The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

ARTICLE

The cut-off chaos
Is it demographic dividend or disaster-in-waiting?
by Surendra Kumar

Around this time every year thousands of anxious and nervous students scramble to seek admissions in well-known colleges in Delhi. Some are lucky; they get what they wanted and feel being on cloud nine. But the majority is left disappointed, frustrated, angry and bitter. Parents feel equally miserable. Times have changed. Now even 95% marks don't guarantee admission in a prestigious college of Delhi University; some principals boast how they have rejected even those who scored 100%! Is all this done in the name of maintaining the highest standard of education?

A university which doesn't figure on the list of 150 top universities in the world(four Chinese universities figure among top 50 universities) wants to maintain its standards by rejecting students obtaining less than 95% marks ! Let one of the universities rise to grab the 95th place in the world first before showing off misplaced vanity of maintaining high standard of education.

To some, it is just a simple phenomenon of demand and supply. If a college has 50 seats and is flooded with 2,000 applications, it can afford to reject even those who scored 100% marks; there are just no seats available. Who is to blame? Isn't it an artificially created shortage? Or a result of decades long neglect? What has prevented the government from setting up more universities in the last 60 years? If China has over 2,500 universities, going by the population, should India not have around 1,500 at least?

What about the universities themselves? Since Independence, how many seats have they added? Does it compare well with the explosion in students' population? In terms of total number of seats available, many universities, IITs and colleges have shown very modest expansion.

Their false sense of pride in their standards is playing havoc with youth. We never get tired of claiming demographic dividend which many countries don't have. But if we keep on adding millions of rejected, dejected, demoralised students filled with self-doubt and faced with an uncertain and unhappy future without prospects of gainful employment, we are sitting on a minefield ready to explode. There is only a very thin dividing line between demographic dividend and demographic disaster.

Some old myths need to be broken. There is no empirical study to suggest that those who scored 98%-100% marks have a higher potential to be better administrators/ academics/ lawyers/ diplomats/ writers/ politicians/media personalities/successful business entrepreneurs than those who don't. Kushwant Singh, Natwar Singh, Mani Shankar Aiyar, Salman Khursheed, Shashi Tharoor, Swapan Dasgupta, Amitav Ghosh, Upmanyu Chatterjee, Shekhar Kapoor, Dilip Cherian, to name just a few, might not have scored 100% marks but have risen to great heights in their respective fields. So, why create a whole generation of young and bright students developing an inferiority complex just because they didn't score 98-100% marks? There ought to be some more scientific, rational and fair system of evaluation of an individual's real potential than the marks in examinations.

The legendary Dean of Kellogg School of Management in the US, Dr Donald Jacobs, publicly stated that he had told the HRD Minister of India, more than once, that with the present infrastructure and faculty strength, each Indian IIT could take four times more students than they presently did. But the IITs weren't willing to buy his argument; they, he told, quipped: "We can't lower our standards!" He strongly felt that with the huge pool of students who apply for admissions, the student who was placed on the 500th place was as capable of handling the studies as those who figure among the first 10! Some bold steps can ameliorate the situation.

It is high time the Supreme Court took sue motto cognizance of the cut-off chaos and debarred boards/institutions from awarding such high percentages. The current system of marking facilitates high scores. The government must set up more universities with modern teaching tools, flexible courses, stressing studies which develop an individual's character, integrity, moral and ethical fibre, and sharpens all-round intellectual capability; analytical and assimilating ability, imaginative and innovative thinking, social awareness, discipline and a sense of service to the nation. In brief, students should turn out as holistically developed, responsible, focussed, socially aware citizens who will serve not only themselves and their families but also the nation.

All students need not flock to universities; there should be a number of vocational training institutes in each state which should impart vocational training keeping in mind the industries in the state and their requirements. This will generate employment opportunities and meet industry's need for technically trained personnel. The American Community College system is worth a serious consideration.

As the Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, Dr Sam Pitroda used to point out that the time for the conventional universities with classrooms, blackboards and professors has passed. When complete courses from some of the most prestigious universities like the MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Wharton are just a click away and are totally free, why not embrace and promote this teaching method to help millions of Indian students? MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) can offer a solution to extreme shortages of places in conventional universities.

