St. Stephen’s College is a constituent college of the University of Delhi located in Delhi, India. The college admits both undergraduates and post-graduates, and awards degrees under the purview of the University. Famous for its rich history and many traditions, St. Stephen’s is arguably India’s most famous higher educational institution offering degrees in the liberal arts and the sciences. Since its founding in 1881, the college has produced a long line of distinguished alumni. Students and alumni of the college are termed Stephanians.

Introduction

St. Stephen’s is a co-educational institution of higher learning located in University Enclave on the University of Delhi’s ‘North’ campus. In spite of its location in North India, the college has always striven to admit students and select teachers from all communities and from all parts of India. It also admits a small number of students from overseas. The college was founded on 1 February 1881, by the Cambridge Brotherhood, an Anglican mission from Westcott House, Cambridge, England. It was initially affiliated to the University of Calcutta. In 1882 it was affiliated to University of the Punjab, Lahore. It later became one of three original constituent colleges of the University of Delhi when that institution was founded in 1922. The Rev. Samuel Scott Allnutt was mainly responsible for founding the college and served as its first principal. Allnutt is buried by the chapel in the college’s present campus. The anniversary of his death is observed as Founder’s Day on December 7 every year.

The college is currently situated on a large and well-known campus in North Delhi, designed by the distinguished Welsh architect Walter Sykes George, and completed in 1941. The college had previously functioned from a campus in Delhi’s Kashmiri Gate, housed in distinctive Indo-Saracenic buildings. These now house some government offices. In fact, some college playing fields are still located between Kashmiri Gate & Mori Gate. In addition to its present academic buildings and halls of residence, the college is famous for its library, which also houses a collection of rare Sanskrit andPersian manuscripts. Facilities for a number of sports are provided for on the college campus. The Francis Monk gymnasium, the Ladies Common Room, and the Junior Common Room provide facilities for indoor sports and recreation. A chapel is open to all members for worship and meditation. The college has six Residences - blocks which allow around 500 men and women to reside on the premises. Student clubs and societies have always played an important role in the life of the college, and are seen as vital to student development. Each academic subject has a society which sponsors lectures and discussions. The popular extracurricular societies and clubs engage in activities concerned with debating, dramatics, trekking, film, social service, photography, quizzing and astronomy. In continuance of a long tradition, societies – such as the Planning Forum, History Society, Gandhi Study Circle, Informal Discussion Group – regularly invite distinguished visitors to address and join issue with students on various topical issues.

Residence Blocks

The college’s halls of residence are spread across six blocks, named for former principals. Each block is supervised by a member of the faculty functioning as Block Tutor. Originally only for male students (termed ‘Scholars in Residence’) half of these blocks are now allotted entirely to women students. Porters and other staff who work in Residence are referred to as ‘gyps’ and ‘karamcharis’ respectively.

• Allnutt North
• Allnutt South
• Rudra North
• Rudra South
• Mukarji East
• Mukarji West

College motto and colours

The College motto is Ad Dei Gloriam, Latin for To the Glory of God. The College colours are martyr’s red and Cambridge blue.

The badge is a martyr’s crown on a field of martyr’s red, within a five-pointed star, edged with Cambridge blue. Around the five-pointed star, which represents India, is the Cambridge blue border, representing the impact of Cambridge University on the college, having been founded by the members of the Cambridge Mission to Delhi. On the ground, which is coloured red to represent Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr and patron saint of the Anglican mission in Delhi, in whose memory the College is built, stands the martyr’s crown in gold.

History

Founded in 1881 by the Cambridge Mission in response to a colonial government policy promoting English-language education in India, the College’s first premises were in Chandni Chowk with 5 boarders and three professors, and was initially part of the University of Calcutta. After it changed its affiliation to Punjab University, Lahore, it moved into premises in Kashmiri Gate designed in theIndo-Saracenic style. These buildings are now occupied by the Election Commission for Delhi State.

The first mention of a St Stephen’s College occurs in the report of the Delhi Mission of The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 1864. This branch of the Society’s work had been opened in 1854 at the instance of a chaplain of the East India Company, the Rev. Midgley John Jennings. He was the chaplain of Delhi and was killed in the 1857 Uprising.

