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Reform school education On Record |
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Reflections Profile Diversities — Delhi Letter
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Reform school education In the midst of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s by-election from Rae Bareli, Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh sprung a surprise by proposing to extend reservations to Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in admissions to higher studies. It was a cheap bid to expand the Congress vote base by luring the OBCs away from Mulayam Singh and Laloo Yadav. It did evoke strong reactions for and against quotas in the country. Even the Bharatiya Janata Party was forced to adopt an ambivalent stand on the move. Every politician was justifying it as a step towards distribution of social justice to deprived classes. All these politicians are willing to perpetuate reservation rather than create conditions that would obviate need for such an affirmative action. Most of them believe that this was an easier road to expand vote base. None seems sincere for eliminating inequality of education opportunities from the system. All of them are looking at the problem from the wrong end. Their solution is one of a physician who would allow the malaise to fester for 18 long years and only then decide to adopt drastic surgery to correct the situation. The malaise is prevalent in the Indian education system for nearly one-and-a-half century. More glaring and visible inequalities of educational opportunities prevail in primary and secondary education in the country. No attempt has been made to reform the educational system at primary and secondary level during the last 60 years as politicians found it more convenient to adopt the system of differentiated schooling that the British had left behind. It is generally assumed that free school would eliminate economic sources of inequality of opportunity. Free education does not end inequality as many families cannot afford to allow the child to attend school beyond an early age as the child’s labour is necessary for the family both in rural areas and in urban slums. Continuing in school would mean that he would not be trained and absorbed in the family trade or craft or even other occupational path. Even the differentiated secondary curriculum does not solve the dilemma of poor student because continued study might keep occupational opportunities open for future but it would also close the occupational opportunity that the vocational programme would keep open. There is yet another assumption inherent in this system that opportunity lies in exposure to a given curriculum. But that reduces the school and the family to a passive role. The state would provide schooling facilities but obligation of using the opportunity is entirely on the child regardless of the family environ, social and economic circumstances. Every child is expected to perform at the same level when the exposure is measured through examinations. But nowhere any attention is given to the inherent and existing inequalities in the system. One type of inequality can be defined in terms of differences in the community or state’s input to the school, such as per pupil expenditure, school structure and other facilities, libraries, quality of teachers. Inequality can be defined by composition of the student community coming from different economic, social and cultural class, the family’s income levels and previous exposure of the family to education. It can be clearly seen in comparison between private schools and municipal schools. Even worst inequality is for children in schools run around slum areas. Yet another inequality can be seen in consequences of the school for individuals of unequal social, economic, cultural and educational backgrounds and abilities. The most striking example of inequality here would be children from families whose mother tongues are completely different than the local languages taught in school. Other examples would be low-achieving children from home in which there is a poverty of verbal expressions or absence of experiences that lead to difficulties in conceptual facilities. Governments have improved upon the British model of differentiated school system. They had introduced public education for creating clerks needed to run the empire in India. But also allowed growth of private schools run on charity. In the last two decades, education is no more a mission. Two extreme and opposite forms of our primary and secondary education system tell us so. We have primary schools run under the shade of tree without facilities for drinking water and toilets for children coming from poor families and at the same time we have the air-conditioned school buildings with separate bed comforts for tiny tots of KG classes. New schools are not missions but education malls with quality goods for a price. In any case rich with money to burn do not need charity. But their schools prove the point of existing abnormal inequality in primary education in the country. This type of schools is not confined to Delhi alone. The differing standards of teaching in private, public and municipal schools are so well known that they do not need elaboration. Several NGOs’ studies and surveys on standards and teaching in schools in different states tell the story. These conditions of inequality and deterioration are appalling. Only politicians remain unaffected by them. The primary and secondary education in India is the field that demands immediate reform through affirmative discrimination and action. This is a killing field of millions whose even dreams remain still born. Millions of children join schools every year and many drop out midway because the system does not attend to inequalities and enable and empower the poor with learning skills due to circumstances beyond their own control, due to family backgrounds that lack of educational, social, economic, cultural background and environ. If the affirmative action is taken here to empower them with skills and abilities, they would not need the crutches of affirmative discrimination at the higher stages. Most of them would be happy to use the skills imparted to them at early stage of life rather than opt for the higher education to open doors of life. After all affirmative discrimination at that higher level of life is not recognition of merit but a stamp of infirmity, inability and lack of merit. Why do we continue to condemn OBC young men and women as inferior human beings even after 60 years of Independence and make them feel low in their own esteem instead of helping them out at early stages of their life evolution? How many can you bail out at the level at which Arjun Singh has proposed? What happens to vast majority of them? Are they not condemned for their entire life without any help from government or society? n The
writer is Editor of Hardnews, a political monthly |
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On Record
Gopal Man Shrestha, Minister of Physical
Planning and Works in the Seven-Party Alliance government of Prime Minister G.P.