Again, the Supreme Court should debar the universities from insisting on percentage marks as the basis of admission. Most of the American and British universities follow the grade system and still command worldwide prestige for high standards and occupy high positions on the list of top universities. For example, for admission in Cambridge University, UK, an applicant should have A grade in three subjects. At the London School of Economics, one needs B grade in three subjects to get in. At Kellogg, there is a threshold of the minimum marks in GMAT for admission but there is no maximum cut-off. In a particular year, anyone scoring 650 marks out of 800 in GMAT might get admission at Kellogg. In other words, he/she will not be denied admission just because some others might have scored 700 or 750 marks! Their results show, this practice has not affected their academic standards adversely. So, why should it happen otherwise in India?

The allocation of funds for education in India has gone up over the years but is still relatively low. If the future of the nation supposedly depends on the youth, we must allocate higher funds for imparting quality education, both at the primary and university levels. In China, in 1998, President Jiang Zemin laid great emphasis on creating world-class universities as it was considered crucial for national economic and social development strategies. We ought to assign much high priority to education in India.

The prevailing conditions of primary education in rural India are dismal; thousands of schools don't even have basic facilities; teachers don't turn up and children from poor families drop out by the age of 10. The right to education will remain a well-intentioned and significant step in the right direction but won't produce the kind of impact it must because of its half-hearted implementation. Even after the Supreme Court's judgement asking all private schools to set aside 25% seats for children from the financially disadvantaged families, there is an extreme reluctance to fall in line. So, while thousands of students don't get admission in degree courses on account of the high cut-off marks, hundreds of thousands don't get even decent primary education, to begin with.

Can a country tipped to become the third largest economy in the world in 20 years afford it?

The writer is a former diplomat

MIDDLE

The boy with magical smile
by Harish Dhillon

He came to me in Lower Five- Class XI. He was extremely shy and quiet which was not surprising because he came from a rural background and had never been exposed to the cosmopolitan environment that the school offered. He had a dark sombre face and wore a perpetually brooding look. But just once in a while he would smile with a smile so radiant that it would light up the entire world for me. I tried to encourage him to smile more often by trying to make a joke of it, using the singing of the birds and the monsoon showers.

Most attempts to draw him out only resulted in a greater withdrawal. But I had an advantage over the others because I took him not only for regular classes but also for a two-hour afternoon session that I conducted for all government scholars.

Some kind of bonding did result because by some tacit, unspoken agreement I went down to Barnes to see all his soccer matches and whenever he made an outstanding move with the ball, which was very often because he was a wizard at soccer, he would turn to where I sat on the parapet and flash me that magical smile and light up my world.

He didn't return to school after the Founders. No one knew why. His absence troubled me more than I thought it would and when a few weeks later someone was driving up to Shimla, I took a lift till Kaithlighat.

I found the village. I found the house. But I did not find him. He had been taken to Delhi for treatment for a psychiatric problem.

The years passed. I thought often of him and then one day I caught a bus to Shimla and was at his village again. It was winter and he sat in the sun, a shawl around his shoulders, his face more gaunt and brooding than ever before. He looked closely at me once but there was no recognition. Life took its course and though I thought of him often I did not go to see him again.

Then a few years ago, on my way back from Shimla, I asked the driver to stop above his village. The sky was heavy with rain clouds and as I walked down the bridle path I realised the futility of what I was doing. It would be like last time, it was like last time. He just sat there, staring into space. Then the rain came in a sudden sharp torrent. For a fleeting moment that magical smile lit up his face and lit up my entire world. He held up his index finger in imitation of me, and said:

"The rain."

My heart lurched, a lump came to my throat and the tears sprang to my eyes. My arms ached with the need to hold him tight and reach across those wasted years. But the moment passed. He looked at me again with that blank, uncomprehending look and then wordlessly left the room.

OPED WOMEN

A considerable improvement is witnessed in the reporting of crimes against women like rape and molestation. But, a majority of Indian women still prefer to exercise silence over issues of domestic violence, a cause behind major health problems
Domestic grammar of violence
Vandana Shukla

Battered: Domestic violence is a major deterrent to women’s empowerment

Confiding her trauma to a researcher, a 45-year-old homemaker said that once when her son caught her crying he commented, “At least Papa doesn’t beat you up! Why do you cry?” Later, he told her that his best friend’s father would beat up his wife, so it was okay if his father just shouts and hurls abuses at her. At least he doesn’t raise his hand!

