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Crux of the problem
On Record
Profile
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A Tribune Special
The draft legislative proposal has been placed on the website of the Department of Higher Education, Union Ministry of Human Resource Development. The objective is to bring the entire higher education system of the country under a single regulatory authority, to be called the NCHER. Within a year of passing the Act, three existing regulatory bodies, namely the UGC, the AICTE and the NCTE would be closed down completely and the jurisdiction of other regulatory bodies like the Bar Council, the Council of Architecture, etc. would be restricted only to professional registration. The only relaxation given is to agriculture and perhaps medical education outside the university system. In a nutshell, the entire system of higher education that relates to award of degree or even diploma (more than nine months) shall be governed by the NCHER authorisation.
Single authority A single authority could replace the multiplicity of regulatory authorities and the consequent lack of coordination among them. So Prof Yash Pal proposed that for every five-year period such an authority should now vest upon a seven-member Commission –– the chairman, three full-time members and three part-time members. Thus, basically four persons would now regulate the fate of nearly 21,000-odd educational institutions currently existing in the country of which about 20,000 are colleges and more than 500 are universities, deemed to be universities, institutes like IITs, IIMs, ISIs, NITs, as well as research institutes. There is, of course, a novel idea of forming an advisory body with renowned academics as members called core fellows and co-opted fellows from each state and Union Territory. But this huge body named collegium is to be constituted in a manner that it would in reality be busy every year in electing its own chairman and executive committee and hence at the most it could only purport to prepare the list of eligible Vice-Chancellors for the proposed National Registry and the panels of names for chairman and members of the Commission, as and when required. The earliest regulatory body for higher education in the country was the UGC, established in 1953, and it was a single regulatory body working as a Commission, not Council. During late 1980s and early 1990s, the UGC was clipped off — two councils were created (AICTE 1987 and NCTE 1993) for regulating technical education and teachers’ education. It was around this period (1986–1991) that Prof Yash Pal was the UGC Chairman. Two decades have passed and now we hear just opposite arguments. Is India’s higher education system a child’s play of breaking toys into parts and then trying to re-assemble them? What is now proposed is more than that. The present regulatory bodies used terms like ‘recognition’, ‘approval’ or ‘enlistment’ for the educational institutions and their programmes. These terms are now replaced by the proposed power of the NCHER to “authorise”. No university or institute would be allowed to give degree or diploma without the “authorisation” of NCHER. This departure from the tradition would have far-reaching implications, and it indicates that a kind of centralism really underlies the proposal of Prof Yash Pal though he talked much about autonomy of education. The term authorisation is used only to mean delegation of one’s own power to others. By legal implication, henceforth all powers of giving degrees and diplomas would vest upon the NCHER only and the universities and institutes would merely be its authorised agents delivering them. The Prime Minister was reportedly not in favour of going for anything that would require constitutional amendments. For, education is now in the Concurrent List. Could this proposed “authorisation” by the NCHER, bypass constitutional amendments? There is another messy proposition. The NCHER would be a body corporate that could sue or be sued, and at the same time it was proposed to have the power of civil court. The idea seems to be an ill-conceived muddle of executive and judiciary powers, which is unacceptable.
States sidelined The proposed NCHER Act completely eliminated the role of the respective state governments, disregarding the fact that higher education is a matter included in the Concurrent List of the Constitution. For example, it stipulated that the commission would, at an interval of every five years and such other times as it deemed fit, prepare a report on the state of higher education and research for every state or Union Territory. Nowhere it is stated that the states concerned would be involved or consulted in preparation of such reports. Thus, the NCHER would assume an extra-constitutional superpower to act as a watchdog of the performance of the state governments in respect of higher education. The proposed Act further stipulated that the commission would present to the governor of the states such reports on the state of higher education and research in the state. Such direct reporting to the governors, bypassing the state governments, shows a total disrespect and disregard to the elected state governments. The constitutional norms and practices were also ignored as no such report could be cognisable by a state governor unless routed through the state governments concerned. There is an even more interesting proposal. The proposed NCHER Act made a stipulation on the function of the state governors. It proposed “The Governor of every state shall cause to be laid before the Legislative Assembly of such state, the report prepared by the Commission … concerning the state of higher education and research in such state, along with an explanatory memorandum on the action taken, or proposed to be taken, thereon in respect of each recommendation made by the Commission.” Can the proposed NCHER Act, described as “an Act to provide for the determination, co-ordination, maintenance of standards in, and promotion of, higher education and research…” in the country, make such stipulation on the action to be taken by the state governor? It clearly went beyond its jurisdiction. Moreover, without referring to the state governments, can the governors place reports including recommended actions to be taken, for consideration by the Legislative Assembly? Perhaps overenthusiasm towards rejuvenated centralism has made the education planners forget the Concurrent List and extent of jurisdiction of the Act they proposed.
