The Death of An Ashokan Ethos

Nishant Kauntia, Ashoka Scholars Programme ‘19

Banjaara 2017, the experienced members of the Ashokan community will remember, was a festival of puking, abuse, manhandling and alcohol poisoning. If we are to accept Slavoj Zizek’s rough definition of an event as “the effect that seems to exceed its causes,” then Banjaara 2017 was undoubtedly an event — The event which marked the moment of realization for the Ashokan body that it had stepped into excess. A festival of celebration had overstepped its purpose and in the process, violated the Ashokan ideology.

The then Dean of Academic Affairs, Professor Jonathan Gil Harris, held town halls in the MPH for all students immediately after. Entering the MPH, the first thing you would notice was a slide with the title ‘What does it mean to be an Ashokan?’. In that townhall, Professor Harris, representing the administrative body of Ashoka, made clear to us that there was a very specific value system that was expected out of Ashokans, and the collective inclinations that Banjaara revealed were in direct violation of that system — Ashokans are not just ‘college students’, and an excessive party culture will not be the central charm of the university.

And yet, matters slowly slipped away from the desperate grip of Professor Harris’ hands. It was never a feasible project in the first place. The numbers, and as a consequence, diversity, would never allow for a homogenizing Ashokan ethos built in opposition to the dominant college cultures of drugs, alcohol and sex. It is now no longer too soon to declare that the battle is over. Sonu won and Ashoka lost.

But theek hai, they’re college students. That’s not a demographic anyone can magically revolutionize into staying away from substance. That is not, and was never, the central resistance inherent in the Ashokan ethos. What was resisted, however, was the centralization of sensuous pleasure as the focus of college life. Ashoka dared to dream of a college culture driven primarily by intellectual stimulation, with all other kinds present on the sidelines. The classroom was to be the temple, the ideological epicenter, not the theka, or SSP, or the smoking room.

And this war for centrality, for the kursi of Ashokan culture, has been won unfortunately by emptiness. We still debate, still argue in classrooms, still write academic papers, but we no longer let ideas encapsulate our bubble universe. We no longer let ourselves be swayed in empathizing with unconventional opinions, no longer unlearn our assumptions till we don’t have beliefs anymore — only to then build them back up with rigor and conviction. Doubt is no longer the defining state of the Ashokan mind. There is no longer a defining state of the Ashokan mind.

That is not to say that there are no longer people amidst us who embody the ethos of intellectual life. There are those, and they are plenty. But they are that of their own accord. They are that because that is what they had wanted out of their college experience, not because they felt the dominance of that ethos at Ashoka. There is now an eerie silence in response to “What does it mean to be an Ashokan?” because it no longer means anything. We can consider it a gift, perhaps, that the postmodernists have bestowed upon us.

Have I romanticized the past too much? Have I raised a false alarm? Forgive me for not apologizing, but in the timeline of an Ashokan life, I am now a grandfather, and I must play my part correctly. So I will take the liberty to remind you about voh din.

Un dinon me, it was routine for me to walk down Ashokan halls, sit at the Dhaba, and overhear the words ‘social construct’, ‘causal determinism’, ‘capitalist ideology’, ‘the Fermi Paradox’, and a whole lot of academic jargon. And not in a flippant way, not as a mockery of the jargon itself, but from an urgent confusion about the structure of the world, and the burning desire to resolve it. There was no doubt that the purpose of this place was to be doubtful, to question, to engage, to understand. I was immersed deeply in the conviction in that goal, and I hate to feel its absence amidst Ashokan walls.

But where is the absence? What loss do I speak of? In which halls do I hear the silence of the defining values of Ashoka? I can point my finger only at the sentiment in the mysterious functioning of my own mind, a sentiment surfaced after the unconscious culmination of recent encounters and experiences. But I will attempt to be my own therapist, and try to outline the sources of this elderly musing.

I guess that it may just be the presence of perfectly normalized inquiries about the grading habits and attendance policies of professors, and the absence of a reminder in response to that such inquiries miss the point, that at Ashoka, this is not how we do things. Grades and attendance are not the teleology of this whole endeavor. The Ashokan experience is about an endless curiosity, a drive to learn, a love for wisdom. In one word very close to my own heart, the Ashokan experience is about Philosophia.

Or it may be that where there was once hesitation and doubt in the Ashokan voice, there is now only conviction. And the immense value of conviction when bringing about change must not be overlooked. But I have loved an Ashoka which was doubtful, and not lazily so, but because of having engaged with contradictory ideas deeply enough to be pulled with equal force by both ends. And now, amidst all the vitriol in our conversations on social media or otherwise, there is a tragic absence of doubt.

I re-emphasize, in the anxiety that the point may not be lost, that there are still those who are doubtful, and driven by intellectual curiosity. But that is no longer the archetype of the ideal Ashokan. We are now just individuals who attune our experience of Ashoka to our own preferences. Ashoka has loosened its grip over the Ashokan and cursed it with the freedom to be whoever it wants to be. And in remembrance of the privilege I had to be moulded by an Ashokan ethos, I cannot help but call the freedom of its absence a curse.

At last, we are at the end of this pretentious rant, so let me diffuse some of it with a couple lines dedicated to humility. Maybe things are not as I say. Maybe the Ashokan ethos is still alive and kicking in the invigorated minds of our freshers. If that is the case, I will be the happiest about it. But if not, then let this serve as a nostalgic note about a romantic past, and maybe even an invocation to bring about its return.

Nishant Kauntia is the Editor-in-Chief of The Edict.