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E Q U I T A B L E E D U C A T I O N ? E Q U I T A B L E E D U C A T I O N ?

EQUITABLE EDUCATION?


EQUITABLE EDUCATION?Essays

First Published 2008 Septemberby K.K. Ragesh on behalf ofSFI Publications11, Windsor PlaceNew Delhi - 110 001IndiaTele: [email protected]

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EQUITABLE EDUCATION?

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In India, it is always a perennial quest for the realisation of the goldentriangle in the education system-that of equity, quantity and quality.

The rulers of our country always pit one against the other instead ofacknowledging the intrinsic link between all the three of them andformulate policies accordingly. As long as the question of providingquality education to all the sections of the population irrespective oftheir caste, class, religion, region and ethnicity etc is not ensured thecrisis in Indian education system cannot be stemmed.

Indian history is replete with anecdotes of how education system wasalways the preserve of the select few. The instances of Sambhuka,Ekalavya are all examples of how the ruling classes of the day deniededucation to the so-called lower caste people. Unfortunately this denialis continuing even to this day. Many committees and commissionsappointed to study the impediments to the access of education in ourcountry had in fact identified both caste and class as two importantfactors. Though the government too poses as a messiah of thedisadvantaged in the country, it does precious little to ameliorate theirsufferings.

It is true that reservations are being implemented for the last fifty andodd years in our country for the Scheduled Castes and ScheduledTribes and recently there was a Constitutional Amendment to extendthis provision to the socially and educationally backward classes inour country. But as the government data itself states in spite of thereservations still many from these very sections are unable to accesseducation. Recently the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) hadcastigated the Union government for the sharp decline in the enrolmentrates for the SC/ST children right down at the primary level. In spite ofthe funds the drop-out rates are pretty high. Even the per cent of SC/STstudents in higher education too is witnessing a fall. Why is thishappening? What are the social factors that are impeding the SC/STstudents from accessing education? Why are the antagonists of thereservation policy always hiding this fact but keep on harping that

FOREWORD

they are denied of education because of reservations? These are someof the questions that we sought to address in this book.

A year back there was a photograph in some newspapers of a smalldalit girl riding her bicycle to the school escorted by a policeman. Notthat she hails from a family of VIPs. The reason is that the upper castepeople in her village had threatened her with dire consequences if sherode the cycle to her school in the adjoining village and advised her toquit studies. Undaunted by their threats she complained to the massorganisations in her locality who have taken up her issue and forcedthe government to provide her security. But how many children canclaim this 'luxury' if you may call it so? This is not just confined to theremote villages in our country. Even the premier medical institute inour country too suffers from this malaise of caste discrimination. Notsurprisingly the students of this very institute took the initiative tolead the agitation against reservations.

Reservations are always hotly contested and debated in our country.More so in today's world, where the opportunities for education andemployment are shrinking at a rapid pace. In such a scenario there isalways going to be a fight for a share in the diminishing size of the pie.As Com Sitaram Yechury argues in his article this is one of the manyways the ruling classes divide the unity of the toiling sections of thesociety. Instead of joining forces and fighting together for increasingthe available opportunities, people will be forced to fight against eachother, as Com Sitaram points out. In his article he traces the connectionbetween the economic and social subjugation of the SC/ST and arguesthat only by combining the fight against both the economic and socialexploitation can one really emancipate these sections from theirsufferings. Venkatesh Athreya and Venkitesh Ramakrishnan deal indetail with the recent OBC reservation issue and explain the reasonsthat necessitate such reservations at the present juncture.

In fact the whole debate of reservations had started now because of arecent Supreme Court judgement that ruled that reservations neednot be implemented in private unaided education institutes. Thepolitical parties across the spectrum unanimously passed theConstitutional amendment providing reservations for the OBCs bothin public and private institutions of all kinds. This judgement of theSupreme Court on the other hand also initiated a debate on the role ofjudiciary, its powers and functions in our country. Though this debatewas on for quite some time now, the recent judgements of the SupremeCourt really brought the question of judicial over-reach into the publicdomain. A big question started arising among the people-can thecommon people expect justice and a protection of their interests in the

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Court today? The situation should not be let go to such a state as aptlycaptured by an African saying 'corn cannot expect justice from chicken'.The recent incidents of corruption too are not doing any good to theinstitution of judiciary. In this background there is a renewed demandfor ensuring judicial accountability.

Sri Krishna Iyer traces the journey of our Supreme Court right fromthe day our Constitution was promulgated to this date. He shareswith us his vast reserves of judicial knowledge and wisdom and alsoleaves a word of caution to the judiciary asking them not to forget thatSupreme Court of India is really intended as a Supreme Court forIndians. Com Prakash Karat explains in detail the reasons behind therecent spate of anti-worker, anti-poor judgements of the SupremeCourt.

Of course as the authors themselves caution, we should not howeverlose our complete faith in the judiciary as its recent judgementupholding the 93rd Constitutional amendment shows. Moreover, thereare many instances where the Supreme Court consistently upheld thesecular ethos of our country as witnessed recently during the hearingof the various cases of communal riots in Gujarat. The recent judgementstriking down all the petitions against one of the eminent Indian artistsMF Hussein filed by the Hindu chauvinists is also a pointer.

This takes us to the question of communalism in Indian society. Therise of the majority communalists and their short stint in power at theCentre had ruptured the secular fabric of our country. Identifyingeducation as a key to propagate their ideas, they tampered with thesyllabus and injected communal venom into the entire educationsystem. This, apart from the numerous educational institutions thatare run by them overtly and covertly supported by government funds.As Ms Nalini Taneja points out the communal danger did not die withthe defeat of BJP, but is still very much active. Unless the people, cuttingacross their religious, caste, ethnic and regional identities join theirhands, this multi-headed monster cannot be defeated. Its continuedexistence is a threat to the composite culture of our country, a legacythat we cherish from our ancient days, as Asghar Ali Engineer pointsout. Prof KN Panickker points out the role that the education systemhas to play for the protection of this composite culture. He argues thateducation system has to instil the values of secularism, social justiceand equality and states that these cannot be seen as exclusive from thevalues of truth, honesty and compassion that various religions profess.