Holistic education? The Yash Pal Committee spoke about guarding “… against the tendency towards “cubicalisation’ of knowledge”, as well as “fragmentation of knowledge” and said “A holistic view of knowledge would demand a regulatory system which treats the entire range of educational institutions in a holistic manner. All of higher education has to be treated as an integrated whole.” What was there in the view of the Yash Pal Committee in this ‘integrated whole’ comprising ‘all of higher education’? Let us quote the Committee Report in this regard –– “It is our strong recommendation that the new universities, including those we call Indian Institutes of Technology or Management should have the character of world-class universities… Let them be the blueprints of first-rate Central universities …Just think of Massachusetts Institute of Technology on which at least one of them was patterned. It would be nice to have a few Nobel prizes in various sciences, economics and communication coming from such transformed IITs…We can then look forward to the day when IITs and IIMs would be producing scholars in literature, linguistics and politics along with engineering and management wizards”. Clearly, Prof Yash Pal misinterprets ‘holistic knowledge’ as creating a great organisational whole with a single regulatory authority and multi-faculty universities and considers ‘all of higher education’ as only a few top-class Central Universities and IITs and IIMs that have the potential to grow as first-rate great world-class university in the pattern of the West. As regards thousands of colleges of the country, the Yash Pal Committee says, “There are more than 20,000 colleges in India. It can be confidently said that nearly 1,500 of them…can easily be upgraded to the level of universities.” So these will come under the NCHER authorisation. What about the others? Interestingly, to a committee that wished to rejuvenate higher education of the country, the fate of these colleges is simply one of a lot of other matters, as the Committee Report says: “And a lot of other matters, such as the question of affiliated colleges, have been discussed at length. We have been conscious of the fact that our committee should not try to do the job of the proposed NCHER.” So Prof Yash Pal did not wish to bother about these as he was after creating something great. But in the proposed Act also there is no provision kept for authorising or recognising the affiliated colleges and hence under the Act, the NCHER could not authorise or recognise these to give them grant-in-aid. These colleges would simply lose their direct grantee status for Central assistance, enjoyed under the UGC Act (Sections 2f and 12B)? Is it a deliberate design that only the authorised universities and institutions awarding degrees or diplomas would get Central assistance and that the NCHER could simply shed the huge burden of bothering about the development and disbursement of grants to about 20,000 affiliated colleges of the country to the states concerned?
Parable of the Sower Unfortunately, the myopic vision of the Yash Pal Committee is focused only on the world-class universities and institutes and at the most on some 1500 colleges to be upgraded to universities in a country where 374 districts out of 593 are educationally backward, having tertiary gross enrolment ratio (GER) below the national average of about 12 per cent, and placed MIT of the US as our role model, forgetting that it operated in the environment of a country where tertiary GER is about 70 per cent. Prof Yash Pal branded this as an “academic freedom movement”. True, in such a movement these days, a slogan like ‘let hundred flowers blossom’ might be denounced. What Gandhi and Tagore said about our education and their education, while comparing with the West, might also be forgotten as irrelevant in today’s globalised world. However, would the dream of Prof Yash Pal, for at least one first-rate great world-class university to have a few Nobel prizes and the IITs producing scholars in arts and humanities along with technical wizards, come true? Let this writer remind the Parable of the Sower of Jesus Christ, which we used to read as a text at our schools. We cannot sow a single seed and be certain that it would blossom into a great flower. In the parable, Jesus taught his disciples that seeds dropped on the path, on rocky ground and among thorns were lost. But when seeds fell on good earth, they grew, yielding thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Would our education planners remember the education given by this parable?n The writer, a former Joint Secretary of the University Grants Commission, is currently Professor of Economics, University of Kalyani, West Bengal |
Crux of the problem
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has indicated that the Indian economy would be growing at the rate of 7.5 per cent in the present fiscal and at 8 per cent during 2010-11. So also the prices. Inflation has been growing steadily and the government has been unable to control the prices. The Opposition parties are making political capital out of the price increase. According to reports, some members of the Union Cabinet were unwilling to approve the increase in the prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas. They overlook the fact that the Centre will be forced to continue to subsidise fuel and the money available for strengthening infrastructure would be limited. One of the main reasons for price rise is the black economy in the country that runs on cash. The Finance Minister has also expressed his helplessness to deal with the complexities caused by tax havens abroad. The country has been too preoccupied with the growth process and little effort has been made to eradicate the parallel economy. If one were to add the growth of the “black economy” to the growth of regular economy, India could well be the world’s fastest growing country. Estimates vary, but some say the parallel economy today accounts for as much as 50 per cent or more of India’s economic activity. India’s political system is oiled by the black economy. Hardly any political party undertakes a proper audit of its accounts. Politicians are among the richest Indians and they thrive on the so-called cash donations. They hardly pay any taxes. Many political parties in India run today on massive unaccounted cash. