Why India’s version of Cambridge University is up in arms over bible readings

Students at the elite St Stephen’s College were suspended for not attending a daily 9am morning assembly, dismissed by many as ‘boring’ and ‘pointless’. Arpan Rai reports on the clash between India’s bright young minds of tomorrow and an ‘old-school tradition’ harking back to the colonial era

Students are seen walking the halls of Delhi’s elite St Stephen’s College (Getty)

With its shady cloisters, sprawling green campus and red-brick clocktower adorned with a cross, St Stephen’s College could fool a visitor into thinking they had stepped out of the dust and noise of India’s capital and into the grounds of Cambridge University.

In many ways, that’s the point – St Stephen’s, a part of Delhi University, was founded by Cambridge missionaries in the 19th century and modelled after their own colleges, with the facade of its main building today bearing a strong resemblance to the grand entrance of Cambridge University Library.

It remains one of the country’s most elite educational establishments, with alumni including the current chief justice of India, DY Chandrachud; both Narendra Modi’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi; and the late Diageo chief executive Ivan Menezes.