Rationality an important component of our education system can bepromoted when we sufficiently strengthen the teaching of science in

our schools and colleges. But unfortunately science teaching in oureducational institutions is at best mediocre. The government exceptfor its glossy rhetoric does precious little to promote research in sciencein our country. The market domination in the education system hadconverted science into an industry at the service of the corporates.Our three authors in the section on 'science and education', PrabirPurkayastha, Raghunandan and S. Chatterjee, argue that the corporateinterests decided by their profits should be checked and science shouldbe put into the service of the entire humankind. The recent topic hotlydiscussed and debated, climate change and global warming too arethe results of the corporate greed of the developed countries. The comingyear 2009 as Chatterjee reminds us, is the year of astronomy and thisopportunity should be used by all of us to start questioning the waythe education system and the society is run.

We hope that these books initiate the process of questioning, develop arational thinking among the students and strengthen their urge tochange the present order of things for the better.

The Central Executive Committee of the Students' Federation of Indiaexpresses its warm gratitude to all the contributors to this book. Butfor their pleasant gesture this book would not have materialised.Another important person whom we should mention our gratitude isCom Rajeevan, an former activist of the organisation who designedthe cover, page layout-not only for this book but for all the recentpublications of SFI including our magazine Student Struggle.

The encouragement that we have got from our earlier publications infact made us take this bold initiative. If this book lightens the sparkamong the youth of this country and strengthens their resolve to resistthe injustices prevalent in our education system and the society andwork for equality we consider it to have served its purpose.

R. Arunkumar K.K. RageshPresident General Secretary

Central Executive Committee, Students' Federation of India

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Judiciary and Education11

Equal Justice And Constitutional LawV R Krishna Iyer

18Supreme Court In Liberalised Times

Prakash Karat

23Eliminating Caste Oppression

Sitaram Yechury

Social Justice in Education33

OBC Reservations-A Departure from Neo-liberal Judicial Trend?

K. K. Ragesh

43The Story of OBC quota

Many Struggles, More to ComeVenkitesh Ramakrishnan

50On Reservations in Higher Education

Venkatesh Athreya

59Reservations are not against merit

R. Arun Kumar

Contents

Communal Assault on Education

75Values Of Higher Education In A Multicultural Society

K.N.panikkar

82Some Thoughts On Composite Culture Of India -

Part IAsghar Ali Engineer

91Arjun Dev

National Curriculum Framework 2005:Reversing the Main Thrust of the National Policy on Education

103Nalini Taneja

Communalisation of Education: Continuing the Discussion

Science and Education117

Science and the Universities:The Neo-liberal Order and the Production of Science

Prabir Purkayasha

124Understanding the Climate Crisis

D. Raghunandan

137The International Year of Astronomy (IYA 2009):

S.Chatterjee

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Judiciary andEducation

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Revered and rebuked, the Supreme Court of India is the reservoir ofplenary constitutional powers, like of which no comparable court in

the world enjoys. To tell the semi centennial story of this great institution,its peaks and depths, is an instructive exercise in forensic literature. Thefounding fathers of the constitution regarded the court as an instrumentof social revolution and invested it with great powers to carry out thetransformation so contemplated regrettably, the framers forgot that a radi-cal break with the past from feudal, colonial and terribly poverty strickensociety, into an egalitarian developmental oriented system required avant-garde personal and visionary jurists competent to carry out the new val-ues incorporated in the Preamble. The same old judges with the same oldrobes …orthodoxy and soaked in Westminster culture and case law wasnot the stuff which could implement the social justice desideratum andsocialist pattern of development. A dynamic democracy with secular so-cialist urgency needed cadres and leaders in the judicial pyramid. Changein nomenclature would not change the mindset of the operators. Inevita-bly, there was judicial imbroglio, ideational ambiguity and ideological leth-argy. The first phase of judicial performance proved the confusion thatplagued the court. Nevertheless the Rule of Law gained the momentum

though the march was zigzag. Justice Chinnappa Reddy, in a brief para-graph pregnant with meaning, stated recently.

The Supreme Court was specially invested with the power to issue writsand directions to enforce fundamental rights (article32), the power toentertain appeals against orders of any court or tribunal(artcle136) andthe power to make any order to do full justice between the parties(article142). The full significance and extent of the power under article 142 is yet tobe explored. It is only recently that the Supreme Court has discovered theenormity of the power vested in it under article 142 and started assertingit in a guarded and limited way. The judicial evolutionary process may beappreciated by referring to Re:Vinay Chandra Mishra, State of AP vsViswanatha N.A. Muhammed Kasim v Solouchna Union Cabinet Corpo-ration v. Union of India, Delhi Development authority v. Skipper Con-struction Co. (P) Ltd. In the Union Carbide and Vinay Chandra Mishra'scases, the Supreme Court appeared to swing the gates open by announcingthat the power of the Supreme Court under article 142 to do completejustice is entirely of a different level and different quality, and any prohi-bition or restriction contained in ordinary laws cannot act as limitation onthe constitutional power of the court. The Supreme Court seemed to be ofthe view that the power conferred by article 142 being a constitutionalpower, 'the ordinary laws' made by parliament and state legislatures mustyield to it. But then are not these 'ordinary laws' too made by constitu-tional empowerment! If the law made by parliament is constitutionallyvalid, should it yield to the power of the Supreme Court to do completejustice between the parties under article142? Should the glorious uncer-tainty of judicial pronouncement on the' complete justice' in an individualcase take precedence over the fair certainty of justice according to the lawenacted by the Legislature?

When we talk of the rule of law what we have in mind, the certainty of thestatute or the uncertainty of the judicial mind! A further question whicharises is 'whether the complete justice between the parties' contemplatedby article 142? These are some of the questions which immediately cometo the mind and which have to be answered by the Supreme Court in somefuture case and, fortunately the last word is with the judges.