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru took steps to end feudalism in India, little realising that democratic India’s politicians would emerge as greater feudals. The net result is that most political parties have become fiefdoms of various families and are controlled by them because of money power. The money used by political parties and political leaders, the new feudal lords, comes from the parallel economy. In short, this is daylight robbery of India’s resources for no tax is paid on these cash transactions. The figures are so staggering that a vast amount of this money is reportedly stashed abroad. Those who own this money do not need it in India. Those who thrive on the parallel economy are the ones who have the money power to indulge in massive hoarding. It makes good economic sense for them to keep their cash in warehouses as commodities instead of keeping bundles of paper. Thus, we have a situation where certain commodities required by the people for their everyday needs – be it sugar or lentils – which would be in short supply because of this black economy. These goods come into the market at high prices. The investor, who has access to parallel economy, makes a still bigger kill with his unaccounted wealth. This in a nutshell is the crux of the problem. No doubt, the forces of demand and supply have had an impact on the current price rise. Will the prices come down? Unlikely for the simple reason that the hoarder is in no hurry to bring goods into the market. For, that is where he has parked his cash. What can the government do? Pretty little. For the vast majority of people involved in this nefarious trade are those who make huge donations to the political system and keep it afloat. No politician will accept this but can they deny that they receive cash donations? This cancer of black economy is now eating into India’s vitals and hurting its people. The politicians keep promising that the prices will come down. It will not. One has to consider why the prices have gone up. The government needs to have the strength and political will to deal with this basic problem. It has to eradicate corruption and black money to ensure that prices remain stable in the long-term. The black money is generated in this country in different ways. Huge amounts of excise and customs duty are evaded everyday in almost every other factory or the Customs House. That also leads to evasion of other taxes on such goods – be it sales tax, value-added tax or income-tax. This can be checked if there is a will on the part of the government The government is making an effort to curb black economy by making a disclosure of the income-tax PAN number for all major financial deals. However, in most Indian bazaars, cash is the king. In property deals, the flow of cash is common knowledge. As prices go up, there are legitimate demands by various sections of people for higher wages. These cannot be denied for long. In the long run, it makes the Indian economy an expensive one. Already there are complaints from foreign investors that India’s labour force is expensive and less productive as compared to China. As the nation pushes ahead to fight poverty and empower the poor with guaranteed jobs, it is bound to release more money into the market. Also, huge investments need to be made in infrastructure and poverty alleviation programmes. We need to devise a system wherein the supply chain grows bigger and where demand does not outstrip supply. Yet another factor responsible for price rise is the globalisation of the economy. As economies of different countries become interdependent and interlocked, prices are affected. Economies are like water and find their own level. For example, once destinations for cheap shopping, Hong Kong and Singapore are today as expensive as London or New York. While steps are being taken to control prices in the short term, the government must embark upon a long-term plan to deal with what ails the Indian economy. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should initiate a process that would ensure that India’s political system is rid of black money and get political parties to submit a yearly audit of their accounts. Dr Singh has often talked about the next Green Revolution. He should make it sure that the supply of essentials outgrows demand. The Centre should then go all out to eliminate the black economy by plugging areas where it flourishes. By all means, do not tax agricultural income. The filing of income-tax returns should be made compulsory for all who earn incomes beyond a certain level from agriculture. The infusion of black money into property deals can be easily checked if the government is sincere about it. The short-term steps that the government is taking to bring down prices will not have long-term impact. As things stand, high prices are here to stay, unless the government deals with the roots of the
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On Record
