the relatively low educational attainment among people, especially in rural areas, the marriageability of an educated girl presents its problems. These factors combine to cement the attitude of inherently opposing education to females. However, if somehow some of them get a chance to attend the school in their foundational years, they often fail to continue their studies to the progressive years as the gender gap widens with progressive levels of education owing to greater barriers in education that girls face due to deeply ingrained social norms and gender stereotypes correlated with biological factors. Although India has witnessed substantial improvements in female literacy and enrollment rate since the 1990s, the quality of education for females remains to be heavily compromised and there is still a long way to go in ensuring that girls have the same access to quality education as boys. Due to the comparatively low literacy rate of females (59.3%) in our society, they have to be financially dependent on their male counterparts and this dependency is again exploited by them. Quite forlornly, gender stratification also manifests itself in the form of gender-based violence. Gender-based violence is a form of discrimination that seriously inhibits women’s ability to enjoy rights and freedom on basis of equality with men. It includes all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse. Gender-based violence finds its roots in the dominant male psychology of a patriarchal society. In the social structure of a country like ours, if one is born male, he is bestowed upon with special rights which women do not have. A male child has fewer restrictions than a female one and that’s where the seeds of superiority are sown into him. That child, when he grows up to be an adult, looks down upon girls and considers them to be mentally and physically inferior. Historically, gender-based violence against women is also prevalent because of the widespread socio-economic dependency on women and fear of banishment. Why it’s not just Zeroes and Ones ​ It is believed that well-functioning families need people to have complementary skill sets and gender gives us a way of pairing off these skills. Society in turn encourages gender conformity by making people feel that they have to fit these moulds if they want to be accepted and desirable. And by also teaching people to reject those who do not conform to these gender norms. Boys and girls are socialised to take on traits that are complementary to help maintain stable productive families. But there are faults in this idea. As not all families today are nuclear units with one man, one woman and a gaggle of children. We need to expand the definition of family to include same-sex couples, single parents, multi-generational families, or childless adults. So, it's less obvious to assume that a man works outside the house and a woman works inside the house. Secondly, the idea of complementary gender rests on there being two distinct and opposite genders. This idea of gender as a binary isn’t universal and it ignores all those whose identities don’t conform to a two-gender system. Any discourse on a topic like gender constructs would be incomplete without a reference to intersectionality and its role in identifying the deeper often hidden layer behind many of these constructs. People experience discrimination differently depending on their overlapping identities. To look at any two parts of one’s identity in isolation would take away the ability to fully understand their experiences in society. A Dalit women’s experience of the world will differ from that of a woman of privilege. In the same way, a trans woman’s experience of the world will differ from that of others. Intersectionality allows us to understand the complexities of an individuals experiences of discrimination and prejudice by taking into account the different social categories an individual falls into. That is to say, intersectionality is a way of understanding the different types of overlapping discrimination that an individual may face depending on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, class or any other characteristic that places them in a minority class. Understanding this intersectionality in the fight against gender inequality means not only fighting gender constructs but identifying other forms of oppression and taking an equal stand against all instances of unequal power dynamics and cerebral opportunities. ​ Featured image credits : Rhea Rose Kappan

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ABOUT US The Planning Forum is a student-led organization. We conduct sessions, workshops and webinars to help students explore careers and opportunities in the field of Public Policy. The Stephanian Forum is an initiative by a few students of The Planning Forum, St. Stephen’s College who aim to create a platform to voice their opinions without a filter. It is an open space where ideas, perspectives and experiences about everything, from a grain of rice to the dire situations we face today, coexist. If you’re wondering who we are and what we do, know this, YOU are us— you define The Stephanian Forum. From the articles you read to the ones you ponder over and finally, those you contribute to this space, all that we are capable of, starts with you. ​ ​ CONTACT US Contact Us The Stephanian Forum is always looking to collaborate with prospective writers and organizations to deliver the best content to our readers. If you have any queries or ideas that you want to discuss with us, send us an email at thestephanianforum@gmail.com or tpf@ststephens.edu each out to us via our social media handles! ​ ​