It is not possible to contend that the court has not enough power, the realdifficulty is that the exercise of powers needs daring and wisdom re-straint and radicalism.

In Delhi Development Authority Justice Jeevan Reddy struck the right

EQUAL JUSTICE ANDCONSTITUTIONAL LAW

V. R. Krisna Iyer

JUSTICE V.R.KRISHNA IYER is the former Supreme Court Judge.


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note and referring to the observations in Vinay Chandra Mishra, said :

In other words the power under article 142 is meant to supplement theexisting legal frame work-to do complete justice between the parties- andnot to supplant it. It is conceived to meet situation which cannot be effi-ciently and appropriately tackled by the existing provisions of law. Asmatter of fact, we think it is advisable to leave this power undefined onlyupon this Court, and on no one else, is itself an assurance that it will beused with due restraint and circumspection, keeping in view the ultimateobject of doing complete justice between the parties.

50 years after the Constitution coming into force a critic with an objectiveperspective may wonder at the commanding height the court now occu-pies. Corruption is afraid only of the court, pollution flourishes exceptwhen the court intervenes, violations by tycoons and other big guns couldbe called to order and ministers and minions compelled to comply withthe law only by the higher courts. The obsolete concept of individualistlocus standi and the revolutionary remedial jurisprudence of public inter-est litigation flung the forensic doors ajar for the common people, theN.G.Os, the marginalized and the oppressed to enter the judicial man-sions. With a sense of partiality for a personal friend, Justice ChinnappaReddy writes:

However the right to equality guaranteed by art.14 of the Constitutionand the right to life guaranteed by Art.21 of the Constitution have inrecent years received expensive interpretations by the Supreme Court.Thanks primarily to the pioneering efforts of my esteemed and dear friend,the one and only Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer the Supreme Court has by aninterpretative process freed these rights from the narrow confines to whichthey had restricted earlier. I will refer to this aspect later again.

Apart from the rights guaranteed in part III of the Constitution, otherrights of great human significance and importance such as the right towork, the right to an adequate means to of livelihood, the right to a livingwage, the right to equal pay for equal work, the right to share the mate-rial resources of the community, the right to easy access to justice, whichshould have been made fundamental rights, have been relegated by theConstitution makers to the position of Directive Principles which, whileannounced to be fundamental in the governance of the country are never-theless emphasized to be unenforceable in a court of law. Other directiveprinciples enjoin the state to strive to promote the welfare of the people bysecuring and protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which

justice, social, economic and political shall inform all the institutions ofnational life. The directive principles also require the state to direct itspolicies towards securing that the ownership and control of the materialresources of the country are so distributed as best to serve the commongood and that the operation of the economic system does not result in theconcentration of wealth and means of production to the common detri-ment.

Today, we have a court with a vision, judges sensitive to Human Rightsand a Bench-Bar duo marching towards the redemption of the nation'stryst with the destiny, said Nehru:

The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It meansthe ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of oppor-tunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been towipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us but as long asthere are tears and sufferings, so long our work will not be over. And sowe have to labour and to work hard to give reality to our dreams.

Frankly speaking, there is a crisis of contradiction between the judicialelite and the constitution in print. The propertiate versus the proletariat isstill in a dilemma.

When India awoke to freedom, way back in 1947,'we, the people trustedthe power elite to transform the social order so as to guarantee to everyone precious rights, equal opportunity and developmental justice sanswhich the very promise of the right to be human becomes constitutionalsanctimony, political opium and antalising judicial illusion. The creamylayer and the elite sector of the country have, perhaps, had it good butour focus must be on those categories of humans, many millions in numberinvisible and suppressed, and struggling to survive with dignity, live insecurity and share in the work, wealth and happiness of a just society.

Article 38 of the constitution, which sums up, our destination, reads thus

State to secure a social order for the promotion of the welfare of thepeople-

1) The state shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securingand protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice,social, economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of thenational life.


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2) The state shall, in particular, strive to minimize the inequalities in in-come, and endeavor to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities andopportunities, not only amongst various groups of people residing indifferent areas or engaged in different vocations.

The international commission of jurists in moderate diction expressed whatlawyers must professionally proclaim:

The rule of law is a dynamic concept for the expansion and fulfillment ofwhich jurists are primarily responsible and which should be employed notonly to safeguard and advance the judicial and political rights of theindividual in a free society, but also to establish social, economic, educa-tional and cultural conditions under which this legitimate aspirations anddignity may be realized.

Absent this constellation of imperatives, law is but abracadabra and ruleof law mere razzmatazz.

To sum up, our goal is distant and human realities desperate, despite theclaims of the glitterati, the mafia, the global corporate power and the IMFWorld Bank propaganda. Alas, the floodgates of our national economyhave been contra constitutionally thrown open to MNCs and welcomed tooccupy the commanding heights of the country's productive process.Recolonisation is offered an unpatriotic visa.

Let me conclude on a meliorist note. 'We the People of India 'own thenation's resources:

The sublime sentiment consecrated in the Constitution is distancing itselffrom the still sad music of Indian Humanity whose life for considerablenumbers remains a tale of blood, toil tears and sweat. The political water-shed was marked by Indian independence. The divide between the colo-nial legal system and the free Indian's value laden jurisprudence must begrasped as one is to approach the story of judicial developments in thedomain of Public Interest Litigation.

It needs no dialectical materialist to conclude that the social dimensionsof jurisprudence when it makes a quantum jump from a dying imperialorder to a living democratic order must undergo a people orientedradicalization. The people of India are illiterate around 70% indigentaround 50% being below the poverty line, primitive, more than 20% beingoppressed classes and tribal miserable. A land where gender injustice isreligiously, though diminishingly, practiced by all the religions, where sati

or pressure to leap into the husband's funeral pyre, child marriage, brideburning, deadly dowry ubiquity, gang rape bonded labour and marketingof tribal women and dedicating them to goddesses as a pious devise topush them into prostitution-these and other besetting vices mar the humanmap, agonizing realities cannot but summon the robed brethren to catalyzethe constitutional processes and make social justice a fact not a fiction.The writ of court must conscientise the social forces, or else it is of, nohope. The pariah sector is silent victim of countless privations and humanright violations. The judicature cannot be jejune and jaundiced, inertlywitnessing the Constitution being stultified.