Bhai Baldeep Singh is a Kirtan Maryada, Dhrupad and Jori exponent, instrument maker and conservator par excellence. He started singing when he was just three years old. He began copying his mother sing and played the dholak. His formal initiation into it came in 1980 through his granduncles, Bhai Gurcharan Singh and Bhai Avtar Singh, the 11th generation exponents of the Sikh Kirtan Maryada of which he is the 13th generation scion. A perfectionist, once he started practicing Gurmat Sangeet, he felt the need to perform it “in the way it was performed in the time of the gurus.” “I wanted to sing with authentic instruments. The gurus used to have custom-made instruments, not standardised ones as are played today. Every instrument was designed to suit the convenience of the performer.” Thus, he embarked upon the whole new journey of instrument making. He crafted and revived instruments like the dhrupadi rabab, taus, saranda and dilruba as well as collaborated with Paul Hart, a renowned bowed instrument maker (to create a new violin based on the Stradivarius violin) and Alain Herou, a Parisian bow-maker (on a new design for the taus). Along the way, he also conserved many rare recordings. He is the proud owner of a collection of over 400 hours’ recording of vintage-value kirtan and has also done a documentary on the Sikh Kirtan Maryada. What inspires him to practice and conserve the varied forms of music? “Each thread of the Phulkari, each colour in the orchard is equally precious”, he tells The Tribune in Jalandhar. Excerpts: Q: What are the common myths about music in Punjab? A: Many. For example the dhadis. They are not just storytellers like commonly perceived these days. The form was essentially a lament or criticism. It had elements of fervour, romance with folk ghodian, lavan and sadh playing through. Q: What is the role of Dhrupad in Gurmat Sangeet? A: The contribution of the gurus to Dhrupad is unparalleled. It evolved at the hands of the Bhakti and Gurbani traditions. Gurbani is the only surviving tradition which still records the singing of Chand and Prabandh which are pre-Dhrupad. Some of the work by the gurus predates the courts. Q: What has the courts' relationship with those practicing Gurbani music been like? A: We were always revered by the courts but never patronised by them. Q: What about the present-day patrons? A: Most patrons today are not well educated and are ignorant about their responsibility towards the culture and heritage. They need to be more respectful to music. Turning music into business is unfair. Q: How is the present scenario of music in Punjab? A: Punjab is an intensive care unit. No one is concerned about culture here. We are lucky to have inherited a heritage which has survived in spite of the apathy and we are still not working to take care of it. Q: What do you think of music-based education in the state? A: Honesty is not the norm. Incorrect raags are passed off as correct ones. Sub-standard instruments are made and I am baffled. Why is it that no academic department or institution of music in Punjab never approach me for a dialogue? Q: Your message to the readers? A: I would request the Punjabis, and the rest of South Asians, to open their eyes and realise the importance of the legacy which has been left behind for them by the Bhakti and Gursikh traditions. Do justice to the fact that we are the present, the ones with the running
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Profile He took premature retirement from the Indian Air Force as Master Warrant Officer and dedicated his life to music. In course of time, he himself became a master composer. It was Kwaja Ahmed Abbas, who gave Kaushik the break as music director in the film Shehaar Aur Sapna. The film won the President’s Gold Medal and the Best Music Director Award from the Bengal Journalists’ Association. Then followed films like Hamara Ghar, Aasman Mahal, Basti Aur Bazar and Saat Hindustant that launched Amitabh Bachchan as hero. Of over 29 regional films, Chandraw (Haryanvi) was a golden jubilee hit. Rajasthani films Darambhai and Laddo Rani also won a lot of praise. Hailing from Rohtak, Kaushik is now 86. He still creates melodies and ensures that folk music remains intact. The need of the hour is to both preserve and promote the rich culture of Haryana. Who is better than Kaushik to do the job? He has been quoted as saying “folk is the language of the masses and we have to preserve the form”. He gives music more shape, form, fresh ideas and beats without killing the soul and spirit. These compositions were recorded and marketed as well. As Kaushik explains, the idea is to give these folk musicians mileage and, of course, a source of livelihood. With a classical background in music, Kaushik has always worked on creating music that can touch both the heart and the soul. He says “the tunes should not only be limited to ears; they should stay on in senses forever”. He often hums hits like Tu Akela Nahin Tere Jaisi Aur Hain and Uth Ja Re Mushafir Bhor hui…Kaushik, who has been working on a new album title, Mausam, appreciates the enthusiasm and experimentation of young musicians but hopes they would also lend some classical and traditional touch to the modern music – the best of both worlds. Kaushik says, earlier film music had elements of folk and classical music, pervasive in film songs which always struck the right cord with listeners and had a longer life but now overnight hits vanish into oblivion with the same velocity they top the chart. Old melodies still reign supreme but today one has to struggle to recall a melody song. There is, however, a vast improvement in technological advancement. Haryanvi folk music remains Kaushik’s first love and its melody is shown through many of his film songs. Despite its earthly appeal and vitality, it has won recognition nationally and internationally. It has now become imperative to preserve its purity and enrich it with technology, he says. The pure Harayanvi folk has not been influenced by Western pop mania. He inherited the music nuances from his grandfather and father. Even while studying at Guad High School, Rohtak, Kaushik was the obvious choice to play harmonium at functions. His music passion grew during his days in the IAF, forcing him to seek premature retirement. The Dadasaheb Phalke Award for lifetime contribution to cinema was instituted in honour of Dadasaheb Phalke by the Government of India in 1969 and is the most prestigious and coveted award in Indian cinema. Phalke, producer-director and screenwriter, is also known as the father of Indian cinema. Starting with his debut film, Raja Harishchandra in 1913, now known as India’s first full-length feature, he made 95 movies and 26 short films in his career span of 19 years till
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