SHOULD WE DISPENSE WITH CONVOCATION DRESSES

CEREMONIAL DRESS AT UNIVERSITY CONVOCATIONS
The recent remark made by Shri Jairam Ramesh, the Indian
Minister for "Enviornment" at the Convocation of the Indian
Institute of Forest Studies about the continuance of
wearing the ceremonial dress at University Convocations
deserves the following comments:

* The Minister should have raised this objection before
attending the Convocation ceremony.
* Throwing the dress away on the stage when the Convocation
is in progress, is not appropriate.
* He ought to have given the suggestion of discontinuance
of the dress, for implementation at future Convocations.
* The Convocation dresses worn by the dignitaries are very
expensive.

I am not sure what the Universities will do
with dresses, after the ceremony is completed. The
Universities/Institutes may be storing them in dusty steel
cupboards and finally disposing them off as old clothes on
some day. I am sure that the dresses will not be reused in
the next year's convocation. Thus, the Universities incur
avoidable recurring expenditure on dresses alone of at
least $10,000 per annum.

* The Institutes/Universities ask the gold medal winning
students to attend the convocation ceremonies wearing the
Special dresses, bearing the costs from their own pockets.
This only rich students can afford.

* I myself received one invitation from Acharya Nagarjuna
University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India, to attend a
Convocation wearing the Ceremonial dress, to collect a gold
medal. I wrote to them that I would not accept the
invitation, because the ceremonial dresses are too
expensive. Of course, there was no reply, because students
are small fries.

*I hope that at least now the Vice Chancellors of the
Universities/Institutes will meet and dispense with the
colonial relic of the Convocation Ceremonial dress, without
making further fuss. This will save them substantial
amount every year.

*The Vice Chancellors, if they still feel, that there
should be something special befitting the occasion, they
can introduce a cloth scarf around the neck, resembling the
scarf which the members of Scouts and Guides use. This
scarf can be printed with the University Emblem and a
message. The scarf should be supplied both to the
dignitaries and the degree-receiving students free of cost.
The students will proudly preserve it as a memento.
Undue haste in bringing changes as well as resistance to
changes both will be injurious. A thing need not be
dispensed with simply because it is a colonial relic.
Useless things need not be continued on the ground that
they are traditional.