Critiquing education reforms

In an urgent phone call Friday night, BJP President Rajnath Singh directed Murli Manohar Joshi to critique HRD Minister Kapil Sibal’s proposals to reform India’s education system. Joshi, whose own tenure as HRD minister in the BJP-led NDA government (1999 – 2004) was a disaster, responded promptly but with little gravitas.

India has a federal structure. Education is a concurrent subject. I want to know whether the states were consulted before the minister made these revolutionary announcements. Was it the advice of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE)? Has it been constituted at all? On what basis and on whose advice are these decisions, regarding a common board and making Class X examinations optional, being taken?”

What do public- private partnership and FDI in education mean? I accuse the government of abdicating its responsibility. Announcing sweeping changes without debate or consensus is shocking.

These schemes are directionless, illogical and speak of the minister’s inexperience … We can’t let the minister destroy education for the purpose of showcasing his talent in 100 days.

Joshi’s critique is limited to the lack of consultation and quickly degenerates into attacking Sibal.  It lacks policy alternatives and only reinforces popular perception of his lack of imagination, intellectual capacity, and pragmatism.  Sibal’s comments — as the ensuing debate has proven — were, in fact, a way to stimulate consultation and discussion.  To be sure, Sibal was only suggesting prompt action on the Yash Pal Committee Report on Higher Education submitted last week.

Various newspapers and magazines have suggested that the BJP recover from its recent electoral defeat by constituting a shadow cabinet to carefully monitor and critique the Congress-led UPA government’s policy initiatives and performance.  It is certainly a good idea that will check and sharpen policy measures.  However, to cite the BJP’s own Arun Jaitley, “sobriety pays” and that “[t]here should be no criticism for criticism’s sake.” Personal attacks of the nature made by Joshi only reinforce the party’s continued state of confused shock and further alienate voters.

A more substantive critique of the Yash Pal Committee report is here.

As an aside, I have always been sceptical of academics in India.  Their teaching is often mediocre and research much worse but yet suffer from unalloyed arrogance, delusional self-importance, and unexplained pessimism.  I have no reason to suggest the same of Yash Pal but I find the following from his report odd:

I would also like to disclose that before I agreed to get involved with this work, I had a conversation with the Prime Minister and got the impression that some out of the box thinking might not be frowned upon. Indeed, it was expected.

Why should a person of Yash Pal’s stature and eminence have to check with the Prime Minister if he could include “out of the box thinking” in his report?  Doesn’t his very appointment as chair of such a committee signal the need for “out of the box thinking”?  Is it an innocent example of name dropping or intellectual insecurity that stems from decades of parasitic dependence on the establishment?

An e-mail from 2004: Democracy vs. non-issues

These are excerpts from an e-mail I wrote following the Congress-led UPA victory in May 2004:

I find the debate on Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin amidst India’s elite and NRIs amusing, if not humorous.  I wonder if all of us know that an electorate of 500 million has expressed their desire and unlike California, signing petitions, forwarding emails, and compiling views is not going to “recall” the verdict.  I am nevertheless compelled to add a few thoughts although the issue has been so effectively neutralized by Sonia Gandhi.

My first argument is that I find it ironic that the outcome of the defining characteristic of our country – democracy and elections – should make some of us ashamed of being an Indian.  If the outcome of a constitutional process that we ordinarily think of as pride-worthy produces an outcome (that is fully compliant with our constitution) that shames some of us, those shamed people should also think of the process (i.e. democracy) as flawed.  If so, what is the alternative?  A tin pot dictatorship like India’s much maligned neighbor?  I’d much rather have a foreign-born Sonia Gandhi as an elected Prime Minister than an India-born (sic) Indira Gandhi as a dictator like during the emergency in 1975-77.

Those of us who are shamed at the outcome of this election should reconcile this fundamental dichotomy.  They need also declare their positions on democracy, and not just the outcome of the democratic process because the Indian constitution is clear that (1) foreign-born people are not barred from the PM’s post and (2) the elected MPs of the majority party elect their leader and thus the Prime Minister.  This dichotomy is very important to me because all of us, particularly NRIs, never stop in expressing pride about Indian democracy.  In fact, the arguments advocating stronger Indo-US ties have always included the assertion that India and US are natural allies because of their fundamental beliefs in the practice of democracy.  We cannot have it both ways – if we want to believe in Indian democracy, let’s also accept its constitutionally acceptable outcomes with grace and dignity (unlike some of our political parties!).

Now that I have addressed this issue on a philosophical level, I want to present my second argument which is at the operational level.  During the election campaign, two “star” NDA campaigners, Narendra Modi and J. Jayalalitha, raked up Sonia’s foreign issue at every meeting they addressed.  Please see The Hindu of May 8 to see what levels Modi stooped to while raising Sonia’s foreign issue (I wonder if that would shame those who are shamed at Sonia’s election?).  How did people react to the nasty personal campaigns of these two politicians?

Jayalalitha won zero out of 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu.  All of them went to Congress and its allies (DMK, PMK, MDMK, and the Left parties).  In Gujarat, Modi who swept the last assembly elections, was considered politically invincible, and had promised the BJP 22-26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, was able to deliver only 14-the lowest number of seats for the BJP in Gujarat in 20 years!  Congress won the remaining 12 seats.  There can be no more compelling evidence that these two pieces in support of the assertion that the people of India have rejected the foreign origin of Sonia as an issue.  This, in addition to the excellent performance of the Congress across the country.

Finally, I’m frankly very disappointed that we should be debating the above non-issue.  The meaning of this electoral verdict is much more profound than the country of birth of a political leader.  After all, the NDA called for early elections firmly secure of a verdict in their favor.  Yet, the people of India have responded with a resounding slap in NDA’s face strongly endorsing the numerous critical problems (e.g., job creation, agriculture, health care, water, electricity, and reduced social and economic disparities) that continue to afflict the nation but were never considered important enough to be addressed by the authors of “India Shining.”  This is just one example of the kind of issues we need to think about.

P.S.  Two facts: (1) The Indian Supreme Court decided a little after 1999 when Sonia Gandhi was elected from Amethi as an MP that constitutionally she was perfectly eligible for the positions of both MP and PM.  (2)  Sonia Gandhi received her Indian citizenship in early 1983 and not after Rajiv became PM in October 1984.