Drowning in the endless deadlines accompanying academic life, it is often easy to lose sight of how our academic pursuits fit into the ways of the “real world”. When journeying down such a path, a little reminder of how learnings from our courses figure in everyday findings kindles a newfound curiosity.  This short piece aims to bring us to the realisation of how the world around us shapes them while we simultaneously shape it. Each one of us has a bit of the college in us and we too make up the college.  A crucial experience in college life is often making friends and finding the ones who match your “vibe”. Even the current buzzwords that your peers just “get” because everyone’s algorithm is pushing the same few trending reels, are studied as a part of sociology. The concept of ‘ Symbolic Interactionism ’  emphasizes words and the meanings we ascribe to them. These meanings are not inherent to them (yes, “tea” did not always mean the latest gossip exchanged excitedly); they are learned and re-learned through social interactions and receptions by the social group. This means we often build our social worlds with our words.  The ‘ Social Learning Theory ’  points out that we learn from our observing environment, cognition, and peers. This subtly manifests in precisely which snacks of the day to order from the Cafe and which places to sit, when at the Science Dhaba to avoid the menacing monkeys.  The different experiences and perspectives that we bring out in every act of our day, is what makes us uniquely human. The theory of ‘ Social Phenomenology ’ brings this to the forefront.  For example, based on your previous experiences in life and how they have shaped the realities you build for yourself; you will face the different challenges that come with college life in your own way. For some, settling into a life away from home comes naturally, while for others not so much. There is no right or wrong to it, just unique people finding unique pathways to work through. Thus, your experiences will be a valuable addition to our college, which the perspectives of those before you have also shaped. Queuing up in front of classroom doors before the previous class leaves, just to secure the best seats. The society talk that never seems to end, the fervour and heat with which discussions regarding events, activities and volunteering tasks take place are all testament to the immense influence that we as students within this college and outside exert on each other, albeit unknowingly. Fitting in is hard, especially when you are in that phase of your life where you are expected to make the best memories, find your true interests, and make a path for yourself.  ‘ Herd mentality ’ is something else that may emerge when people are in new and unfamiliar situations. It can be traced back to John Keynes, who described it as a response to uncertainty where people may follow the crowd because they think that the rest of the crowd is better informed. However, after Keynes, economists have tended to ignore these socio-psychological influences and have retained rationality assumptions.  It would be a mistake however to gloss over the impact that herding behaviour has on moods, personality, and emotions. Research done on cognitive psychology has shown that humans differ from other species in the development of social norms and mutually shared expectations which inform them about what actions are normal, appropriate or just given any situation. The Asch experiment where subjects were found to have conformed to the erroneous majority view, has shown that the human mind is built to be receptive to social norms and self-censor actions in advance to avoid deviating from the set norms. Overall, it's safe to assume that college life is a blend of both individual and collective experiences that the student body faces as a whole. How we adapt and learn from these experiences plays an important role in our mental and personal development.  Therefore it’s essential to recognize the role we play in each other's life and be mindful about these subtle influences. This will not just transform the way we look at social interactions in general, but also nudge us to be inquisitive about how the learning in classrooms spills over to the life beyond it.

THE PLANNING FORUM ORIENTATION The Planning Forum’s orientation on August 24, 2023, inaugurated a new year of events for the society by acquainting individuals passionate about Public Policy and Policy-making with the core essence of the society. It started with the introduction of the various events that the Forum holds, like the Alumni Talks, Policy Conclave, Policy Arena, SMUN, Chatrashala, and the like, to familiarise them with the society and its events. They were introduced to the Stephanian Forum, a Planning Forum initiative that offers a creative space and platform for individuals who are eager to express their thoughts and find a voice. Finally, the entertaining trivia round at the end heightened the overall enjoyment as the first years answered questions about the college for a chance to win the chocolate sticks. LECTURE SESSION BY SHRUTI LAKHTAKIA In the digital realm, within the virtual auditorium of the internet, an online lecture emerged as a beacon of knowledge and inspiration. The speaker, Shruti Lakhtakia, an economist at the World Bank and a DPhil in Public policy candidate at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford, materialised on screens like a digital sage, ready to embark on a journey of enlightenment. The event aptly themed Academia and Policy: a two-way exchange transported attendees into a fairy tale. As the lecture began, the pixels on the screen danced in harmony with the speaker’s words, casting a spell that transcended the boundaries of physical space. The event commenced with a keynote address of invitee by Yakov George, a member of the Economics Society of St.Stephen’s College. The lecture talk by the speaker emphasised the crucial role of academia in providing evidence-based research to inform policy decisions. She also discussed how academia plays a pivotal role in offering comprehensive research, data and expert opinions to guide effective policy-making. Examples were shared of successful collaborations where academic research influenced policy decisions at local, national and international levels. Collaborations with IDB and IMF were presented. The speaker’s voice, a river of wisdom, flowed with the cadence of a seasoned storyteller, drawing in the virtual audience. With each word, she painted vivid mental landscapes, forging connections across the digital expense. Numerous questions were asked on the diversity of academia and the equitability of crime research in