British philosopher Bertrand Russell in his famous essay about the idea of a university says that a university is, first and foremost, a place. He stresses that a university—though it is a concept, an idea, a poetics of space and a metaphor of culture and life—is, in the final analysis, a place. We should be clear about that. This famous essay in the English textbook, The English We Use, was discussed with Bachelor level students at Tribhuvan University. It represents Russell's concept of space as a sanctuary of a university.

The period when we taught this essay was marked by a certain shift in educational innovations and what the university claimed “a quest for a new educational system”. It happened sometime in the early 1970s. The experiment was called the New Education System Plan introduced by Tribhuvan University. The plan, among other things, tried to shuffle or deconstruct the concept of “university” as a place and introduce an idea that used new technologies in education to diffuse certain fixed notions about it and invent ways to make educational experiments.

I want to cite from a keynote address that I delivered at the 34th Annual Conference of the Linguistic Society of Nepal on November 26, 2013. “When the New Education System Plan used computer for screening applications for admission in colleges the news spread like Australian bush fire. I remember one senior citizen who turned up at a working centre located in Padmakanya campus seeking admission of his daughter-in-law at the proficiency certificate level some time in 1972, asking … ‘Sir, I want to meet computer sir because they say he has taken the entire responsibility of admitting or rejecting students’ bharnaa’”. As a young teacher at the university, I was also assigned to work as a member of that team meeting on the campus. Professor Shiva Gopal Risal had tried to seek to sort out the senior man’s question respectfully.

Did the computer come as a toy to confound people, create wonder and deprive them of educational opportunities, or promote true education? No responsible agency addressed that question.

A straight answer is that Tribhuvan University, the sole higher educational institution in the country, was seeking to pluralise the concept of place as a university. It wanted to do so by challenging the concept of a fixed space and substituting in its place the idea of education as a concept that could be shared across the campuses. But that concept did bring problems with it. It came as a double whammy—educational spaces lost their unique identities and failed to use the new syllabuses and technologies that were few and far between. That varied according to the nature of the institutions. However, the idea of using new technologies to teach humanities and social sciences did not work.

The following period saw the emergence of several universities and higher educational institutions. Spaces multiplied. Opportunities came to open plural centres and locations to impart higher education understood under different geographical and cultural rubrics. One can easily guess that the period had brought some euphoric moments. People who took up the cudgel to start new institutional centres under this euphoria were doing admirable work. But things do not appear to have worked to fulfil the good dreams of the good people. Tribhuvan University continued to grow larger and attract more students.

I am dismayed by the smaller number of students at other higher educational institutions or universities in Nepal. Sudip Kaini of Kantipur presents some important figures in his survey of students’ enrollment. The students enrolling for university education appear to go mostly to TU (more than 77 percent). Of the 16 universities, hardly one percent get admitted to 10 universities. According to one University Grants Commission report, out of more than 0.6 million students, almost 0.5 million go to TU. In terms of percentage, the rate of admission in Pokhara University is 5.56, Kathmandu University is 3.33, Far Western University is 3.06, Mid Western University is 1.61, University of Forest and Agriculture is 0.64, Nepal Sanskrit University is 0.52 and Lumbini Baudha University is 0.29. All these universities were established over a decade ago. The figures speak volumes. The onus of higher education lies on the largest and the oldest TU.

Reports about the land grabbing of Tribhuvan University's central location are emerging. Reportedly, out of the 3,613 ropanis of the University's land, 900 ropanis are occupied by 19 outer organisations. (Naya Patrika, June 29, 2022). That is a stunning report. The figures and reports are easily available now. Other universities in the country have their own narratives about their lands. The land story shows the centrality of the TU in terms of its size, location and spread. It has become more crucial to address the question of land because of the needs of universities other than TU. Universities tell their stories about acquiring spaces, with the theme of politics and power, which have become an essential subject of discussion today. For instance, Kathmandu University acquired spaces inside Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur metropolis and outside to open its various institutions and departments; it is unique in many ways.

We return to the mega story of TU trying to track its land, which people and institutions grabbed over a long period. Evoking Russell's idea of a university as a place, we can say that TU, far from finding its spaces and cogently using them to create sanctuaries, is fighting on two fronts—restoring ownership of its land and using that for academic purposes by making the institution stronger and more important. To take an eloquent example, the euphoric activities of good sports and the noise and crowd generated by it indicate the centrality and importance of TU's space in Kirtipur.

It is natural for a university that gives higher education to the 77 percent of the students of this land, irrespective of the fact that there are other functioning universities, to find its space, its land, and to seek to function with dignity and a system. The whole thing is related to the question of space, prestige and the creation of a permanent operation system. I believe now is the right time to work on all these fronts. I want to repeat a popular Nepali expression—sabailai chetana bhaya.