Koirala, has been in politics for over four decades. He has been opposed to the
institution of monarchy. Presently the Acting President of Nepali Congress
(Democratic), which is led by former Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba,
Shrestha is confident that the talks between the Maoists and the government
would be successful and the Maoists would become the part of the mainstream as
they have realised that "guns and bullets cannot bring about
transformation in society". Shrestha, who was the Deputy leader of the
delegation which came with the Nepalese Prime Minister to India, said that the
"future of monarchy would be decided by the people of Nepal when they
elect representatives to the Constituent Assembly". A professional
politician, Shrestha, who has been a Minister in earlier governments also,
spoke at length to The Sunday Tribune on various issues including the ties with
India. Excerpts: Q: Are you satisfied with the outcome of your visit
to India? A: It has been highly successful. We would like to put on record
our deep appreciation for the Indian leadership which has made our visit a
success. The Indian economic package is a positive step in the right direction
as it offers the much-needed assistance at a crucial juncture. Q: Is the
fate of monarchy sealed? A: No. Though the popular sentiment is against
the present monarch, the people will decide about the fate of the monarchy.
After the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the issue will come up before
the representatives. The free and fair elections will be held under the
supervision of international agencies like the UN. At the moment, there are
many views on the issue of monarchy. Some like Maoists are totally opposed to
it and plead for its abolition while others want its role to be reduced to a
ceremonial head of the state as in some Scandinavian countries where a King
moves around like a common man and can be seen riding a bicycle. Let us see
what view ultimately prevails. My party stands for a powerless monarchy and is
like a rubber stamp. In a democratic set up, the King is like a citizen and not
a super power. Q: How is it that the King of Nepal, who used to be
regarded as the direct descendent of Lord Vishnu, lost support among the
people? A: Time and tide wait for none. When the King dismissed the
popularly elected government and fruits of development did not reach all parts
of Nepal, the people were disillusioned with the system. They rallied around
the Seven-Party Alliance of political parties which were demanding restoration
of democracy. The Seven-Party Alliance and the Maoist joined hands and after
the 19-day-long agitation forced the King to accept the demand. The agitation
was not only restricted to Kathmandu and neighbourhood; it spread all over
Nepal. Lakhs of people came out in the streets and sustained the struggle
despite hardship. During the agitation, 25 people lost their lives. The
government has decided to pay 10 Lakh Nepali Rupees to the next of the kin of
each person killed in the agitation. Q: Will the talks between the
Government and the Maoists succeed? A: The talks are being held on the
basis of a 12-point understanding which has been reached between the
Seven-Party Alliance and the Maoists. The Maoists and their leader Prachanda
and Baburam Bhattarai have realised that guns and bullets cannot change
society. Society can only be transformed through peaceful means. The Maoists
and their leaders are also realising this. Q: What is your goal? A:
We are in a hurry. Our objective is to make Maoists join the present government
so that elections to the Constituent Assembly can be held. We will like that
Maoists to bring their weapons into the open under the supervision of reliable
international agencies like the UN so that elections to the Constituent
Assembly can be held in a free and fair atmosphere under international
supervision. People should be able to exercise their right of vote without fear
or influence. Q: What is the status of the unity moves between your party
and the Nepali Congress? A: Prime Minister G.P. Koirala and we are for
unity. But unity only on equal terms. If Mr Koirala wants unity sincerely,
there are no problems. We want unity before the elections to the Constituent
Assembly. I am sure, a united Nepali Congress will come into majority. And then
the Nepali Congress can play its due role in the Constitution making process.
