Welcome to India’s oldest college, the Delhi College
The Department of English at Delhi College was established in the nineteenth century when in 1828, under orders from Charles Metcalfe, English classes were begun at Delhi College. In 1925, the Delhi College joined the University of Delhi and from 1975 came to be known as Zakir Husain College after Dr. Zakir Husain, former President of India and a prominent thinker of the twentieth century.
Zakir Husain Delhi College is the only college in University of Delhi to offer honours programmes in languages as diverse as English, Sanskrit, Bengali, Persian, Hindi, Arabic and Urdu. The traditions of criticism and debates in the literary traditions of the classical and modern languages of India make the study of literature at this college an activity of inter-semiotic dialogue through translation and comparative poetics as methodology. The Honours programme in English at Zakir Husain Delhi College has a special focus on Indian literary traditions, translation, comparative poetics, performance studies, and creative writing that are reflected in the pedagogical approaches of the faculty.
The students graduating from ZHDC become sensitive individuals with a sense of commitment and reflective vision towards the society at large, and literature and the arts in particular. We are fortunate at Zakir Husain Delhi College to be a part of history that is echoed in the city of Delhi from the medieval to contemporary times. We are reading and writing the history of thought at Zakir Husain Delhi College.