New Delhi, Feb. 8: The war of words over a memorial meeting at St. Stephen’s College for a campus dhaba owner assumed “class” ramifications today, with Valson Thampu alleging that his well-heeled critics in the alumni derived “vicarious privilege” after he was accused of lacking compassion despite being a pastor. 

In the line of fire over a Facebook post terming Rohtas, the dhaba owner, “a peddler of samosa”, the principal hit back by asking why none of the bleeding hearts among the privileged old students had instituted a need-based scholarship at the college.

“There are others who have but they were not in this horde,” Thampu said of those who attended Saturday’s memorial he had termed an “illicit assembly”. The group, including historian Ramachandra Guha and chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian, were initially denied entry.

Rohtas, 65, the owner of the dhaba loved by generations of students for its samosas and gulab jamuns, died last week.

Facebook was today abuzz with posts by former students, most of them upset with the principal. “Thampu’s comments have exposed him. Institutions are built on traditions and customs and not only on rules. Referring to Rohtas as a samosa wala is disgraceful. Alas, the head of an institution without any magnanimity,” said one post. 

Another lamented: “Thampu is a pastor, preacher of a religion which propagates compassion. Jesus forgave those who crucified him. But Thampu gets the gates locked so ex-Stephanians could not attend the condolence meet of someone they so dearly loved.”

This afternoon, Thampu returned to Facebook — where his Sunday post titled “Alumni and Samosa Worship” had drawn a lot of flak — to take on detractors. He felt “politics was being played under the pretext of honouring a dead man”.

“Not one of the so-called alumni, who all hail from very affluent and privileged backgrounds, has any record, while in the college, of having cared for anyone from the under-privileged sections.”

The Rohtas row, according to Thampu, was a class matter, representing the sociological phenomenon, “vicarious privilege”. He explained this as the additional privilege derived by the privileged by making their “servants” more privileged than most others. “Rohtas does not matter one bit to them as a human being. He matters ten times more than the college only because he was ‘their faithful servant’.”