Q: What changes are your government contemplating? A: We have already
started effecting changes. For example, the Royal Nepal Army is now known as
the Nepali Army. His Majesty’s Government is now called the Government of
Nepal. We are no more slaves of the monarchy but we have liberated ourselves
from the 237-year slavery of the Kings. The Constituent Assembly will decide on
many other things.
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Americans
are coming America’s recent nuclear deal with India has left the politicians and the innocent masses struck by euphoria unseen and unheard of. But I fear for the future. The world seems to be at the mercy of a man whose presence conjures in my mind images of the brutalities in Guantanamo, the humiliation and torture of the prisoners in Abu Gharib, the mutilated bodies in Iraq, the thousands of deaths of civilians in Nicaragua and Guatemala. His image is no different from Ronald Reagan whose air attack on Tripoli provoked Chomsky to compare him with “a Mafia don who sends a goon squad to break the bones of children in a kindergarten.” On the streets of Paris or along the Rhine flowing through Germany, on the banks of the Tigris or in the streets of Teheran, the anti-American wave blows all the more strong. American experience is felt world wide through its political and foreign policy, military action, cultural products, name it and it is tangibly present in the remotest corners of the world. President Bush’s visit to India was a parody of diplomacy and subservience to a power that has been responsible in hindering the emergence of democracy in the world. In the last hundred years, the US has invaded or interfered in the affairs of other nations 115 times. The urge to dominate springs from a deep seated economic reason of finding markets abroad for its manufacturers and to make sure that enough raw material is available for the American industry. Do we all not know that if China was to withdraw its deposits from the American banks and if Iran and other oil producing countries were to switch over to the Euro in their oil sales, the American economy would flounder instantly? Perceptibly, India is being wooed to counterbalance the rise of China. Ever since the Cold War, the US has been adept at informing the world through a discourse of the threat posed to democracy and freedom, first by the Soviet Union and then by Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Subversion and state terrorism have been consistently supported with the aim of subduing countries in Latin America and the Third World. It should be clear to the Indian leadership and the public that Bush’s national security ideology backed by the neocon corporate world is in India to represent the interests of the US. It is not all altruistic as it is being made to seem by the Indian media and our leaders. A warning stares us in the face: beware of a country that depends on its commercial ventures for power. The rule of international law is flouted across the board, setting up client regimes wherever the need arises, dethroning any leader who challenges its hegemony or economic interests. The fate of India might not be very different in the years to come. Let us not forget the US bonhomie with Saddam Hussein. Or the treatment of the rest of the world through its control of global institutions such as the IMF and WTO.