St Stephen’s High School was founded before the 1857 Uprising by the Revd. M. J. Jennings in about 1853-4. It was a large and important institution comprising a central school and several branch schools;it had about 600 students. The central school was lodged in a hired house in Katra Kushal Rai, Chandni Chowk. The school building was called Shish Mahal and belonged to Ashraf Beg, a vizier of the last Mughal emperor. His daughter Aliza Begum was one of the emperor’s wives.

In the 1870s, Bishop Douglas of Bombay suggested that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge send out men of high scholarship who would live in a religious community and work amongst the educated classes of India. His idea was carried into effect by members of Cambridge University and inspired by the Revds. Hort, Lightfoot and Westcott. The enthusiasm and idealism of Westcott gave birth to the Cambridge Mission.

With the 1867 closure of Government College in Delhi because of financial problems, the Bishop of Lahore, Dr French, immediately urged the Cambridge Mission to fill the breach. St Stephen’s School already had permission to open classes to prepare students for the B.A. examination of Calcutta University. And so on 1 February 1881 university classes were begun and St Stephen’s College came into existence.

The college was named after Saint Stephen, who was adopted by the Anglican church as the patron saint of Delhi after Christian converts were reportedly stoned to death during the 1857 uprising. (As they were the first ‘martyrs’ in North India and were stoned, parallels to Stephen were obvious.)

In 1906, Principal Rev. Hibbert-Ware abdicated his post in favour of Susil Kumar Rudra who became the first Indian to head a major educational institution in India. The decision was frowned upon at the time, and was the subject of scathing editorial comment in The Statesman daily published from Calcutta, but Principal Rudra proved to have a tenure of extraordinary importance for the college, as described below.

It was decided in 1920 to set up a University in Delhi and land was earmarked in the area where the Delhi Durbar of 1911 had been held. The new College buildings were laid out around courts in the style of a transplanted Cambridge college (but with certain clearly distinguishable tropical elements and subtle Mughal motifs) by the well-known British architect Walter Sykes George.

The University of the Punjab (at Lahore) received its charter more than one year after the founding of St. Stephen’s College which became one of the two institutions first affiliated to it. Six students of the College sat for the Intermediate Arts exam of the Calcutta University in 1882, and two students passed the Punjab and two the Calcutta F.A. examination in 1883. St. Stephen’s College later became one of the three original constituent colleges of the University of Delhi when the latter was established in 1922.

Women were first admitted in 1928, as there were no women’s colleges in Delhi affiliated with the Anglican Church at the time; after the founding of Miranda House in 1949, women were not accepted as students until 1975.

Many Stephanians went on to distinguished service in Raj administration and civil society of the day. Sir Chottu Ram was the first Stephanian to be knighted in 1937. Many alumni were also active in India’s long freedom struggle.

From the time of its inception, St.Stephen’s has played what may be termed a pre-eminent role both in the field of education and in the affairs of the nation. It was senior college faculty who floated the idea of founding the University of Delhi. Later, the college was also influential in the founding of two famous Indian public schools, the Doon School, Dehradun and Modern School, Delhi.

Significantly, in 1914, C. F. Andrews, then a lecturer in Philosophy at the College, discussed over breakfast with Principal Rudra and other faculty members the possibility of bringing back to India the leader of the Indian political rights movement in South Africa. When Andrews finally persuaded Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, at Gopal Krishna Gokhale’s behest, to return and join the Indian freedom struggle, the latter stayed several times in the Principal’s house, both during Rudra’s tenure and that of his successor, Satya Nand Mukarji. The letter to the Viceroy announcing the commencement of the first Non-Cooperation Movement was drafted at the Principal’s dining table. A photograph in the principal’s office shows Mahatma Gandhi with the student body in 1915.

Andrews was himself active in the freedom struggle, and was named Deenbandhu (or, ‘Friend of the Poor’) by Mahatma Gandhi on account of his work with the needy and with the trade union movement. A portrait of C. F. Andrews by his good friend Rabindranath Tagore currently hangs in the Principal’s office. It is believed that Tagorecompleted the English translation of Gitanjali, for which he was subsequently awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature, while a guest of the College.

