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?

So much for BJP’s “mazboot neta”

The BJP’s tagline for the 2009 election was “Mazboot Neta, Nirnayak Sarkar.”  It made explicit their campaign theme around how Manmohan Singh was a “weak” Prime Minister in contrast to the strong L. K. Advani who would lead a “decisive government.”  Now that India’s voters have roundly rejected this false sophistry even hard-core Advani loyalists such as Sudheendra Kulkarni are repositioning themselves within the party.

Kulkarni wrote recently, “… Mr. Advani himself failed to assert his leadership at crucial points before and during the campaign”, apparently against the primary party puppeteer, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. If the “mazboot neta” Advani “failed to assert his leadership” with the RSS, how could he have handled the multiple pressures of a coalition that the NDA was?  More importantly, the RSS influence over the BJP is more problematic than Sonia Gandhi’s over Manmohan Singh.  At least the latter two are within the same party bereft of ideological differences.

Guest article: India casts a positive vote

iSarathi is pleased to publish its first guest article.  Uday Turaga is an avid observer of politics in India and lives in Houston, Texas.  In this article, he summarizes the key issues behind the electoral verdict in India.

India Casts a Positive Vote

By Uday Turaga

On May 16, India’s Super Saturday, it took barely three hours for the broad outlines of a verdict to emerge on who would govern the country for the next five years.  In contrast, it took five phases of voting over a month for more than half of India’s 714 million-strong electorate to cast their votes for 543 members of Indian parliament.

The world’s largest democracy may have a style all its own but was unequivocal in returning the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)—led by the country’s oldest political party, the Indian National Congress—to power for a second consecutive term.  Manmohan Singh, architect of India’s economic reforms, is set to continue as Prime Minister for another five years.

Unlike in the past, there was no single national issue that defined this election.  In 1999, the country was at war with Pakistan along its northern border in Kashmir.  The Kargil war united the country in its support of the then incumbent National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the right-wing, Hindu group, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

In 2004, the NDA defined the election as a referendum on its role in creating the country’s economic prosperity dubbed “India Shining”.  The electorate, however, rejected “India Shining” and instead voted for “inclusive growth” promised by the UPA, which formed a coalition government comprising India’s communist parties along with the Congress.

Five years on, India was recovering from the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 26, 2008 and struggling amidst a global economic downturn.  The UPA was expected to do well but not well enough to having a simple majority in parliament.  Noted historian Ramachandra Guha reflected this when he wrote for the BBC, “What we do know in advance is that the government that comes to power in the summer of 2009 will be a coalition, a weak coalition.”

Given this assessment, the verdict was stunning.  The UPA won 262 seats, only a handful short of the 272 required for a simple majority.  It gained over its previous election’s tally at the expense of the communist parties, regional political parties aligned along caste or language, and the NDA.

This verdict reflects four major themes.  First, a growing national desire for political stability not articulated with such clarity since 20 years.  Second is the continued emphasis on rewarding performance and governance.  Third, politics based on extremities were roundly rejected.  Finally, the emergence of India’s youth as an engaged electoral segment.

Political stability

In the past two decades, effective governance has become increasingly contentious due to the rise of powerful regional political groups organized along caste (in the north), class (in the west), or linguistic (in the south) lines.  These regional parties were anticipated to be important following this election too.  However, the accompanying governance challenges have, apparently, not gone unnoticed with the electorate, which has voted in this election to strengthen the larger parties and thereby minimize the bargaining power of the regional groupings.

Performance and governance

Indian voters have consistently rewarded governance but are providing distinct recognition to governments that are truly differentiating themselves on development.  Congress’ principled support for development was evident last year when it signed the cooperative agreement on nuclear power with the U.S. despite opposition from its coalition partners.  The coalition partners – India’s communist parties – who withdrew support from the UPA government registered their heaviest losses in 30 years.  In the states, political parties whose governments provided effective governance were rewarded in all regions including Andhra Pradesh in the south, Orissa in the east, and Delhi and Bihar in the north.

Rejection of extremities

The primary challenger in this election was the right-wing, Hindu party, BJP, but its Prime Ministerial candidate, L.K. Advani, tried to be the voice of moderation.  However, he acquiesced to the party’s strident elements, who hijacked the election campaign midway.  First, the party refused to drop debutant candidate, Varun Gandhi, even after he was caught on tape making a hateful speech against Muslims.  Second, Narendra Modi, who allegedly presided over the riots that killed 1,200 Muslims in the western state of Gujarat, was drafted as a key campaigner.  Although Gandhi was elected, Modi’s effect was limited to his state of Gujarat and hardly had any impact in the battleground state of Uttar Pradesh where he was roped in as a star campaigner.

Emerging youth vote

Approximately 40 percent of India’s electorate is less than 25 years old.  Led by the 38-year-old Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family and the party’s heir-apparent, the Congress assiduously wooed this segment recognizing its aspirations to influence their collective future by actively engaging with the political process.  The youth vote enabled the Congress party’s resurgence in the Hindi-speaking states of northern India, which contribute almost half of the country’s parliamentary seats.  In recent decades, the Congress has been a dismal fourth or fifth in these states, where caste-based regional outfits have dominated elections.  However, Gandhi’s efforts paid off in Uttar Pradesh where the party moved up to second place this year upsetting the aspirations of its caste-based competitors.

As democracies across Asia struggle, India is a beacon of hope for this political freedom as it concludes its 15th general election since independence in 1947.  For another five years, India will enjoy political stability and consistent economic, social, and security policies all of which will serve well our increasingly globalized world.