O P I N I O N S

Touchstones
Where are the real gurus, real vidya?
The alarming slide in the state of higher education will have to be taken up as a public cause and steered by honest citizens. The question is: are there any such worthies left?
Ira Pande
Of late, partly because of the distressing situation developing over admissions in Delhi University, my mind often goes back to the time when I was teaching at Panjab University in the 70s and 80s. In those days, the English department enjoyed a somewhat elevated position in the Arts Block area, a fact some attributed to the gorgeous girls that attended our courses.

last word: SMRITI IRANI
The ‘tinsel lady’ shows her mettle
By the quick tackling of the DU-UGC row on the undergraduate programme, HRD Minister Smriti Irani even has her detractors praising her. 
By Aditi Tandon
In her very first month as HRD Minister Smriti Irani has pulled off something many thought she would take months to figure. She has fulfilled the BJP's poll promise of rolling back the controversial Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) which the DU had introduced last year amid stiff resistance from students and teachers.

ground zero
Good start, Rajnath must now push hard and fast
With the small wars turning out to be a major battle, the real challenge for Rajnath would be to bring about greater coordination among the Naxal-afflicted states and quickly resolve turf battles. 
Raj Chengappa
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh appears to have got his priorities right. There are many pressing issues concerning internal security in the country but none as urgent as dealing with Left Wing Extremism (LWE). In 2010, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had described it as the “gravest” and the “biggest” internal security threat faced by the nation.

Touchstones
Where are the real gurus, real vidya?
The alarming slide in the state of higher education will have to be taken up as a public cause and steered by honest citizens. The question is: are there any such worthies left?
Ira Pande

Of late, partly because of the distressing situation developing over admissions in Delhi University, my mind often goes back to the time when I was teaching at Panjab University in the 70s and 80s. In those days, the English department enjoyed a somewhat elevated position in the Arts Block area, a fact some attributed to the gorgeous girls that attended our courses. All day, students from all over the campus would crowd the small parking area in front of the auditorium and twirl their moustaches (real or imagined) at the gaggle of giggling beauties that hung around Arts Block I. We used to call them the Green Revolution Brigade since many of them came from wealthy landowning families and had but a passing interest in what was taught in the classrooms.

This is not to say, however, that we lacked bright students. Many of my erstwhile students are now teaching at prestigious universities across the world, some are high-ranking civil servants and a large number are journalists. One was even a minister in the UPA government. Yet, no matter how well-regarded we were in the region, PU (like so many other institutions then) was always considered a rung lower than Delhi University and JNU. Our colleagues who had studied at these universities considered themselves intellectually superior and ran an exclusive study group, whose doors were shut to those who did not share the same ideological persuasions. I dare say most universities still have such conclaves and continue to exert a certain kind of intellectual terror over mofussil scholars.

I recall this only because of the huge gap between what students need and what is perceived as what they should need. I can hardly recall when I last met a young person who was satisfied with the level of teaching and the quality of campus life available to them in the institution where they studied. When I was in the university, students went abroad to earn a PhD. By the time, I began to teach, they had started to migrate abroad for their postgraduate studies. Another generation later, it was for undergraduate studies and now it is even for schooling. I wonder if parents will one day start enrolling their toddlers for nursery admissions to foreign kindergartens!

This madness has to stop but I do not know if any educationist is seriously concerned at the alarming rate of brain-drain and the social consequences that follow. I am beginning to think that politicians have their own reasons for playing the game their way. Some enterprising person should find out how many politicians set up ‘Trusts’ that run educational institutions for either laundering their filthy lucre or for earning more. The slide in the state of higher education will have to be taken up as a public cause and steered by honest citizens. The question is: are there any such worthies left?

The trouble with the FYUP system began when it was modelled on ‘what is done abroad’. Among its many charms was that it was said to facilitate admissions to foreign universities. From what one gathers now, all kinds of rules and conventions were ignored and the courses drawn up so hurriedly that they invite ridicule from teachers and students alike. One year down, the result seems to have been a serious dumbing-down of what was possibly the finest undergraduate system in the country. Mind you, Delhi University is not the first: the great Presidency College of Calcutta is today a ruined shell of what it once was, thanks to the Left’s meddlesome interference in running its courses and appointing pliable Vice-Chancellors. The story is the same in all other famous Presidency Colleges and universities set up in 1857 by the British to offer Indian students who could not afford foreign universities a chance to earn degrees in India. Allahabad, Aligarh, Madras, Bombay, Calcutta — all these universities lie ruined and destroyed.

It is a truism that universities and higher educational institutions are built as much on the reputation of their faculty members as on the pool of students. Courses, curricula and lectures play their role, of course, but it is the level of students that one teaches that is ultimately the best way to ensure a continuous and competitive edge. If quotas, cronyism and ideological persuasions become the sole means of recruiting teachers and students then what can you expect but second-rate faculty and third-rate students. University campuses have more students hanging out at ‘eating joints’ and malls than in its libraries and lecture rooms. Is this what we send our children to learn? That the end of education is a high-paying job, preferably abroad?