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Reflections This is a first hand account I got out of a young Indian, Akash Bhatia, living in the United States and visiting India after four years. I knew his observations would be sensitive and sharp and help shake us up hopefully! Here are the excerpts of what he described: “As I inch closer to New Delhi, my excitement grows; the anticipation of landing home, one that I haven’t felt in the last four and a half years gripped me. I turn on my iPod and listen to the Indian National Anthem – Jana Gana Mana. I want to stand up in my seat, but before the passengers think I am some weird freak, and decide to tackle me, I remain seated and listen to Kavita Krishnamurthy crooning the national anthem. I had been hearing that India has changed drastically. The India that I left four and a half years ago is not the same India that is now. Well, I was only a few minutes away from finding out for myself. As I stand in the line for immigration and customs, I try to breathe in the air that I grew up in. The smell of talcum powder on people trying to keep dry in the hot, sultry climate gave a surreal feeling. Growing up, that smell of talcum powder was so ubiquitous, that I had become immune to it, and would not even notice it. And now, after so many years, after being sanitised by the sterile air of the West, my mind quickly sensed it. Oh well, I was already at the counter. I walk out expecting a long wait at the baggage terminal, and once again, I am in for a surprise. Our bags are out, they have been picked up from the carousel, and neatly placed in an array along the carousel. Unlike in the States, when I had to wait for at least a half hour to get the carousel moving, and then, another half hour, for my bag to show up, and then, lifting it all by myself and placing it on the cart to be dragged out. I pick my bags, and anticipating some bother at the green channel, I firm up my mind not to entertain any requests for “gifts or rewards” for letting me through. I am in for another surprise. I walk out the green channel in a minute, nobody accosts me, and nobody asks me for anything. My friends were right – India has changed! Now at home, while having breakfast, I watched the TV show that featured Aamir Khan. Watching it I realised that the Indian society is growing increasingly polarised. There were people on both sides not willing to listen to the other side’s point of view. As a result of this cacophony, the middle voice gets drowned. This is an ominous trend, for the middle voice needs a platform from where it can be heard. The youth of today needs to hear the middle voice. After having the heaviest breakfast I have had in a long time, we set off to watch the movie, Fanaa, in one of the new multiplexes. Upon arriving at the multiplex, we managed to get three tickets in black. The Cineplex facilities matched the best in the world. On the way out of the theater, what saddened me is mindset of the people: I saw complete apathy towards civic sense and duty. I noticed that I was the only person in the hall, who after having eaten the popcorn and tea, had picked up the trash. The others had left all of it either on the floor, or on their seats, and had no qualms about leaving it there. When I walk outside today, all I see is trash everywhere. The same mindset, not-my-place, hence why-should-I-bother? India remains unchanged – Apathetic to civic sense. A few days later I flew to Pune. I was seated in the exit row of the Spice Jet. The person next to me, seemingly in his late 20’s, was sitting in the window seat. When the in-flight crew came by to explain the responsibilities of sitting in the exit row, he appeared visibly annoyed and disinterested. A few minutes later, the flight crew came through with the candies. My co-passenger picked up a few. What amazed me was that he knowingly threw the wrapper on the floor of the aircraft, without any qualms. This brings me to the same point I mentioned earlier. Where is the moral responsibility? Where is the sense of civic cleanliness that comes with our country doing well? Are we so wrapped around ourselves, that we don’t see the bigger picture? Don’t we see that our little acts of irresponsibility go a long way in making our country a trash bin? We talk about foreign countries using India as a trash bin, dumping their useless technology on us, letting their toxic waste lie in our ship yards, but what about our own selves? Aren’t we trashing our own country? And there is no foreign hand in this trashing! People, wake up! Realise before it is too late!! A country that despite being under a socialistic regime that rotted its institutions has the power to shed its old skin, rejuvenate and transform itself completely in a matter of years? We dream about being a developed nation by 2020, and each time we litter, we take our country a step back from that goal. What we need is a little discipline in us. We fought for our independence using civil disobedience as a weapon. Maybe we have taken that disobedience bit a little too far. It’s time we realised that building our nation belongs to us, and building it is our responsibility. We are no longer under a foreign rule to shirk our responsibilities to our community….” The young man said it all... He wants his country to be the best… But do we?
