The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

ARTICLE

Badal raises issue of ‘Sikh black list’
Digging the past may not serve any purpose
Kuldip Nayar

The Sikhs are a small, sturdy community in India. Since it is limited in size, it is very protective about its identity. It often over-reacts but that is the sign of its assertion that it does not want to be taken cursorily.

Punjab, the community’s home state, has witnessed many “morchas” (movements) of the Sikhs. But if one were to probe every movement of theirs one would infer that its search for identity had propelled the community to defy the authorities.

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has said that he will take up the Sikh “black list” with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to conclude the cases against them and to get the release of Sikh “convicts” who had served the sentence awarded to them.

No one will take exception to that. But one would think that the point which was settled in 1990 was being unnecessarily raised. I mean the demonstrations by the Sikhs abroad against Operation Bluestar, which led to the entry of the Indian armed forces into the Golden Temple, the Sikhs' Vatican. Some other methods should have been adopted to flush out the militants from Akal Takht, the Sikhs' highest authority. Sending forces inside the temple was a wrong step. And even though the government has apologised for it, that does not condone the mistake. Some heads should have rolled at the political as well as administrative level.

But since the top Congress leaders were involved in ordering the armed forces to go inside the temple, none was punished. Even the official reports on the subject are biased and one-sided.

Badal has raised the question of the “Sikh list” to tell the community that when it comes to the question of justice to the Sikhs, only a Sikh can help them. This is unfair and the purpose is to garner the Sikh vote. Badal, heading the Akali Dal, is understandably placating the Sikh community. But in the process, he is polarising society, neither in the interest of the Sikhs nor that of Punjabis.

I do not think that there is any Sikh list now. This was true till 1990 when as India's High Commissioner I got the list scrapped with the help of officials from the Home Ministry and the Intelligence Bureau whom I had invited to London. The officers spent one week in London and practically scrapped the list.

I recall scrapping the list of 100-odd Sikhs who were blacklisted merely because they had raised the slogan of Khalistan in the front of India's High Commission in London.

The High Commission's front gate was closed following Operation Bluestar when the Army entered the Golden Temple at Amritsar. A British policeman stood guard outside while an Indian security man responded from within to whoever rang the bell, by opening a little window in the gate and sizing up the caller. The turbaned ones were often asked to come by the back door and not necessarily treated well.

I do now know how digging the past serves any purpose except that the matter gets more tangled and more communalised. There is enough of bad blood between the two communities. The effort should be how to oust the poison that has got injected into the blood of the two communities. It is a pity that very little effort is being made these days in this field.

In the late eighties, there was a Punjab group, headed by Inder Kumar Gujral before he joined the government, to make concerted efforts to bring the two communities closer. In fact, when Gujral offered me the assignment at London, he said that he was keen to fill the cleavage that had developed between Hindus and Sikhs following the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

I had never been part of official diplomacy because I was an active journalist. But when he said that I could do something to bring the two communities together, I thought that I should try to do whatever I could do in this direction.

Therefore when I occupied the position of High Commissioner, my job was to explain that New Delhi was prepared to transfer all subjects to the state except the three. And the impression about New Delhi being against the Sikh community was not correct. It did not trust me because there was no love lost between the High Commission and the Sikh community.

When I became the High Commissioner, I found to my horror that the Sikhs were not allowed to enter the building premises through the main door. The security man would see through the aperture at the main door whether the entrant was a Sikh or not. If he was, he was asked to come through the back door. The explanation given by the commission's official was that they did not want the terrorist to enter the building.

When I asked that it was not written on anybody’s face whether he was a terrorist or not, the reply was that the Sikhs could not be trusted because many among them were militants and supporters of the Khalistan demand.

I ordered the opening of the gates straightaway. Pat was the protest by the committee of secretaries to the Government of India that I would be personally responsible if anything happened to the staff. Nothing happened after the opening of the gates. It was a bogey which the biased officials had created against the Sikh community in the UK.

The problem is not as simple as Badal's Sikh list. Both communities have to find the reason for suspicion and bias. Its removal will serve the purpose, not any particular list.

MIDDLE

Taking a mango call
Aneet Kanwal Randhawa

It was one of his periodic visits to a nearby town to buy groceries and other stuff. He was done with the groceries and had also bought his quota of liquor. As usual, he had crossed his means of spending by a whisker, which were clearly demarcated, being a small farmer, the only category of farmers left in his state. He could count on his fingertips the meager sum that was left in his pocket which would cater for the bus fare and some paltry sum beyond that.

As he was heading towards boarding the bus, his eyes fell on a fruit "rehri". September was fast approaching and mangoes were already becoming a rare sight. Yet the Chausa variety he spotted was as much a feast for the eyes as it would be for the soul. He very well understood that since the fruit was on its way out, it would come at an exorbitant price.

The sight of the fruit transformed his thoughts towards his ailing mother whose fondness for the fruit was well known to him. Yet as far as he could recall, mother had always fed on mango stones left after feeding him and his siblings and yet exhibited an aura of contentment, so much a motherly attribute. But the fruit evoked a sense of nostalgia in her and she would vividly start recalling her formative years spent in the company of her friends during the festival of Teej and relishing the fruit at her paternal place. Those were the times when means were few and needs even less and such small pleasures of life were no luxury.