For landless tillers and other deprived and under privileged categories,for ill treated prisoners and victims of police torture and lock-up liquida-tion, for child labour, homeless flotsams, sufferers of custodial crueltiesand unspeakable forms of indignity and shame, for the socio economic'deprived' abounding in India, social justice is constitutional cant andjudicial justice a rope of sand unless enforceability of rights and punish-ments of wrongs are easy and the forensic process committed to compas-sionate realism in the grant of relief.

The jurisdiction of the Indian Supreme Court is the widest in the world.The Court is the Constitutional sentinel on the qui vive. A billion Indianshunger for justice. The court, the highest in particular has accountabilityand responsibility. The first half of our fighting century made India free;will the first half of the current century make Indians unfree, what withGATT catastrophe, W.T.O., Globalisation, gargantuan privatization?

A survey of the semi centennial of the constitution necessarily persuadesus to focus on the role of the court in the economic and social march ofthe nation. To start with, the Supreme Court and even the High Courtswere conservative with a feudal colonial flavour with British precedentsand imperial values as inviolably holy. Agrarian reforms were frownedupon and the first few amendments to the constitution were to set rightthe damage done by judicial decisions. The highest court upheld the privypurses of princes, nullified bank nationalization and stood by the classesand their vested interests, jettisoning the scared significance of life andliberty a la A.K.Gopalan, R.C.Cooper, et al. fortunately in the second phaseof the judicial span, the court veered round. The first stage made thecourt the conscience keeper of the Latifundists and Big Businesses. Thesecond phase was a discovery of new directions and dimensions whenpublic interest litigation and broader locus standi gave access to the peo-


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ple to assert their common interests. The democracy of judicial remediesdawned. Environments jurists students, agrarian loss, the validation offnationliasation and the like found the court adopt the democracy of judi-cial remedies. The court accelerated the constitution's goals. Indeed, theSupreme Court of India tended to become the Supreme Court for Indians.This metamorphosis has not died out. The flame is still bright what withvictimology gender justice, sustainable development and the like receivingcrucial concern. Today the court is the sentinel hounding out corruptionand hunting down abuse of power. The Right to Life in Article 21 hasreceived a vistaramic interpretation. The directive principles of state policyhave been creatively blended with the Fundamental Rights activating as itwhere, the two great International Covenants which constitutes, togetherwith Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the magna carta of man-kind. Today, the Supreme Court of India has expanded its jurisdictionwith constructive novelty and humanistic proclivity to become a power-ful instrument of social justice. In Maneka Gandhi's case and after, theSupreme Court has held that the executive cannot be arbitrary and thelegislature cannot be capricious. In sum, the Supreme Court and the HighCourts are the sanctuary of Human Rights and the enemy of anathema ofcorruption and abuse of power.

But the judges themselves are some times coming under a cloud of cor-ruption. A few judges had to resign because their integrity came underattack and impeachment failed against a judge but all the votes cast heldhim guilty and no vote was cast in favour of his innocence. The motionfailed because of the inadequacy of the number of votes-not a moral butarithmetical victory. There is now a demand for a Judicial Appointmentand Performance Commission. We had the experience of the emergencyof 1975 being upheld by the court. We have similar experience of thecourt upholding a politically motivated dissolution of a number of legisla-tures. We have, to our regret, the court upholding the TADA, which isitself, a Terrorist Statue. In conclusion, the court cannot be the last refugeof Human Rights. We have to mobilize the billion Indians and sensitizepeople every where so that the country may be defended from multiplemega -exploitation and the people protected from being bled by InjusticeIncorporated incarnating as Growth and Development (the rich becomingricher and the poor becoming poorer) 'illth shall defeat wealth', if thejudicial process stands by the people. Vast majority of the human beingsbelong to the former category but the state apparatus is controlled by themanipulative power of the later coterie.

THE Supreme Court judgement regarding the dismissal of 170,000 stategovernment employees in Tamilnadu constitutes a severe assault on

the rights of the working class. The two-member bench, hearing a batchof petitions challenging the mass dismissals based on the draconian ordi-nance which amended the Tamilnadu Essential Services Maintenance Act,not only refused to strike down the ordinance but justified the state gov-ernment’s drastic action against the striking employees. The bench ob-served “state has taken appropriate action as there is no alternative todayto deal with the strike”. However, the court asked the state government to“show magnanimity and grace” and take back the dismissed employeeson their tendering an unconditional apology for joining the “illegal strike”and an undertaking that they would abide by the conduct rules in future.

Later, delivering the judgement on August 6, disposing off the petitionsregarding the dismissal of the employees, the court stated that govern-ment employees “under no circumstances have any fundamental legal ormoral right to go on strike….Even the trade unions, who have a guaran-teed right for collective bargaining, have no right to go on strike.” Goingfurther with their anti-strike tirade, the bench said “No political party or

SUPREME COURT INLIBERALISED TIMES

Prakash Kar at

PRAKASH KARAT is former President of the SFI


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It is no more so. In the decade since liberalisation, the higher judiciary hasadapted itself to the new values which are espoused by the dominantsections of society. In 1996, the then chief justice of the Supreme Courthad in a lecture stated that “liberalisation was consistent with socialismbecause equitable distribution first required wealth creation”. Along withthe undue reluctance and failure to judicially intervene to check the grow-ing abuse and misuse of the privatisation drive, the higher judiciary showeditself hostile to the assertion of the working people of their rights throughstrikes and protest actions. The Supreme Court in this period has failed tocheck the gross misuse of procedures and laws by multinationals andinstances of privatisation. Its failure to stop the sanction to Enron to setup the Dabhol power plant is the most glaring. In the case of Cogentrix,Balco and other such instances, the courts refused to entertain them evenwhen there were sufficient grounds to show that they were done in con-travention of existing laws and procedures. Right now, the court is tohear petitions challenging the decision to sell off the HPCL and BPCL bythe government. It was done by bypassing parliament which had nation-alised these companies through legislation.