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Profile
Upset at the Election Commission’s decision to depute key officials including K.J. Rao, to ensure free and fair poll in the Marxist ruled state, Basu made the terse comment. An Election Commissioner at that time, Gopalswami explained how “extraordinarily peaceful” elections, perceived to be fairest in that part of the country, could be made possible in Bihar. Among other things, Bihar elections manifested how the Election Commission successfully migrated over the years from macro-management at the national level to booth-level management at the field level. Evidently, this led to change of focus and the campaign for a free and fair poll caught up with the people. Among many lessons learnt from Bihar elections one was putting firm ceiling on expenditure incurred by political parties. Gopalaswami came to the conclusion that there could be no free and fair elections if money power and muscle power decide the outcome. The burgeoning of money power in elections was a cause for serious concern and could be ignored only at the cost of undermining democracy. Also, he felt, state funding of elections without putting a ceiling on the party expenditure would be an exercise in futility. As 62-year-old Gopalaswami succeeds B.B. Tandon as the Chief Election Commissioner on June 29, this will be the foremost task on his agenda. Apart from evolving a fool-proof mechanism for ensuring free and fair elections, another passion of the CEC-designate is astrology. He is a keen student of the science that predicts the influence of stars over human beings. Someone asked him — had he known he would become CEC one day? His reply was a simple “no”. Has he studied the stars of his colleagues in the Commission — Tandon and Navin Chawla? His reply was as per planetary position of that moment, it was not desirable to answer that question. Each second of the minute and hour has the influence of stars. Popularly known among his colleagues and friends as “Gopu”, the new CEC’s father too was an astrologer. “Though those days there were no professional courses to learn astrology, my father knew the science too well. I also wanted to learn it”, he says. Gopu revived his passion for astrology when he was the Union Home Secretary. He joined an astrology institute, located near JNU in Delhi, managed by the Chennai-based Astrology Society of India which also conducts the examination. Gopu attends his classes regularly thrice a week. The CEC-designate has cleared four papers in 2005 and is now burning mid-night oil to prepare for three more examinations for which are due on July 3, barely three days after he takes over as the boss of New Delhi’s Nirvachan Sadan. His wife, Raji, serves him a flask of steaming coffee at 11 p.m. sharp to enable him to keep awake and continue his study till past midnight. Gopu’s colleagues in the Election Commission say, he appears to be more excited about his final examination in astrology than taking over the high-profile post of the constitutional authority. Those who know Gopu intimately say that his Vadagalai Vaishnavite Brahmin origin prompted him to study astrology. One may identify a Brahmin of this origin, hailing from Tamil Nadu, by a long Trisul-like tilak on the forehead. This is also a trait of the new CEC. It is believed that Brahmins of this origin should also know astrology. As Secretary in the Union Ministry of Culture, Gopalaswami was instrumental in pushing a project, envisaging preservation of ancient Indian culture and heritage. This could be done by promoting special schools to undertake a five-year course in accordance with traditional Gurukul system. He approached the UNESCO for proclamation of the Vedic traditions as an “oral and intangible heritage of humanity” and aid for the project. His view was that the traditional Vedic scholarship, which was preserved down the centuries as an unbroken tradition, was getting corrupted and may ultimately disappear. Schools on pattern of Gurukul Pathasalas should be set up to keep alive “the world’s oldest wisdom of ancient Indian culture”. This project and Gopalaswami’s efforts to promote Vedic culture came to the notice of the then Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani who thought Gopu was the right man for the Union Home Secretary’s post. Gopu thus landed in the North Block. One wonders if as the Chief Election Commissioner, Gopalaswami will use his astrological knowledge to predict the outcome of election results or the fate of prominent candidates in the fray. If he does so, there may be a bee-line of politicians at his door steps as many of them rush to astrologers to find the auspicious day and time for filing nominations and keen to know their fate in the elections.