Cancer, which had become the bane of his state, would soon take its toll on his mother. She may not live long enough to relish the next season's mango crop. And yet he was in a dilemma about shopping for the fruit owing to his frugal means, although, he could very much visualise the overjoyed countenance of his mother on the sight of the fruit.

Then his thoughts moved on towards his skewed priorities. His late father had continued using his glasses scratched to opacity for want of replacement. He fed on a semi-liquid diet for want of a denture. There were so many other small requirements of his father which he continually deferred sometimes for want of money and sometimes for no valid reason. Finally, as his father left him, he had nothing but repentance for his deference, which soon fizzled out as life moved on.

It was more or less the same as far as his mother was concerned. He had given her the best possible treatment for her ailment within his means and yet had faltered on many counts. Yet the thought of treating her to the choicest Chausa mangoes, which might be her last, highly appealed him. The treatment for her ailment may not yield the desired result, but a mango feast for her would be instantly gratifying. He could form a divine connect through the gratifying persona of her mother. That was enough for him to take a call.

Finally, he bought the exorbitantly prized mangoes in quantity which his paltry sum could procure and went on to board the bus for his village with flashes of his mother's gratifying persona.

Oped-EDUCATION

Universities need India centric ranking
India's continued poor performance in educational rankings comes in the background of working towards National Knowledge Network. Many countries put resources into improving the global profile and performance of their universities. Should India care for these rankings or should we have our own ranking system?
B.S. Ghuman

For assessing the performance of the Indian universities, we need a ranking methodology which is governed by the issues and challenges of our higher education system.

In ancient times, two Indian universities, Nalanda and Takshashila were among the top ranking universities across the world. These were epicenters of quality education like present day Oxford and Harvard; attracting international students from countries like Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey. The famous treatise of Arthashastra by Kautilya is said to be compiled in Takshashila. At present, however, none of the Indian universities figures in the first top 200 universities of the world. In the Times Higher Education Ranking Survey of World Universities, only two universities, namely, Panjab University, Chandigarh, and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, figured in the group ranked between 275-300. President of India in his recent address through National Knowledge Network expressed his serious concerns about the low performance of Indian universities and stressed on new initiatives for enabling the Indian universities to find a place among first 200 universities.

The low ranking of Indian universities suggests something is seriously ailing our universities. It seems a facile generalisation, otherwise how do we explain the outstanding contribution of our alumni within India and abroad in areas like fundamental research, management, information technology, that includes the Silicon Valley? These simple facts certainly point to strengths of the Indian universities and also question the efficacy of global methodologies employed by the ranking agencies like The Times Higher Education, Shanghai University and QS. The methodologies show a bias in favour of advanced countries. For example, in some of the surveys, alumnus and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals in Mathematics, academic reputation surveys, papers published in Nature or Science, proportion of international students etc. are given sizeable weightage. Countries like India suffer on these parameters. It is only rarely that a Nobel Prize and a Field Medal are awarded to scholars of the third world. These two indicators together are given 30% weightage in case of Shanghai Ranking.

The challenges to higher education in India are much different from advanced countries. Therefore, for assessing the performance of the Indian universities, we need a ranking methodology which is governed by the issues and challenges of our higher education system. Prime Minister of India, Minister, HRD and Chairperson, UGC have already called for evolving India specific methodology.

The major issues and challenges relating to higher education are of moderate quality barring few Centres of Excellence, low access, and inequity. The access to higher education is 18% against 100% in Korea and 95% in the USA. Besides being low it is highly inequitable across gender, location and socio-religious groups. Additional issues include weak networking among Indian universities; lack of trusted institutional mechanism for university-industry and society interface; over-emphasis on lecture based teaching pedagogy; and fragile cultural diversity in many campuses.

The suggested methodology should also include the identification of parameters, which have the potential of taking leading Indian universities among top world universities.

Providing a scope for improving our global ranking by keeping India specific issues in mind, 45 calibrated performance indicators are suggested for ranking the Indian universities. These are classified into 11 key areas. The significance of each area is shown in the table.

Quality of teaching and learning outcomes (25%)

For assessing the quality of teaching and learning outcomes, the indicators to be factored into are: (i) teacher-taught ratio (5)%; (ii) teaching pedagogy combining traditional lecture based method, problem solving, experiential learning, student seminars, field based learning and use of ITC (3%); (iii) teachers having completed qualifying degree from other universities (2%); and (iv) adjunct faculty (1%); (v) choice -based credit system (3%); (vi) ratio of continuous assessment and terminal examination (3%); (vii) percentage of students with first division (3%); and (viii) students' feedback (5%).

Curriculum development and revision (5%)

For making our courses relevant to emerging needs of the economy and society, the recommended indicators include: (i) introducing new courses in tune with market/research surveys (2%); (ii) major restructuring of curriculum on regular intervals (2%); and (iii) involvement of stakeholders particularly alumni and industry in curriculum development (1%).