academia. As the lecture reached its zenith, the screen seemed to expand, enveloping the audience in a digital crescendo of inspiration. The knowledge imparted was not confined to the virtual world; it ignited a spark within each participant. The lecture ended with a thank you note by Drishty of the Economics Society who described the lecture as enriching and thought-provoking. And as the lecture concluded, the digital sage bid farewell leaving a trail of luminous insights in their wake. The online lecture, a digital symphony of intellect and imagination, had transformed the screens into gateways to enlightenment, a testament to the boundless power of human curiosity in the digital age THE INAUGURAL LECTURE To raise the bar of excellence of a country even higher the economy contributes a major role and what connects them all strongly is Globalisation. The global economy is innately tied to trade; it allows countries around the world to obtain any resource they may want, whether or not it is produced on the home front. This availability of resources is facilitated through trade. During times of peace, it is beneficial in a global economy, to see other nations succeed. On the other hand, during times of unrest, dependence on outside nations, in a global economy, may seem scary. Due to globalisation and other factors, it is impossible for large industrialised nations to exit the global economy unscathed. Addressing these major issues, the Planning forum at St Stephen's College hosted an interactive session on the 13th of October, 2023 with Mr Auguste Tano kouamé who briefed the audience on the topic "Navigating troubled waters: The Global Economy and India" and gave invaluable insights through his achievements and experiences. He is the World Bank’s Country Director for India and a national of Côte d’Ivoire. He most recently served as the World Bank’s Country Director for the Republic of Türkiye and a Director in the World Bank Group’s Independent Evaluation Group. He also held positions as a Practice Manager in the Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management Practice of the World Bank, first in Latin America and Caribbean countries and then in the Middle East and North Africa regions. Mr Kouame talked about the substantial decrease in growth of economies in the world and drew a clear picture of the global economy and how it was affected by the pandemic but despite the headwind, India sailed its ship rather smoothly and persevered in the run of development and growth. These enriching thoughts and ideas made the audience more cognizant about the contributions they need to put into making India reach heights unimaginable THE TREASURE HUNT On the sunny afternoon of September 21ST, 2023,  Planning Forum Treasure Hunt unfolded on the sprawling SCR lawns. This unique event combined the thrill of a treasure hunt with exploring policy-related themes. Participants eagerly embraced the challenge, demonstrating their enthusiasm for learning and community engagement. Treasure hunts have a timeless appeal, fostering creativity, teamwork, and an innate sense of adventure. The Planning Forum Treasure Hunt sought to channel this spirit, offering participants a day of fun. Through this Treasure Hunt, we aimed to challenge participants with a series of mind-bending puzzles and riddles and to create a memorable and enjoyable experience for all attendees. The college grounds offered a perfect setting for exploration and adventure, with various nooks and crannies waiting to be discovered. The Treasure Hunt saw participation from students across courses. This diversity added a rich layer to the event, fostering interdisciplinary interactions and creating lasting memories for all involved. The Hunt was a resounding success, achieving its objectives and leaving a lasting impact on the college community. Participants bonded over shared challenges, fostering a sense of camaraderie and belonging, which is what matters at the end of the day. CHATRASHALA Held on Sunday, the 3rd of December, Chatrashala proved to be an exceptionally heartwarming occasion. The Planning Forum warmly welcomed children onto the campus to spend a day engaging with and educating them. During self-introductions, we encountered young individuals like Abhinav, expressing the desire to become a chef as they grow older. Abhinav shared tales of crafting chai for grandparents and revealed a steadfast refusal to cook for sisters deemed too mean. This blend of passion in the kitchen and resilience against injustice promises to shape dynamic personalities during their early educational years. Encountering young girls aspiring to become sportspersons underscored the evolving dynamics of youth education, irrespective of gender. The ability of children to dream diversely and ambitiously, unencumbered by limitations, marks a positive shift in youth education. Among the myriad ambitions expressed, from engineers to teachers to doctors, a notable enthusiasm for cricket emerged among many, boys and girls alike. This was attributed to the formation of a cricket team inspiring pride in its multiple victories. Engaging in various games with the children revealed the spirited and energetic nature inherent to kids. Laughter echoed as we participated in activities such as barf aur panni, football, and the hanky game, turning into a nostalgic journey through our own childhood memories. The drawing session, where children and volunteers gathered enthusiastically to depict everything from Doraemon to grape vines and amusing incidents from the event, was a heartwarming reminder of our childhood artistic endeavours. The drawings, each reflecting the unique and vibrant aspects of the children's personalities, contributed to an innocent and heartening atmosphere. As everyone immersed themselves in the art, the session became a showcase of creativity eagerly shared to please.At the end, all children received certificates and chocolates, expressing gratitude for the delightful time they provided and acknowledging their endearing qualities. We remain appreciative of their lively presence, offering a welcome distraction from impending exams and creating one of our most memorable days.