This woman had developed high B.P., thyroid problems and peptic ulcer. She knew something in her was dying, but was unable to articulate it.

Domestic violence is a reality one in three women globally experience -- from an ordinary home maker to celebrities like Nigella Lawson, whose market worth runs into £ 23 million. Her equally rich and famous husband, art collector Charles Saatchi, assaulted her in public by grabbing her throat and twisting her nose. The act caught by paparazzi cameras went viral on the internet and was ridiculed by thousands for Saatchi’s hypocrisy, when he tired to brush the episode aside as a ‘playful tiff.’

Women across social divide put up with violence as a way of life that comes from hyper-masculinity of their men. But when educated, empowered women like Nigella continue to take violence passively, at home and even in a public space, unless it triggers a public debate, it baffles social scientists. It also raises questions whether the social norms are influenced by cultural histories more or by the influences of modernism working at various levels in a society.

Studies have shown that nearly one-third of Indian women who experience domestic violence have thought about running away from that family but fear of leaving their young children and having nowhere any place to go prevent them to do so.
— Quoted in a study conducted by the United Nations

Domestic violence works both ways. When it is physical, its victims bear the testimony on their bodies; broken limbs, burn marks, bleeding nose etc. These abusive instances sometimes get reported to the police and the culprit gets socially ostracised for violent behaviour. But, the other kind of violence that plagues millions of Indian homes has the sanction of our patriarchal structure. It is psychological in nature and the victims of this violence burn at both ends. The verbal and psychological violence involves the educated middle class women, who are too petrified of losing the good name of the family by exposing their trauma in public. This pushes them into the category of silent victims. Their silence also emboldens their tormentor, who often happens to be the husband or members of the family of the in- laws. The second kind of violence does not get reported either in a police station or in a hospital -- reporting psychological disorders is still a taboo in our society. The victim does not receive sympathy because the signs of violence are not visible on her body and the perpetrator of this refined violence does not receive chiding. Which, in turn emboldens him to sharpen his tools of violence—making them more vituperative and scathing.

Fact and fiction

Not only in India, domestic violence is grossly underreported globally- in surveys as well as in filing a report to the police. A study by Sreeparna Ghosh, of the University of Anglia, that appeared in the beginning of this year showed the huge gap that exists between what is reported in the national surveys such as the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3 -2005-2006) and the figures available from the police’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

To begin with, the disparity in reporting of domestic violence between the NFHS-3 and NCRB (2009) ranges from a difference of around 6 per cent for Himachal Pradesh to a high of 58 per cent in Bihar – that is, in Bihar, half of domestic violence cases reported in surveys are not reported to the police. Even southern India with supposedly greater gender ‘fairness’ is found to have large gaps in reporting of domestic violence(44 per cent in Tamil Nadu, 32 per cent in Andhra Pradesh and 20 per cent in Karnataka). The states known for rigid patriarchy like Punjab, Haryana and UP hide many more untold horror stories of violence women suffer at home.

Even within the national survey, the severity of violence is likely to be underemphasised because the correlation between injuries sustained as a result of domestic violence varies very little between ‘severe’ and ‘less severe’ instances of abuse. In other words, those reporting ‘less severe’ abuse may in fact be suffering far more. The limitation of nomenclature is often read as the limitation of a victim’s suffering.

For the most part, instances of domestic violence reported by women in national surveys never make it to the police or the courts, for reasons well known to the Indian society. While this in itself is not surprising, what is surprising is the extent of this deficit. Whereas a considerable improvement is seen in reporting cases of other crimes against women like rape and molestation, majority of Indian women prefer to exercise silence over matters of domestic violence. They prefer to suffer in silence rather than face the social ignominy, for no fault of theirs.