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Diversities — Delhi Letter Ever since the series of earthquake jolted some areas of the Kashmir valley, activist Shabnam Hashmi has taken batches of Delhi University (DU) students to live and work in the affected villages. This summer Shabnam went a step ahead and took another batch of Delhi university students to live and interact in two orphanages of Srinagar city. What better way of bringing about focus and connectivity of a lasting sort! I recollect that last autumn soon after one of these groups had returned after having spent a fortnight or in one of those earthquake devastated villages, they spoke of what this entire experience had held out for them. As Akash Joshi, a first year student of St Stephen’s College and grandson of veteran Communist leader P.C. Joshi had recounted some moving experiences, even of breaking the Ramzaan fast with the villagers who had just about few biscuits to nibble “which was distributed to them by a UN relief agency and yet this family, which had lost everything in the earthquake, insisted that I share whatever little they had…My interactions with the villagers changed my entire perception…” New Delhi has another doer — Profesor V.K. Tripathi of IIT. Every week he holds an interactive session with his students on one of the sprawling lawns of this institute. He has formed the Sadhav Mission. The latest news is that he has compiled a slim volume on what the title holds out, Satyagraha against Imperialism: The Great Indian Experiment in Gandhi’s words. New books to hit the stands Three books are on their way. Former cop Keki N. Daruwalla’s collection of poems, Collected Poems: 1970-2005 (Penguin) gets launched here next week. What I feel strongly about Daruwalla is that unlike many a civil servant, he didn’t eye any of those post-retirement slots, but deeply immersed himself in literary activities. Then comes along former bureaucrat Chaturvedi Badrinath’s book, Swami Vivekananda: The Living Vedant (Penguin). Few aspects about Chaturvedi ought to be mentioned. He is one of those bureaucrats who took on former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Certainly, not an easy thing to do and it affected his career prospects. Having taken premature retirement, this Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer devoted himself to writing. But what got me to meeting him was a stray remark by one of his friends who told me about his rare traits of honesty. Restless and exceptionally honest, Chaturvedi has been moving places. Presently settled in Pondicherry, he is busy writing another volume on the Mahabharata. Next month hitting the stands will be Pran Nevile’s book, Lahore — A Sentimental Journey (Penguin). Nevile, a former diplomat, and now better known as the man who is refocusing on the musical wonders — Suraiyya, Pankaj Mullick, Kundan Lal Saigal and several others. I keep seeing him reading and writing at the India International Centre library, busy as ever. African students facing odds The African students in the Capital are said to be facing odds in the backdrop of the arrest of the Nigerians arrested on charges of drug peddling. Let’s not forget those set myths and misconceptions about the Africans which get compounded even if one African gets arrested. Though days like Africa Day (May 25) are celebrated here and there have been other occasions to get Africans and non-Africans together on a platform, those misconceptions are doing the rounds. During the course of an interview once, Sudanese Ambassador to India Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohammad told this writer: “I know little is known about us here. Thousands of African students annually make India their preferred destination for studies. But people may know so little about resurgent Africa; its new challenges and preoccupations. There is lack of relevant or necessary mechanisms between the people of India and Africa to do the necessary publicity and awareness about what’s going on.” Yes, something is amiss. That bonding which ought to have been there is missing. Though there had been traces of it in the verse of some of the poets of years gone by. Ireproduce these ‘bonding’ lines of Ali Sardar Jafri, which he is said to have penned in the 1960s: “This African, my brother /Picks flowers in forest after forest /My brother, whose feet are red /Red as roses.” Holding and hosting hurriedly called press conferences do not seem to jell, especially in the Rahul Mahajan case. First it was that group of doctors at the Apollo hospital who sat there holding an elaborate press briefing which actually paved the way for several doubts and missing links to spring up. And now speaks Rahul Mahajan after his release from the jail on bail. Repeating some of those typical string of sentences hovering around how gold gets glittering and more along the hackneyed strain. Incidentally, a couple of those typical sentences were mouthed by his sister just a day earlier. That repetition made it sound contrived and more. An obviously political slanted exercise. A little too early and more than premature.
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He, the supreme master, is just and true. His judgement is also true. So is his command The divine music of God’s flute resounds through his word continously and spontaneously in every heart. It sees but appears not to see. If saying Ram gave liberation, saying candy made your mouth sweet, saying fire burned your feet, saying water quenched your thirst, saying food banished hunger, the whole world would be free.
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India will be a sham democracy if the very foundation of a democratic polity, namely free and fair elections, are missing from the scene”. So commented the Chief Election Commissioner designate, Needamangalam Gopalaswami, apparently, hurt by a remark of veteran Marxist leader, Jyoti Basu, early this year that “West Bengal is not Bihar”.