Disclaimer: All views and opinions expressed are those of the author/authors’ and are not indicative of views held by The Stephanian Forum and its team. What if we told you that any student election contested anywhere makes for a very interesting case study in democracy and psephology? But before we go on to talk about how, let’s take a trip down the corridors of history and look at another watershed moment. Imagine yourself standing at the turn of an era. India is independent. You have a nearly blank slate. You are the leader of a newly independent India, and the first general elections are around the corner. You have an important decision to make, a decision that will be significant in so many ways, a decision that will decide the trajectory that this new nation will take, a decision that will put down the values and principles that will shape its future: the simple decision of who should have the right to vote. Today, it may strike you as a pretty straightforward question - why, shouldn’t every adult citizen have the right to vote – Universal Adult Franchise – yada yada! It fits so naturally in our vision of democracy that anything otherwise seems unthinkable, even counterintuitive. But seventy-five years ago, this answer was not as clear as it is today. Although it comprised only a small group, there were people who doubted the merit of granting everyone the right to vote. “A future and more enlightened age will view with astonishment the absurd farce of recording the votes of millions of illiterate people.” These words were said by Penderel Moon on the occasion of India’s first general elections. Moon was an ex-Indian Civil Service official and a scholar from Oxford. Another editor from Madras, C.R. Srinivasan, around the same time, called these elections “the biggest gamble in the history of democracy”. Unsurprisingly, there were resonating voices along the same lines coming from the west too. These concerns were but natural, since only 16% of India’s adult population was literate back then. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since. Today, the literacy rate stands at 68% and 84% in rural and urban areas respectively. A pertinent question at the heart of this debate is this - how much of a difference, and what kind of difference, does education make when it comes to voting patterns?. The question at the heart of this article is an even more radical one - does education even make a difference to voting patterns at all? You may ask: what does this academic debate of political science have to do with an “apolitical” college such as St. Stephen’s? Well, we would say - everything in this world! This is a good time to brood over this thought-provoking question since only last month the college ran its annual Student Union elections. SUS elections or any other student body elections hold important lessons to answer this question. College elections are one space where we find a 100% literacy rate. Everybody who attends college has a high school education or equivalent. Everybody is educated in subjects like civics, history, political science and sociology, not to mention basic literacy and numeracy. Everyone is deemed to be a rational agent, capable of making their own pragmatic choices by virtue of their education. Especially when it comes to a college like Stephen’s, the so-called “chosen ones” are supposedly “the brightest minds” in the country. Therefore, rationally speaking, it would be fair to expect that the quality of student elections in educational institutions should be much, much better than the quality of, say, India’s general elections. Well, first, what does “quality” of elections mean? Let’s try to define that in concrete terms. It seems the idea of quality boils down, broadly, to four factors. 1. Quality of issues on which elections are fought 2. The way campaigning is done 3. The way the electorate votes 4. Voter turnout Mind you, these factors are not exhaustive in any sense, but seek to give a wide picture. An easy example would be the common assumption that an electorate consisting of more illiterate voters will be more likely to get divided on issues of identity: religious, geographical, caste, gender, etc; whereas, a literate electorate should vote regardless of allegiances made on these lines. Representation, of course, is always a yes-yes, but voting simply because somebody comes from your identity group, or vote-bank politics for that matter, is presumably e a tendency of voters who are turning a blind eye to other more important factors, such as the promises and policies the candidates are proposing, their motivations to contest, their political choices, etc. Well, does that ring a bell? Isn’t that what happens year after year in our student elections? Students’ choices stemming from personal biases, allegiances to identity, stereotypes, and falling for lofty promises - it visibly keeps happening. It seems educated voters get as conveniently polarized as uneducated voters. There seems to be unsaid rules of contesting student elections, whether SUS or DUSU. It’s as if the cards are laid, and one has to play one’s best hand with them. What are these cards? One can make some intelligent guesses. Regionalism is one. Caste is another. Ideology is yet another. A lot of times, the candidates do not want to play on the lines of these easy routes, but they (have to) end up doing so because of reasons beyond their control. Oh, that seems too much food for thought to chew, doesn’t it? Let’s get some fresh air and move out of the Rudra gate. The road leads to Vishwavidyalaya Metro Station. It’s the month of August and September. You are stuck in a traffic jam. It seems the jam extends from the inner depths of Kamla Nagar all the way