In contrast, the Supreme Court upheld the Kerala High Court’s judgementin 1997 banning bandhs. This was followed up by the Supreme Courtrefusing to set aside the Kerala High Court decision to prohibit hartals.From declaring bandhs and “forcible” hartals illegal, the next step hasbeen taken in the Tamilnadu judgement where the right to strike itself hasbeen questioned and arbitrary observations made about how it createschaos and has to be dealt with firmly by the authorities.

An analysis of the trends of the judgements by the Supreme Court whichconcern the working class in the last one decade will be a revealing exer-cise. Increasingly, the Supreme Court is coming out as a conservativecourt which does not empathise with the vast mass of the people who areadversely affected by the liberalisation process. In 2001, the SupremeCourt reversed an earlier judgement which sought to protect the rights ofthe contract workers. On an appeal by the Steel Authority of India Ltd andsome other public sector undertakings, the Supreme Court nullified thegains made by the contract workers through decades of struggle to asserttheir right for becoming permanent employees if they are employed injobs of a perennial nature. In the earlier judgement of the court in the AirIndia case, the contract workers had won the right to become permanent

organisation can claim a right to paralyse the economic and industrialactivities of a state or inconvenience the citizens.”

This unprecedented judgement unfortunately goes against the fundamen-tal rights of workers to form associations and unions, to collective bar-gaining and to resort to strike action following the procedures set out bylaw. The government of India is a signatory to the ILO convention whichrecognizes the civil and political rights of public employees just as ofother workers. ILO conventions have set out some core rights of work-ers and employees which are violated by the observations of the SupremeCourt bench. The Tamilnadu employees strike has been brutally sup-pressed. The judgement of the court has paved the way for the reinstate-ment of the bulk of the employees by their individually tendering apolo-gies. But it has been done by the court on humanitarian grounds whilenegating their right to strike and to organise. The working class move-ment cannot accept this judicial assault on the basic rights of the workersand the citizens of the country.

CHANGE IN ATTITUDEThis judgement by the highest court in the country, while it directly af-fects the rights of lakhs of government employees in the country, has alsoserious implications for the fundamental rights of the working people.They must be seen as part of an increasingly unsympathetic and negativeattitude to the rights of workers and a consequent bias in favour of em-ployers and those who command the means of production. In the lastone decade the attitude of the higher judiciary to disputes between work-ers and managements and the question of the rights of the working classto collectively protest and go on strike has undergone a change. It reflectsthe new ethos of liberalisation, the market principle and the sanctity ofcontract influencing the outlook of the judiciary. The dominant outlook ofthe ruling classes cannot but affect the various instruments of the stateincluding the judiciary.

For the ordinary working people of the country, the changed outlook andvalues displayed by the judiciary is a matter of serious concern. In theseventies and upto the mid-eighties, the higher judiciary and the SupremeCourt in particular had set out a jurisprudence and given out a series oflandmark judgements, which had to a certain extent strengthened the rightsof the working people which helped maintain a balance between the lawand equity.


in certain circumstances. The judgement saw all the trade unions unitedlyprotesting what they termed a retrograde and regressive step.

In the recent period, there were at least two judgements by the courtwhich struck down the decision of various high courts which had or-dered that a dismissed worker who was reinstated, should get full backwages. In one of the judgements setting aside the high court decision, theSupreme Court bench observed “applying the legal principles the inevita-ble conclusion is that the high court committed an error in upholding thatthe award of full back wages was a natural consequence” when the dis-missal of a worker is set aside. (reference: Hindustan Motors Vs TapanKumar Bhattacharya, 2002 and Post Graduate Institute of Medical Edu-cation and Research, Chandigarh Vs Rajkumar, 2001 )

FAVOURING MARKETSThe values fostered by liberalisation and the market principle are gettingsanctified judicially. What the BJP-led government would like to pushthrough as labour reforms by making the entire working force casualisedand the capitalists having unfettered rights to hire and fire, is finding sup-port through judicial intervention.

Two other recent judgements can be cited to underscore the new attitude.An eleven-member Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court took aretrograde decision regarding the educational system. In the case of TMAPai Vs the State of Karnataka, the Supreme Court had to clarify the roleand scope of the minority educational institutions in the country. Whileundertaking this job, the Constitutional Bench went much beyond thesubject before them. The Court recognized the right to establish educa-tional institutions as a fundamental right under Article 19 (1) (g). ThisArticle confers citizens with the right to practise any profession or tocarry on any occupation, trade or business. By this judgment the courtgave a licence to “entrepreneurs” to trade in education. It also decreedthat private educational institutions in general have unfettered rights todecide on both the norms for admission and the fees that they shouldcharge. It reversed the earlier Supreme Court judgement in the Unnikrishnancase which had prescribed that the state can regulate the norms for ad-mission and fees in professional colleges. This led to the chaos whichwas witnessed recently in the educational system. Private managementsraised their fees to astronomical levels in many states. The court judge-ment was cited for charging fees to the tune of rupees three to four lakhs

in some of the professional colleges and to challenge the state govern-ment’s scope to regulate them.

Here again, as in the case of its attitude to the working class, the judge-ment is governed by the court’s favourable view of market “competition”and the sanctity of the right of private managements to decide what feesto set and what profits to make.

In the P.A. Inamdar and others v. State of Maharashtra the seven-memberBench unanimously held that enforcing the Government’s reservationpolicy on seats in unaided professional institutions constitutes a seriousencroachment on the right and autonomy of these institutions. The benchheld that merely because the State’s resources in providing professionaleducation are limited, the State cannot compel private educational institu-tions, to make admissions on the basis of its reservation policy to lessmeritorious candidates. The Bench held that “such appropriation of seatscannot be held to be a regulatory measure in the interest of minority withinthe meaning of Article 30(1) or a reasonable restriction within the mean-ing of Article 19(6)”

Another recent judgement decreed that air hostesses of Air India have tobe grounded at the age of 50. This reversed the Mumbai High Court’ssensible decision that women flight staff could serve till the age of 58 justlike the male staff. In this case, the bench seems to have not only rein-forced gender discrimination but also paid heed to the need for women tohave a “pleasing appearance” as dictated by the market.

