In its celebrated, brainy heyday, Allahabad University was known as the Oxford of India. A campus built for 5,000 students now has 60,000. The academic calendar has lost its logic, with so many postponed sessions that years can go by without required courses being offered. The law school is currently selecting its first new class since 1994. Buildings are decrepit.
Laboratories are of little aid to science.
Allahabad's decline, while an extreme case, is sadly symptomatic of a university system overstuffed with students and undernourished with resources. Higher education was once the pride of a new nation that declared learning to be its route to greatness. But while the words were inspiring, they have gone unfortified by willpower and money. In the past, the university system's problems were usually relegated to the dry reports of obscure committees, but now one horrific incident has drawn India's attention. Last month, a young man at Rajasthan University fatally immolated himself during a student protest.