Curriculum and its Discontents

This paper emanates from my doctoral research initiated in 2015. It looks at the intersections between ideologies and politics in higher education spaces. It discusses a case study of Delhi University and critically understands the interventions of particularistic ideologies in the process of curriculum design and syllabi formation. Using existing literature and ethnographic snippets from the field, the paper seeks to elaborate upon recent episodes of campus protests and dissent concerning the syllabuses of four subjects to primarily argue that students share an intrinsic relationship with politics and that it is difficult to segregate the two. It also attempts to demonstrate and thereby conclude that arbitrary tendencies to achieve academic hegemony or homogeneity via curriculum design or knowledge formation can lead to the construction of exclusive knowledge which excludes diversities or plural social realities. Such a phenomenon then masks, alters or hinders longstanding quests for democratising university spaces in postcolonial conditions.