The Supreme Court has played an important role at crucial junctures,especially in upholding the secular principle of the Indian state. It has ajustified reputation of being the guardian of the Constitution and the rightsof citizens. Unfortunately, more and more, the court is seen as hostile tothe collective interests of different sections of the working people whilebeing willing to intervene to redress the grievances of individual citizens.This again reflects the attitude of the judiciary under the liberalised dis-pensation. Individual rights are addressed while the rights of classes whoare exploited, or, who do not control the means of production are nottaken cognizance of.

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OBC Reservations-A DEPARTURE FROM

NEO-LIBERALJUDICIAL TREND?

K. K. R agesh

The recent verdict of the five member constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on OBC reservations was widely welcomed and was

described as a historic one from various quarters including the politicaland academic spheres. The Court endorsed the proposed OBC reserva-tion in Central government institutes and the earlier stay-order given bythe two-member division Bench was annulled. The stay order by the Su-preme Court in implementing the Central Educational Institutions (Reser-vation in Admissions) Act 2006 had invited widespread criticism fromseveral quarters. It was perceived as judicial encroachment on the pow-ers of the Parliament and an act of unwarranted judicial activism. Nowthe Supreme Court has corrected its own earlier interim order that put theproposed reservations on hold and shown the green signal for providingreservations in Central government institutes.

The key judgment delivered by the Chief Justice on 10th April 2008 wassignificant for many reasons. Firstly, the Court acknowledged that theParliament has the power to make necessary amendments to the Consti-tution. The Court in the Kesavanatha Bharati Case held that the basicstructure of the Constitution cannot be amended. Subsequently it was

argued that the basic structure of the Constitution is enshrined in thesection on fundamental rights in Part III and it cannot be amended. TheCourt rejected all such arguments and held that the Ninety-Third Consti-tutional Amendment is constitutionally valid so far as it relates to statemaintained institutions and aided educational institutions. The Court alsoobserved that in the absence of challenge by private unaided institutions, itmay not be proper for the Court to decide whether the Ninety-Third Con-stitutional Amendment is violative of the “basic structure” of the Constitu-tion so far as it relates to private unaided educational institutions.

Changing Judicial DriftIn many of the recent judicial pronouncements, neo-liberal and corporateinfluences were vividly reflected. In the BALCO case, the employees un-ion of a government company had challenged its divestment on variousgrounds including the arbitrary and non-transparent fixation of its reserveprice. The Supreme Court while dismissing the petition held that publicinterest litigation is now tending to become publicity interest litigation orprivate interest litigation. The same judicial tendency is also visible in manyother cases including the ONGC case where the government decided tosell off developed offshore gas and oilfields to a private joint venture. Inthe Narmada case the Court did not entertain the argument that the SardarSarovar project was proceeding without comprehensive environmentalconsideration and without even the necessary environmental impact stud-ies. The court desperately stated that the Narmada Bachao Andolan is ananti-developmental organization. The Supreme Court upheld Kerala HighCourt’s judgement that banned bandhs. The Court even questioned theright of workers to strike in a case vis-à-vis Tamil Nadu government’sdecision to dismiss 170,000 state government employees. Most of therecent pronouncements where the Court has been biased towards neo-liberal interests relate to democratic rights, worker’s rights, right of com-mon people to live and right to education and employment.

Even though Justice Dalveer Bhandari in his dissenting opinion was eagerto annul the provisions for reservations in private institutes in his concur-rent opinion, the present judgment is no doubt a departure from neo-liberal judicial outlook. The majority held that “We feel that such questionscould be decided as the main questions that are involved in these petitionsare specific regarding Act 5 of 2007, we leave open the question as towhether the Ninety-Third Amendment to the Constitution by which sub-

K.K. RAGESH is SFI General Secretary

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clause (5) was inserted is violative of the basic structure doctrine or notso far as it relates to “private unaided” educational institutions to be de-cided in other appropriate cases”. The Court while rejecting all major con-tentions of the anti-reservation lobby that was supported by corporateinterest upheld the true spirit of equality and the principle of social justiceenshrined in the Constitution. Undoubtedly the present verdict is an ex-ception as it sets itself apart from all other recent pronouncements, whichinterpreted the Constitution for capitalist interest on the lines of a neo-liberal outlook.

The judiciary is an integral component of the State and hence State inter-ests persistently reflect in judicial pronouncements. However, many emi-nent judges in the higher judiciary in the past have interpreted the Consti-tutional designs of equality and fundamental rights through the eyes of thedowntrodden. Judges like Justice V.R. Krishna Iyyer, Justice ChinnappaReddy, and Justice Bhagawati are among those stalwarts who made suchConstitutional interpretations. But presently most of the judicial proclama-tions have discarded such traditions of judicial interpretation and lined upwith neo-liberal perceptions. Indeed many recent controversies in educa-tion including that of the private unaided institutions are a consequence ofsuch judicial assertions. The 93rd Constitution amendment itself was doneto annul the outcomes of this judicial approach.

A close scrutiny of the recent judgments in education unveils the neo-liberal influences in the Judiciary. In the Mohini Jain case the Court heldthat private managements should not collect fees excessive of the feechargeable in government colleges for an equivalent course. The Courtobserved that the right to education is a fundamental right implied in theArticle 21(Right to live) of the Constitution. The right to live includes theright to live decently. Education is a means for decent livelihood and hencethe court recognized the right to education a fundamental right. TheUnnikrishnan Case was a setback to the Mohini Jain verdict. The Courtconsidered the views of private managements running education institutesand formulated a scheme-popularly known as the Unnikrishnan schemefor admissions i.e. 50% free seats and 50% payment seats. The Courtalso recognized elementary education as a fundamental right and thus lim-ited the scope of the Mohini Jain judgment. The Court did not recognizethe argument that imparting education is a fundamental right under Article19 (1) (g) of the Constitution. The Court only observed that education

was never considered a trade, occupation or business in our country.

