After the FYUP : Looking Back at the Road Ahead

Now that Delhi University’s controversial Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) has been formally initiated, it is time for its principled critics to look ahead. But charting the course of the future – even the near future – requires us to look back. Like Walter Benjamin’s famous image of the angel of history, we are, most of the time, backing into the future in reverse while facing the past. However, if it is to be useful in helping us to move forward, this looking back must not be in anger but in sober analysis. Such an analysis must rehearse the main arguments made against the FYUP, assess the reasons why these arguments failed to produce their logical result, and go on to sketch the major sites and directions for future efforts.