I become pensive when I try to link education and politics at this time when the line separating them is getting fuzzier. In order to write about the relationship between education and politics, I have chosen the central space of Tribhuvan University (TU) in Kirtipur for the following reasons. First, it is the centre of the pioneering and largest university in the land. Second, it is my alma mater. Third, I think the example of TU is applicable to explain the modus operandi of other Nepali universities and their space management. Kirtipur as a university space is shrinking everyday as it is being slowly taken over by different agencies and institutions.

It is said that if the rate of encroachment continues in this manner, the university will run out of space even to continue the existing academic programmes. This is an alarming calculation. This ongoing interface of space and education at the Kirtipur campus of Tribhuvan University has become a public board on which to see the graphs of the changes happening in modes of urbanisation, patterns of buildings, methods of encroachments and chaos in architectonic structuration that includes the most important university establishment of the land. In other words, Kirtipur university space has become a mirror of urbanisation, land holding, recklessness and lack of direction.

Never retire

Some personal narratives are in order. I realise that I have been going to teach and work with the postgraduates at the Central Department of English at regular intervals for half a century. A senior karmachari had said when handing me my letter of retirement, "Remember, teachers and farmers never retire." I realised the power of his aphorism when I found myself teaching postgraduate classes and supervising students' research works in the programmes run by my erstwhile students, and now teachers of the department, once a week or so.

This has given me a sense of engagement in this most serious work which I would like to call productive pedagogy. It has also given me a chance to see the foundational spirit of the TU academic practice at work. But what saddens me is that neither the institute nor the concerned departments publish any regular academic journals. And whatever people outside academia may say, the fundamental spirit of teaching and studies still works as the guiding principle in the departments that are functioning.

There are problems, however. The corrosive effect of politicisation and the low priority given to coherent serious studies and publication of research articles are some of them. Even then, some dedicated academics are working hard to keep up the tradition of scholarship. As far as I understand, the problems at Kirtipur are not entirely different from those experienced by the departments of the humanities and social sciences faculty at universities elsewhere in the world. Some departments are nearing a state of closure. Some departments are not getting enough students. TU's plight is also shaped by the general socio-political climate of the country. Broadly, I am talking about the general indifference to education, and the rise of a fractious selfish culture in the sphere of academia.

It is common knowledge that universities produce political leaders, elites and people to fill up important positions in society. It may be appropriate to cite the conclusion of a survey made by Emma Irving about what she calls “the diversity crisis of Oxford University”. She writes, "Graduates from the university—and from Cambridge, its rival—fill the highest echelons of the law, media and politics in Britain and around the world. Of Britain’s 57 prime ministers, 30 graduated from Oxford." (The Economist, March 1, 2023.) The same cannot be said about TU in terms of producing prime ministers. But its graduates have been filling the high 'echelons of the law and politics' and ministerial positions. Class is not a distinctive mark of education here as the applicants can easily come from any background.

Favourite target

TU has always remained a favourite target for students because this is where they can easily get admission and inexpensive education. Such unhindered access naturally creates communities and forums that easily turn into political platforms. Political leaders are interested in making use of such forums. The gift of institutional education is the interval between life's regular work and the period of acquiring knowledge. That is a precious juncture in educational practice. Nepali tertiary educationists and students have failed to honour and use that interval. What I find disheartening is that political parties have failed to honour that interval. Instead, they have turned the interval into forums where they unscrupulously build their party organisations.

Talking about the geography of the Kirtipur campus of Tribhuvan University, I would like to allude to a famous essay written by British philosopher Bertrand Russell about the importance of university as a place, which is needed to create a culture of learning. The sanctity of such places should not be violated. The space represents a covenant of minds to work for a common educational culture. Good universities of the world are known to have created such spaces. We have failed to understand that in the case of Kirtipur, and have constantly engaged in violating its sanctity, even grabbing its land, which is slowly telling on our educational culture.