Neo-liberal Revelations in EducationThe verdict of the 11-member constitution Bench of the Supreme Courtin the TMA Pai Foundations case was not only an advancement towardscourt sponsored neo-liberal agenda in education, but it was a total reversalof past positions. While recognizing the right to establish education insti-tutions as a fundamental right under article 19 (1) (g), the court made anastonishing U-turn and opined that education is an occupation or busi-ness. In its supreme proclamation the Court permitted private manage-ments to decide and collect a ‘reasonable’ fees and admit students throughits own procedure of admissions. While the Court in the Mohini Jain Casewas concerned about needy students who are denied education due totheir inability to pay exorbitant fee, the Pai case verdict was eager topreserve the business interest of private investors in education. The argu-ments of the Breton Woods institutions echoed in the courts. And thecourt stated that education is no more a ‘public good’ but a ‘private good’!The Court also restricted the government from intervening in the ‘au-tonomy’ and fundamental right of private managements to decide mattersof admission and fee structure. The higher judiciary while conferringjudicial stamp on commercial interests of private institutes did not botherabout the ruthless denial of education to deprived students. The Courtfailed to provide any relevance to the concept of equality and social justicein its neo-liberal judicial interpretation.

The Pai Case judgment was interpreted further in favor of corporate-capitalist interest in the Inamdar verdict. The seven-member constitutionbench in the Inamdar case averted reservations in privately run institu-tions completely. The Supreme Court displayed supreme intolerance andprejudice against widespread criticisms of the judgment. The power ofthe Parliament was also questioned implicitly when the matter was beingdiscussed in the House. Consequently the Parliament had to pass the 93rd

Constitution Amendment to prevail over the judgment in the Pai case andthe subsequent cases. The amendment states “Nothing in this Article orin sub-clause (g) of clause (1) of Article 19 shall prevent the state frommaking any special provision, by law, for the advancement of any so-cially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the ScheduledCastes or the Scheduled Tribes insofar as such special provisions relate totheir admission to educational institutions, including private educational

25 26


institutions, whether aided or unaided by the state, other than the minor-ity educational institutions referred to in Clause (1) of Article 30. Andhence the absolute autonomy conferred to private institutes under Article19 (1) (g) has been overruled.

Prior to enacting any legislation to provide reservations or regulate feesand admissions in private self-financing institutions, the government en-sured reservations in central government institutes. Thus, the Parliamentenacted the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admissions)Act 2006. Even in the absence of such a Constitutional provision there isno legal obstacle in providing reservations in government institutions. Inthe Indra Sahni case (Mandal case) the court had already upheld reserva-tions in employment. The entire argument recognized by the court whileendorsing job reservations is more or less applicable to educational reser-vation also. It must be recalled that while opposing job reservations theanti-reservation lobby had made an argument to first initiate reservationsin education. It was also argued by them that reservations are discrimina-tory in nature and contravene Article 14 of the Constitution. The Court inthe Mandal case rejected all such arguments and hailed the principle ofreservation. But the same anti-reservation camp now argued that reserva-tions must be limited only up to secondary level, as they will adverselyaffect excellence in higher education.

Hippocratic Decry on MeritThe argument that the academic quality of doctors and engineers createdthrough the process of reservation is inferior is entirely unfounded. In allthe southern states reservations for SC-ST and OBC were ensured ineducation many decades back extending up to 50% to 69% and the expe-rience there shows that academic standards are much above those inother states where reservations are limited only to the SC and ST. In thesestates more than 80% marks are required for admissions in majority ofthe professional institutes including for reserved seats. When all studentshave to appear for the same year-end examination in order to obtain theirdegree, how can anyone argue that such affirmative actions lead to dete-riorating standards? It is not the input but essentially the output that deter-mines excellence. This hypocrite fretfulness about academic excellencehas never been expressed on the mushrooming of private professionalcolleges including medical colleges where merit is defined and substitutedwith crude money power.

The two-member division Bench, while issuing a stay on the implementa-tion of reservations last year made many subjective observations. Withoutany material evidence the bench said, “reservation cannot be permanentand appear to perpetrate backwardness.” Blaming the Government forenacting a law to provide reservations, the Bench did not hide its intoler-ance and said “nowhere in the world Castes queue to be branded as back-ward. Nowhere is there a competition to become backward. With this Actthe subject of the equality is unduly put under strain.” On the governmentsubmission that the 1931 census is the basis for fixing 27% quota forOBCs, the bench said what might have been the data in 1931 censuscannot be a determining factor now. The Court did not consider the factthat reservations are already provided in states like Maharashtra, UP, Pun-jab, HP, and Gujarat and in all southern states on the basis of the samematerial facts and data. But the Bench eagerly stated that there is no expla-nation for the lack of firm data for determining backwardness and heldthat ‘unequals are treated as equals’. The Court asked, “You have waitedfor 57 years. Why can’t you wait for one more year”? And hence under-mined its own principles that delay in justice be a denial of justice. TheMandal Commission had visited many states and conducted several stud-ies before finalizing its report. The SC endorsed that report and since thenreservations in employment have been in force. Irrespective of all suchfacts the Bench was eager to put the law on hold on the basis of its ownsubjectivism.

