Campus visits top itinerary of celebs

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Aamir Khan and David Cameron at Janki Devi Memorial College

Dignitaries and stars visiting Delhi are now increasingly pencilling in a trip to the campus. On his recent visit, British Prime Minister David Cameron and actor Aamir Khan went to meet students of Janki Devi Memorial College. This high-power duo isn’t the first to include a campus visit on their itinerary. Be it for making a political speech or to promote a film, DU is a must-visit for high-profile Delhi visitors.

Many see the trend as an acknowledgment of the power of the youth, but students argue that they don’t always relate to every luminary being invited to the campus.
An Aamir Khan fan, DU student Shreya Kaushik confesses that she wasn’t very impressed by his visit to her campus. “Two big names together strolling on the campus is a great achievement for the college, but it doesn’t mean much to me as a student. My friends and I just managed to catch a glimpse of the two. We don’t know what all they spoke about. We later got to know that it was something about women empowerment,” she says.
Shreya believes that a dignitary visiting the campus and sharing his wisdom should be a lifetime experience for the students. “Their words should remain etched for ever. Nothing of that sort happened. It was a very starry affair,” she says.
Like Shreya, Devika Mittal, student, South Asia University, says that along with star appeal, a dignitary should move the students with a motivating speech. “It is always a pleasure to listen to a person like Amartya Sen or Amitabh Bachchan,” she says. All the visitors come for their own benefit, she says. “A shrewd politician, Narendra Modi chose the prestigious SRCC for his speech, which in a way projected him in a different light. Ano no one raised a question about his past there,” she says.
Lady Sri Ram College student Aditi Saraswat recalls a life-changing experience. She shares how the visit by the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi filled her with hope and she looked at world polity with a new perspective. On her India visit, the pro-democracy leader visited LSR, from where she had graduated with a degree in politics nearly 50 years ago.
“The entire college was there to listen to her. She told us that she’s proud of her association with the college and so are we of her. She spoke about her fight for democracy and why her cause is important for her,” says the History student.
“For the film fraternity, the youth are the target business interest, and for politicians, they are the electorate. Like the West, colleges need to maintain some sort of discretion while inviting guests to speak to students. Even when Shah Rukh Khan goes to Harvard, he speaks about films and marketing,” she says.