It was once said behind the success of the American campus and its enviable count of Nobel laureates were the Jews who migrated there to escape persecution in Europe. Today, it is Indians, mostly Bengali and Tam-Brahms, who have replaced them. Many are retired and lonely, often homesick. Imagine if they came and preformed a pro bono service for us to revive the Indian university system. I am sure many would respond positively if invited for who does not like to pay back one’s debts? Even our shastras say that the gift of education (vidya daan) is the noblest of all.

last word: SMRITI IRANI
The ‘tinsel lady’ shows her mettle
By the quick tackling of the DU-UGC row on the undergraduate programme, HRD Minister Smriti Irani even has her detractors praising her. 
By Aditi Tandon

In her very first month as HRD Minister Smriti Irani has pulled off something many thought she would take months to figure. She has fulfilled the BJP's poll promise of rolling back the controversial Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) which the DU had introduced last year amid stiff resistance from students and teachers.

The move may have exposed the 38-year-old minister to criticism from some academics who feel DU's autonomy stands compromised, but Smriti has scored a major political goal for her party early in the game. "How the rollback happened is another story. The important bit is it happened. She is a hard nut to crack," says a BJP sympathiser in the know of her moves as the DU-UGC controversy blew over to settle in the latter's favour.

It's this resolve to deliver which her supporters vouch for in India's youngest and 31st HRD Minister, whom PM Narendra Modi handpicked for the coveted portfolio. Smriti too came into office conscious of her obligations to the BJP. She clarified from the word go that she had no personal priorities for the sector.

"All our priorities have been mentioned in our manifesto. We will establish a Central University for Himalayan Technology, a national e-library for teachers and raise public spending on education to 6 per cent of the GDP," she said on June 27 after taking charge. In a month, the FYUP is history and a decision to locate the Himalayan university in Uttarakhand has been taken.

No wonder, even her political adversaries laud her vibrancy. Former HRD Minister MM Pallam says, "I have seen her in the Rajya Sabha. She is very active and articulate. She has the commitment to deliver." Former MoS HRD Shashi Tharoor was another Congress man who was all praise for her.

Personally, Smriti likes to maintain a low profile. She consciously evaded media questioning on the FYUP matter, saying she had no role to play in it and the UGC was engaging with the DU. When coaxed to say something, she retorted, "Don't compel me to breach constitutional propriety." Privately though Smriti was taking regular updates on the issue; even briefing BJP leaders Sidhartha Nath Singh and Nalin Kohli on what to say publicly on the controversy.

"She knows her mind. She is focused. I have seen her functioning from the days she was BJP Mahila Morcha president. She has accomplished so much in such little time. It speaks volumes about her competence," says Anurag Thakur, BJP youth wing president.

It has taken her just a decade to reach where she is today. She joined the BJP in 2004, contested against former HRD Minister Kapil Sibal from Chandni Chowk the same year and lost; became BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Gujarat and later the party's Mahila Morcha chief and vice-president during Nitin Gadkari's presidentship of the party. Most recently, she was BJP's chosen challenger for Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi.

It was known all along that even if she lost the election, she would bag a major role in the Cabinet if the BJP cruised to power. Seen as part of Modi's inner circle, leaders speak of how he trusted her to engage with industry when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister. "She is rated as a very effective communicator," says a BJP leader, referring to how she is now being called Sushma Swaraj of the Modi camp.

But RSS leaders differ. "Smriti was chosen for this ministry because she is young and dynamic and comes with no baggage. She can take bold decisions," says one.

That apart, her remarkable rise remains a topic of discussion within and outside the BJP, considering she was once a McDonald's outlet worker, a model and TV star "Tulsi" in "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi".

Writer Madhu Kishwar, the first to question Smriti's educational credentials, says, "I have nothing against her. I hardly know her except that I was once a guest on a TV show she hosted. On the matter of principle, the HRD Minister cannot be a 12th pass and she can't make false declarations about being a BCom graduate when she is not."

Smriti, however, remains unfazed by controversies that have stalked her into the ministry. "Judge me by my work," was all she said when questions were raised about her qualifications. Like Modi, Smriti too has ensured insulation from the media. Her office in New Delhi's Shastri Bhavan is out of bounds for mediapersons, unlike in the past when walk-in was routine. Now prior appointment is a norm and cell phones are barred inside her room.

That's not to say she's not working hard. An HRD officer points out, "She's a quick learner. She is in by 9 am and stays until 9 pm." Ministry staffers recall the surprise visit she paid to them a day after she joined. "Never has a minister visited us in the past. We were pleasantly surprised," says a woman HRD staffer, admitting she finds it difficult to dissociate Smriti the minister from Tulsi the actor. "It will take time," she says.

For her part, she has in the past spoken of how her party never judged her for what she is — daughter of a Punjab-Bengali couple; wife of a Parsi; someone who left Delhi at a young age to seek a life in the tinsel town but ended up in power circles. "You cannot command destiny, can you?" asks a BJP leader.