48 §OCtAt SCIENTIST ents of a university, whether these be colleges, teachers or studedts, or administrative staff".17 It reiterates its stand several times during the course of the Report. "The concept of participation of students", it says, "is to help make university education more significant and meaningful. The contribution of students in determining the shape and pattern of academic life of the university can be very stubstantial ... it is obviously desirable and necessary to promote and strengthen students9 participation in the administrative and academic affairs of the university".18 As the Report proceeds on, this enthusiasm is diluted and participation is subjected to the nature of areas and the modes of representation. Even in the case of teachers, direct election is disallowed on the plea that "what is really important is to ensure the effective participation of all categories of teachers with the process of decision-making'5.19 Rotation is suggested as a method of representation for the unitary universities and indirect election for the affiliating ones, with two teachers, one junior and one senior, from each college serving as the electoral base. Inspite of the Committee's considered opinion on the issue, the promised 'effective participation' of students, except their direct representation on the Court, becomes a mere provision for 'joint consultation'. And the karamcharis, who are also assured participation, probably in an unguarded moment, are not even granted the right to consultation. As for teachers, rotation and indirect election as modes of representation, are highly inadequate, in fact, even deceptive, because in rotation it is the individual who is given representation in his own right, and not because he represents the will and wisdom of his community. But when we talk of representation of various constituents, we talk of their representation as communities, and not as individuals; and if it is a question only of some individuals being on the university authorities, nomination could do as well. Moreover, the division of teachers into junior and senior categories, apart from being injurious to the teaching community, is uncalled for. The academic interests of the university can be served even without dividing them. On the question of participation, therefore, the Committee has the typical attitude of the British who said that they could not give Swaraj to Indians because they were not well up to it. Consequently, while accepting in theory, the validity of participation of its various constituents in the university's affairs, the Committee takes away the content of all such participation through the modes of representation it prescribes. Paradoxically, neither the Academic Council nor the Executive Council has any student representative, despite the Committee's stand on the issue. Instead, the students are given the right to recommendation through anew student body, the Student Council. Its composition is : ten students elected indirectly by an electoral college composed of one representative of each College Council; the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of the Students' Union; the Secretaries of Student Advisory Committees of each faculty; and five students to