The dismantling of our schooling system
Months after India received Independence, the nation was nonetheless engulfed in excessive communal propaganda and violence. Weeks earlier than Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu communalist consumed by the hate propaganda, Jawaharlal Nehru delivered (on 13 December 1947) the convocation handle on the diamond jubilee of Allahabad College.
He spoke of the position of universities in constructing a secular, democratic India the place “communalism, separatism, isolationism, untouchability, bigotry and exploitation of man by man haven’t any place, and, whereas faith is free, it’s not allowed to intervene with the political and financial features of a nation’s life.”
On the place of universities, he stated: “A college stands for humanism. For tolerance, for purpose, for the journey of concepts and the seek for reality… If universities discharge their responsibility adequately, then it’s properly with the nation and the folks. But when the temple of studying itself turns into a house of slim bigotry and petty goals, how, then, will a nation prosper or a folks develop in stature?”
These phrases are inscribed underneath the magnificent statue of Nehru, sculpted by Biman Das and put in within the college named after him — Jawaharlal Nehru College or JNU, in New Delhi.
For many years, Indian universities tried to implement the Nehruvian dream. Impartial establishments of studying sprang up everywhere in the nation, and a good quantity received international recognition. My college JNU, arrange a number of years after Nehru handed away, tried, from its very inception, to institutionalise Nehruvian concepts of fearless unbiased thought, a scientific and secular ethos and equal alternative for all.
In its admissions coverage, it factored in disabilities rising from caste, class and regional backwardness. It demonstrated that affirmative motion, giving alternatives to the disadvantaged, doesn’t compromise requirements. JNU quickly started to be rated, each in India and overseas, as the very best college within the nation.
It’s this schooling system that’s now underneath assault from the Hindutva ecosystem — and after 2014, when the BJP got here to energy with an absolute majority on the Centre, the assault has taken on a most virulent kind.
Traditionally, all authoritarian and fascist forces have concentrated their assault on universities as a result of these are nurseries of free pondering. In his memoirs, Peter Drucker, the well-known administration guru, discusses why and the way Hitler and the Nazis attacked Frankfurt College in Germany, which he needed to go away as soon as the repression began.
‘Frankfurt was the primary College the Nazis tackled, exactly as a result of it was probably the most self-confidently liberal of main German universities, with school that prided itself on its allegiance to scholarship, freedom of conscience and democracy… Its social science school, one of many best and freest on this planet, was just about worn out in a single day… The Nazis knew that management of Frankfurt College would imply management of German academia.’
The assault on the Indian schooling system follows the Nazi playbook. It isn’t stunning as a result of the Hindutva ideologues — folks like Golwalkar, who headed the RSS, and Savarkar, who headed the Hindu Mahasabha — had nice admiration for the Fascists led by Mussolini and the Nazis led by Hitler.
Shortly after the Hindutva forces got here to energy on the Centre in 2014, articles started to appear of their journals sharply criticising JNU, which was ranked repeatedly — by the federal government too — as the highest college within the nation.
On 12 February 2016, inside weeks of the appointment of an RSS-aligned vice-chancellor, JNU got here underneath an orchestrated assault, abetted by propagandist media, which not solely cooked up a faux narrative however did worse to make the lies stick. Our college students Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya had been arrested — after which jailed. Kanhaiya was overwhelmed up in police custody.
There was no let-up within the marketing campaign to vilify the college and crush dissent by any means doable. College and college students who dared to talk up have been focused — chargesheeted for taking part in a peaceable silent march throughout lunch hour; refused permission to go overseas, even to obtain prestigious awards; their pensions and different advantages withheld.
Regardless of all this, JNU college students and college have continued to battle again. Over 200 circumstances had been filed towards the college in Delhi Excessive Courtroom; most had been finally received, however at what price?!
For the reason that resistance couldn’t be crushed, the hassle now’s to vary the combination of scholars and college. JNU’s time-tested, inclusive admissions coverage has been scrapped; school recruitments at the moment are primarily based allegedly on ‘lists’ offered by the powers that be; all earlier norms for appointment of chairpersons, deans et al, which labored so properly for greater than 4 a long time, have been deserted.
The assault is on no account restricted to JNU. Delhi College, with simply the most effective and largest undergraduate programmes within the nation and a first-class file on the postgraduate and analysis ranges, can be within the line of fireside. So are universities like Jadavpur, Jamia Millia, AMU, BHU and now even the IITs, IIMs and ISER-like establishments going through authorities interference, and the resultant shrinking of their educational autonomy.
Syllabuses are being framed by the UGC, which was presupposed to be solely the funding company. All of the sudden, it has turn into an professional on all topics. The ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), the scholars’ wing of the RSS, can now decide what may be mentioned in a college and who may be invited there to speak. Now the federal government needs to manage not solely what you say in Indian universities however needs to vet what you may say overseas.
A couple of weeks in the past, Prof. Apoorvanand, trenchant critic of the federal government, was denied his rightful flip (by advantage of his seniority) to turn into the top of the Hindi division of Delhi College. Extra lately, he was denied permission to proceed to the US — on invitation from the New College in New York — on grounds that he refused to submit the script of his discuss for vetting by the house ministry. This should be a brand new low: by no means earlier than have school in Indian universities been requested to get their discuss vetted by the house ministry or their views accepted by the ABVP.
‘The temples of studying’ of Nehru’s goals have certainly turn into ‘a house of slim bigotry and petty goals’. “How, then,” as Nehru requested, “will a nation prosper or a folks develop in stature?”
Is it any marvel, then, that lakhs of our college students favor to go overseas for a good schooling? And those that can not afford it — in contrast to the youngsters of the political and bureaucratic elite — should take advantage of a dying public schooling system or undergo a rapacious non-public sector that the federal government will nudge and assist.
Aditya Mukherjee is a retired professor of historical past at JNU and creator most lately of Nehru’s India: Previous, Current and Future
