Most students — both present and former — and teachers said on Wednesday that Stephen’s has had a history of prodding its pupils to be involved in classroom by asking more questions.

The comment led the usually quiet Vijay Tankha, a faculty in the Department of Philosophy and Dean (Academics), to take a dig at the AICC general secretary. He said the Amethi MP might have asked too many questions in the wrong class. “A history class is quite crowded, so he may have been asked to bring his questions to the tutorial or talk to the teacher after class instead of asking them during the lecture.

“We should probably check to see how many tutorials he attended in his brief stint in college.”

Rahul was a student of History at St Stephen’s College for less than a year.

Adnan Nayeem Azmi, a student and president of the college student’s union, said, “I have never been stopped from asking questions.” But Adnan, and a few other teachers, added that the Lok Sabha MP’s personal views “could have their own validity”.

Mani Shankar Aiyar, Union minister and a St Stephen’s alumnus, said he graduated from the college in 1961 and then spent the next three years, till 1963, at Cambridge University. For him, the years at St Stephen’s were “far more intellectually stimulating than Cambridge — this is not just because of the teachers but also due to my peers”.

But Aiyar added that there is a “huge generation gap between my and Rahul’s time” at the college. “From my experience, I had a very easy relationship with our teachers; the teachers were also our mentors and we used to hold long debates and discussions with them.”

Nandita Narain, Head of the Department, Mathematics, said Rahul was making a general point about higher education in India and not much should be read into the statement.

“It is my opinion, and that of the students I know, that at St Stephen’s we always encourage questions and answers. But people have their own individual experiences, which have their own validity.

“What is important is that participation in class has to reach institutes outside our own.”

Commenting on the state of higher education in India, Rahul Gandhi, in an interaction with students at HN Bahuguna Garhwal University in Srinagar (Uttarakhand) had said on Tuesday, “We don’t ask people (students) to ask questions. When I was in St Stephen’s College, asking question was not (perceived to be) good in our class.”