Quality of research (25%)

For incentivizing the universities for undertaking fundamental, policy, applied and evaluative research the major indicators include: (i) papers per teacher published in blind peer review journals normalized subject wise (5%); (ii) citation index/ research impact measuring frequency of published work cited by researchers across the globe and research's accumulated influence to drive action (10%); (iii) grants per teacher for major national and international projects (3%); (iv) productions, concerts, performance, art works, creative writings per teacher of participating disciplines (1%); (v) patents per teachers of the participating departments (2%); (vi) inter-disciplinary projects (2%); and (vii) Research Awards conferred by National/State Funding institutions (2%).

Social inclusion (10%)

For measuring the performance of Indian universities for promoting social inclusion, indicators can be: (i) percentage of rural students (2%); (ii) percentage of girl students (2%); (iii) percentage of minority students (2%); (iv) percentage of reserved categories including handicap students (2%); and (v) percentage of first generation learners (2%).

Balanced growth (5%)

Top ranking universities should strive for a balanced growth. The suggested indicators include: (i) percentage of Social Science and Humanities students (2%); (ii) percentage of Basic Sciences' students (2%); and (iii) percentage of inter-disciplinary courses' students (1%).

Indianess (5%)

The Indian universities have Centres for Excellence which hardly collaborate with each other. The cultural diversity in the universities needs to be encouraged in the new methodology by having indicators: (i) collaborations in teaching and research/inter-varsity knowledge clusters (2%); (ii) percent of students from other states/UTs (2%); and (iii) percent of faculty from other States/UTs (1%).

University- industry, government and civil society linkages (5%)

The university-industry, government and civil society partnership bridges the gap between academia and market; engages in innovations and transfer of knowledge; and promotes student internships. The performance indicators in this regard can be: (i) industry funded research project grants/income per teacher of participating disciplines (2%); (ii) outcome of technology incubation centres (1%); (iii) exchange of faculty and professionals (1%); and (iv) students' internships with industry, governments, civil society, courts, etc. (1%).

Outreach programmes (5%)

A number of universities in India remain confined to their walls, keeping this in view the recommended performance indicators comprise: (i) percentage of research projects relating to local community (2%); (ii) awareness programmes relating to health, environment, sanitation, low sex ratio, corruption, crime against women, drug abuse, etc. (1%); (iii) undertaking literacy programmes (1%); and (iv) involvement in disaster management programmes (1%).

Employability (7.5%)

In the Indian context there is wide gap between the skills formed in the universities and skills required by the market resulting in low employability ranging from 25% in case of professional courses to below 10% for arts graduates. In an economy having demographic dividends, preparing the students for market should be one of the priorities of the universities. For judging employability, performance indicators are: (i) institutional arrangements like Central Placement Cells/ Finishing Schools for honing students' skills for jobs (2%); (ii) percentage of students in vocational and job oriented courses (2%); and (iii) overall employability (3.5%).

International reach (5%)

Earlier, a large number of students from Africa, Middle East, East and South Asian countries were coming to the Indian universities. Settings up of universities in home countries and foreign exchange distress have resulted in a visible dip in the number of international students. Some universities are still getting international students. The number of foreign collaborations by the Indian university is on the increase. Good numbers of students are coming to India for internships. Keeping these considerations in view, indicators suggested for international reach are: (i) proportion of international students (1%); (ii) proportion of international faculty (1%); (iii) international partnerships in research and teaching including Joint/Dual Degree Programmes (2%); and (iv) international student internships (1%).

Accreditation (2.5%)

Regular accreditation holds the key to excellence. In India the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and National Board of Accreditation (NBA) are two accreditation agencies. Unfortunately their efforts have not yielded expected results as accreditation has been a voluntary activity till recently. In this light 2.5% weightage is suggested to all the universities which have received Grade B and above.

Overall rank of a university

For developing an overall rank of a university based on above-mentioned performance indicators, a standardized methodology by using suitable statistical techniques need to be followed.

Role of the universities and government

In most universities teachers are driven by their professional accomplishments. They spend maximum time on academic works. They eschew from participating in the meetings for devising strategies for marketing the achievements of the universities. Thus we have very impressive achievements of our faculty but we fail to project properly the macro accomplishments in the absence of an institutional mechanism for collating achievements. For marketing, the cumulative achievements of the universities, each university should either set up its own Cell for Performance Ranking or outsource this work. According to Mr. Phil Baty, Editor, The Times Higher Education Ranking, many countries invest resources for improving the performance of their universities. India should also emulate this practice by investing adequate resources for improving ranking of the Indian universities.

Disadvantaged or misjudged?

India now has close to 700 universities; central, state, private and deemed.

Barring the private ones, most universities have similar subjects and course structures.

The extent of specialisation is limited among Indian universities.

There is more growth in engineering and technology institutes, investment in the growth of humanities has been ignored in the higher education.

The IITs have said the method of ranking is loaded against their system.

Of the five criteria used in ranking - teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income - it is only on the last criterion that Indian universities face some disadvantage.

The writer is Professor at Department of Public Administration, Panjab University, Chandigarh. He has co-edited a book on higher education titled, Higher Education in India: The Changing Scenario.