A crime has to have a proof

Domestic violence is also a violation of human rights, but it rarely gets reported as a crime. It is a manifestation of inequality within the home that refuses to come to terms with changing social reality of gender equality. Contrary to the general belief, violence faced by women in intimate relationships is neither restricted to certain social sections nor is it manifested only in its physical form. It can be - physical, emotional, sexual, economic and verbal. A woman may face violence of any one kind, two or in combination of all of them.

The worst kind of violence women face in a domestic situation is expressed through a strategy of silence and non-communication, a rejection of their role in the family structure. It erodes their self-esteem to such an extent that rarely is the victim able to identify the problem and so it is all the more difficult for a third party to intervene in such cases. Reporting such violence to the police is unthinkable in the Indian setting. A senior bank personnel’s daughter driven to the verge of committing suicide by her husband’s violence of silence and verbal abuse alternately, elicited a response from her father that fits the patriarchal design, “I fail to understand her problem, she gets food and shelter in that house, what else does she want?” The case was put up by Lawyers for Human Rights International, Chandigarh. Such responses are based on hard-to-change premises; a woman can’t live by herself hence she must put up with all kinds of violence, two, a woman has no life without a man in her life, howsoever abusive he may be.

The case represents a prototype family set up where women are not supposed to cross a certain line. It also answers why domestic violence does not get accounted in NCRB data.

While men can subject their women to violence for their ever stretchable demands — that may begin with desire to have unlimited consumer goods in dowry to good looks of the bride to her ability to beget sons only and to be obedient etc., a woman on her part is not supposed to raise her voice even when her rights are violated.

A strange mix of social, psycho-social and economic issues are involved in such situations. Indian men grow up internalising traditional views of male superiority. When they fail to acquire the desired status or prominence in social life, career etc. they try to compensate it by trying to control their domestic life. Another situation occurs when this man enjoys a high status at work along with the sycophancy that accompanies it. He wants to be treated as a ‘boss’ at home, unable to leave behind the ‘halo’ and ‘aura’ of the workplace. As a result he tortures his wife finding a sadistic pleasure in crushing her personality.

Most sufferers of violence come from a background where they have seen a dominating father or a brother and perhaps a submissive mother. They find similar reference points when they look around; their neighbours, relatives and friends have all been ‘tolerant’ and advice her to do the same. In a patriarchal set-up, the higher a woman’s tolerance levels, the greater is her capacity for self-sacrifice, this virtue earns her a place of pitiable existence in domesticity. It also makes her a soft target of violence. Even though there are laws that offer women protection against violence at home, they do not exercise these rights for the sake of protecting the family.

Retribution of violence

Violence begets violence. The overbearing mother- in- law syndrome bears a testimony to it. The tormentor and the tormented become complementary— like two halves of a bracket. Violence at home creates a chain reaction —it damages children emotionally and psychologically, leaving life-long scars. Its gravity is undermined because it is not as dramatic as the criminal act of a rape, it has the capacity of dehumanise a family.

Domestic violence is a serious social issue, it validates gender inequality. It calls for a deeper understanding of the institution of family that is facing never- seen- before kind of structural changes with disintegration of values, changing gender roles, migration and an aggressive intervention of consumerism in private spheres.

Because violence is treated as a male prerogative in a super- macho society like ours, when women acquire the role of the tormentor and men become the tormented it invites ridicule. Through popular culture like films to hundreds of jokes taking rounds through sms, subdued men are ridiculed and so are dominant women in a marriage. Though society is maturing to accept the existence of organisations like ‘Confidare’ that offers safe house for battered men in Banglore to the ‘Harassed Husbands Associations’ across metros and smaller towns like Chandigarh, or ‘Save Indian Family Foundation.’ These organisations should be viewed as distress calls for taking the enormity of the problem triggered by domestic violence. Violence is a disease and it should be treated clinically, like a disease, without ostracising men and pitying women.

Laws and some glaring facts about domestic violence

Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 (PWDVA)- it entitles women facing violence in intimate relationships to access the courts of law for civil relief in the form of "Stop Violence" orders.

The new WHO report finds that violence against women is a global health problem of epidemic proportions.

37.7 per cent of Asian women are abuse victims, the highest in the world.

30 per cent women across world face beatings or rape, most often by own partners.

1 in 3 women globally is a victim of sexual or physical attack.

38 per cent of female murder victims are killed by husbands or boyfriends.