After independence in 1947 and for the next two decades, St. Stephen’s became particularly well known for the large number of academics, writers and prominent civil servants it produced. In fact, at one point in the 1970s two-thirds of all secretary-level positions in the Indian Administrative Service were said to be occupied by Stephanians. However, the college has produced many more alumni of distinction in various fields, especially with the beginning of the latter half of the 20th century. Eminent Stephanians may be found in any Indian roll call of – among other fields – politics, the media, literature (indeed, where a ‘St Stephen’s School of Literature’ is sometimes made reference to), scientific research, industry, entertainment, the military and sports.

The college is perhaps the only Indian institution that may count among its alumni the heads of state / government of three different countries: Dr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmedof India, Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan, and Salim Ahmed Salim of Tanzania and the OAU.

Course  Offered

Undergraduate

• B.A. Economics (Hons.)
• B.A. English (Hons.)
• B.A. History (Hons.)
• B.A. Philosophy (Hons.)
• B.A. Sanskrit (Hons.)
• B.A. Programme
• B.Sc. Mathematics (Hons.)
• B.Sc. Chemistry (Hons.)
• B.Sc. Physics (Hons.)
• B.Sc. Programme

Graduate

• M.A. Economics
• M.A. English
• M.A. History
• M.A. Philosophy
• M.A. Sanskrit
• M.A./M.Sc. Mathematics
• M.A./M.Sc. Operations Research
• M.Sc. Chemistry
• M.Sc. Physics

Societies

The self-motivated and ceaseless activities of over two dozen clubs and societies constitute a very important part of College life and offer a large variety of avenues for self expression. For each subject there is a Society that sponsors extra-curricular lectures and discussion and, in general, tries to stimulate interest in the subject. There are many other academic and cultural society and clubs covering wide range of activities, such as debating, dramatics, mountaineering, film and music appreciation, social service, photography and electronics.

• Alumni Cell
• B.A. Programme Society
• Bazam-E-Adab
• Bengali Literary Society
• Chemistry Society
• Choreography Society
• Cine Club
• Computer Science Society
• Campus Placement Cell
• Debating Society
• Economics Society
• Electronics Society
• English Literary Society
• Finance and Investments Cell
• Fine Arts Society
• Gandhi Study Circle
• Hiking Club
• History Society
• Informal Discussion Group
• Junior Combination Room
• Kooler Talk
• Leadership Cell
• Mathematics Society
• Music Society
• Planning Forum
• Philosophical Society
• Photographic Society
• Physics Society
• Quiz Club
• Sanskrit Hindi Sahithya Sabha
• Shakespeare Sabha
• Shakespeare Society
• Spic Macay
• Social Service League
• S. O. U. L.
• The Stephanian
• Student’s Union Society
• Wildlife Society
• Wodehouse Society

Recent Controversies

In a contentious development in January 2007, Dr. Anil Wilson was granted leave to serve as the Vice-Chancellor of Himachal University while remaining in the office of Principal. In May 2007, Rev. Valson Thampu, previously a lecturer at the College, was appointed “Officer on Special Duty” officiating as Principal. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Wilson requested early retirement from the University and expressed a desire to return. On February 5, 2008, the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions upheld the contention of University of Delhi that Rev. Thampu’s appointment was “patently illegal.” The University of Delhi contended that since Thampu did not have a PhD degree – a requirement for appointment as Principal – he could not hold the office. Later, he acquired a PhD from Allahabad Agriculture Institute-Deemed University. Rev. Thampu sought a stay on this order, but was refused by the Delhi High Court.  He resigned on 15 March 2008, but was subsequently reappointed Principal by the Governing Body of the college a few months later.

In June 2007, college administrators increased the preferential admissions quota for Christian applicants to 40% and set aside another 15% of the places for applicants from under-privileged backgrounds. That St Stephens now allocates less than half of its 400-odd seats to open admissions is considered a notable development

 in the politically-fraught debate on caste- and community-based affirmative action in India.

Academic department heads boycotted the first day of the 2008-09 academic year to protest another new policy setting aside positions for Christian faculty, a move seen by many as being part of the new dispensation’s intention to impart a specific religious character to the famously secular institution. This was done in conjunction with the new dispensation stating that they would enforce the 50% reservation for Christians in admitting students. While sanctioned by Indian law, St. Stephen’s being a ‘minority’ institution, the college traditionally reserved no more than 25% of available seats for meritorious Christian candidates. Much media speculation and criticism appears not to have deterred administrators from going ahead with the move.