to Vishwavidyala and GTB metro stations. Desperate, uncomfortable, sweaty and stinky, biting your lips in a traffic jam in an e-rickshaw, looking at your watch time and again, you cannot miss the road having been turned white with the pamphlets and cards of DUSU contestants. The sky is hidden behind the banners and hoardings with the same blue or red text on white backgrounds. The blandness of these pamphlets and hoardings is conspicuous - they do not carry anything, anything, but the name of the candidate, bordered by the repeating name of the party they belong to. No slogan, no promises, no agenda - not even a photo - just the name printed in a font as large as possible. Come on, you wonder, at least they could have someone even the least bit Canva-savvy to edit this banner. A little more colour would have done no harm. Yet, one cannot forget these names that leave an indelible imprint in one’s mind for a long time. Even blank text, when presented with loudness, has such an impressionable effect, it seems! You cannot help but compare these sights with any Indian election you must have witnessed - local to state to national. There lie stark differences as well as similarities. While both employ large crowds to display power, use money (read: big budgets) and muscle (read: Fortuners, Audis and Thars), and make hefty promises, there are marked differences in the way the campaigns work - the way messages are put across, agenda are set and, well, placards are designed. These thought-trails leave you disappointed. One expects more from student elections. It’s difficult to define what the “more” is, but it should at least be some rungs higher than the quality of elections we see today. Disappointed, as you return to college where there is a conspicuous lack of such cards and pamphlets, you are left with unsettling questions to deal with. Ooh, back at Stephen’s too, you sense election fever in the air. The stage of the college hall is set for the Open court! The Student Union Society is electing its President! This year, 813 junior members cast their vote in the election for the college President. The voter turnout - at about 60% - was not very different from last year. Interestingly, the voter turnout in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 stood at 67%. In the first elections of 1952, when literacy stood at 18%, the turnout was a whopping 55%. Voter turnout is a good indicator of people’s faith in the election system, interest in democratic practices, and a will to participate. It comes as a surprise that, at least in this case study, literacy has no impact on the voter turnout. If anything, the turnout of literate people is less than that of the turnout of a less educated general population. One can come up with several explanations for educated people ending up not voting: 1. Students, even though educated in science, math and languages, find phenomena like elections complex, and therefore stay at a distance; or 2. Students, even though literate, do not understand the value of public participation in democratic processes; or 3. Students, although literate and valuing participation, still choose not to vote because of a lack of faith in the election system or its outcomes. What we won’t attempt to do here is try to analyse which of these possible explanations hold more or less water. A fun task for you, the reader, could be to discuss among yourselves the possible reasons for the non-relation between education and turnout. Another noticeable pattern is the drop in the number of votes from the first year to third year. While the high vote share by first years is understandable since this is often their first serious voting out of school (before they go on to get their Voter ID cards), the fervour and enthusiasm in general reduces as one enters the second and subsequently the third year. Not to forget - 58 invalid votes! That is a surprisingly high number. We checked with the student volunteers who witnessed vote-counting, and we found that most of the invalid votes were deemed so because of silly errors - putting tick marks instead of preferences, writing preferences in a way that makes it ambiguous, etc. In the past, there have been instances wherein students used the ballot to register their protests in unique ways. Some write stuff, some write other names, and the like. While a NOTA option on the ballot would be one way to officially allow such a space to protest, the twin problems of a) students not showing up on the D-day, and b) students not knowing how to vote, leaves room for thought. We close this discussion where we began it: Do we not expect more from student politics? Shouldn’t educated voters behave differently? A bunch of educated youngsters are expected to do a much better job when it comes to elections of their own bodies. When there is a rise up on the literacy ladder, it seems contradictory to drop low on the ladder of electoral quality. Our observations so far show a picture which is not just inconsistent with this rationale, but rather the opposite. It is important to keep asking whether there are visible differences that mark a distinction between student elections and their real-world counterparts, and whether said paradox exists. When all is said and done, an institution and its systems are only as strong as the values of their practitioners. Democracy, more than an electoral system, is a system of values. Any institution crafted from democratic principles will hold strong as long as the spirit remains intact. That spirit may and may not come from the electorate’s education - which then becomes secondary. The spirit is more important. And that spirit draws from you, reader. What you believe. What you value. And what you uphold.