When the case was referred to the Constitution Bench headed by the CJI,the anti-reservation camp repeated the same arguments. They inventedthat reservations ‘would have wide ramification and divide the country oncaste basis’ hence made an impression that it is reservations that havefashioned caste! It was also argued that reservations will result in anar-chy and affecting communal harmony, thereby sabotaging the constitu-tional right to equality. It was further argued that the 93rd ConstitutionAmendment infringes upon the rights of private institutes under Article19(1) (g) to profess practice any trade occupation or business and wouldnationalize private institutes. The Court did not entertain such arguments.It was further argued that the amendment itself was against the basicstructure of the Constitution as it infringes upon the fundamental right toequality and occupation. While endorsing the powers of the Parliament,the remarks made by the CJ Justice K.G. Balakrishnan are extremelysignificant. He observes, “The judgment in Kesavananda Bharati’s case

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clearly indicates what the basic structure of the Constitution is. It is notany single idea or principle like equality or any other constitutional princi-ples that are subject to variation, but the principles of equality cannot becompletely taken away so as to leave the citizens in this country in a stateof lawlessness. But the facets of the principle of equality could always bealtered especially to carry out the Directive Principles of the State Policyenvisaged in Part IV of the Constitution. The Constitution (Ninety-ThirdAmendment) Act, 2005 is to be examined in the light of the above posi-tion. The basic structure of the Constitution is to be taken as a largerprinciple on which the Constitution itself is framed and some of the illus-trations given as to what constitutes the basic structure of the Constitu-tion would show that they are not confined to the alteration or modifica-tion of any of the Fundamental Rights alone or any of the provisions ofthe Constitution. Of course, if any of the basic rights enshrined in theConstitution are completely taken out, it may be argued that it amounts toalteration of the Basic Structure of the Constitution. For example, thefederal character of the Constitution is considered to be the basic struc-ture of the Constitution. There are many provisions in the Constitutiondealing with the federal character of the Constitution. If any one of theprovisions is altered or modified, that does not amount to the alteration ofthe basic structure of the Constitution. Various fundamental rights aregiven in the Constitution dealing with various aspects of human life. TheConstitution itself sets out principles for an expanding future and is obli-gated to endure for future ages to come and consequently it has to beadapted to the various changes that may take place in human affairs”.

Reservation in Private institutionsEven though the Court did not take a conclusive view on reservations inprivate institutions, the above observation indicates the vivid justificationfor the 93rd amendment even on the question of private institutions. En-suring reservations and social control is the factual objective of the 93rd

amendment. The amendment is a consequence of the Pai case and subse-quent case verdicts that sought to restrict reservations and regulations inprivate institutes. In the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the 93rd

Constitution amendment it has been stated that: “At present, the numberof seats available in aided or State maintained institutions, particularly inrespect of professional education, is limited in comparison to those inprivate unaided institutions. To promote the educational advancement ofthe socially and educationally backward classes of citizens, i.e., the OBCs

or the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in matters of admission ofstudents belonging to these categories in unaided educational institutionsother than the minority educationnal institutions referred to Clause (1) ofArticle 30 of the Constitution, it is proposed to amplify Article 15”. The93rd amendment will be momentous only if it is ensured in private insti-tutes. The present distinctive verdict will truly be historic once the Courtendorses reservations in private institutions. That will be a correction ofmany past verdicts that were tuned on the lines of neo-liberal perceptions.The true spirit of the Constitution will only be hailed through such a pro-people interpretation of the Constitution.

Reservations are not an absolute remedy to eradicate social inequalitiesbut they are only a beginning. The caste system itself is perpetrated andlinked with the ownership of land and its imbalanced distributions. Thesocial oppression spearheaded by the caste system can wholly be eradi-cated only through comprehensive land reforms and true democratizationof society. The OBCs have been denied their due share in jobs and educa-tion so far and it is the general category that dominates these spheres.Reservation can lead to a road of equality and equal access. But true socialjustice and equal access can only be ensured through government poli-cies, which guarantee job and education for all.

In the backdrop of the present judgment the government has to immediatelyinitiate a legislation to regulate fees and admissions and to ensure reserva-tions in private institutions. As far as professional institutions are concerned,the total figure of private institutions is more than government institutions.Efforts by state governments to ensure social justice in private institutionshave not materialized due to judicial intervention. Unless and until reserva-tions are ensured in private institutions the true objective of the 93rd amend-ment cannot be materialized. However, a mere provision of reservation willnot enable the admission of deprived section students to higher and profes-sional institutions. The exorbitant fee chargeable in such institutions isunaffordable for students from backward sections. Hence, there have to bestrict regulations on fees. Social justice in education can only be safeguardedby bringing private self-financing institutions under strict social control andby extending reservation and ensuring affordable fee in such institutions.Progressive and democratic sections have to rise immediately for ensuringthat such an objective is materialized.

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Social Justicein Education


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During the recent years, caste mobilisation has become an importantfactor in shaping Indian politics. Ever since the issue of Mandal

Commission reservations in government jobs for the OBCs came to thenational agenda in 1989, it has left an impact on the evolution of nationalpolitics. For an active social scientist, it is not only necessary to assessthis growing role of caste assertion in Indian political life but also to mapout the manner in which the unity of the toilers’ is strengthened. Unlesswe tackle with clarity this important phenomenon, we will not be able toovercome the potentially disruptive role that caste mobilisation can haveon toilers’ unity. It is for these reasons that this issue needs to be ad-dressed with all seriousness.

At the outset, it is necessary to debunk a common fallacy that attempts topit caste versus class. Vested interests often advise Communists that sincethey believe in class divisions in society, caste ought not to engage theirattention. Such a mechanical distinction between caste and class is notonly a vulgar simplification but divorced from the present day Indianreality. The caste stratification of our society is something that has comedown to us from centuries. Despite all the refinements and changes withincastes and between castes, that has taken place over the years, the basicstructure, in so far as the oppression of the dalits or the backward castesis concerned remains. It is within this social stratification that the class

ELIMINATING CASTEOPPRESSION

Si t aram Yech ury

formation in India is taking place. Capitalism is still developing inIndia and the process of the development of society divided into moderncapitalist classes, is taking place constantly within the existing caste strati-fication. The question therefore, is not one of class versus caste. It is theformation of classes under modern capitalism within the inherited castestructure. To a large extent, the most exploited classes in our society,constitute the most socially oppressed castes. And, to that extent, thestruggle against class exploitation and the struggle against social oppres-sion complement each other. These sections as it were, are subject to dualoppression. It is this complementarity that not only needs to be recog-nised but on the basis of that recognition, it must follow that an importanttask before the democratic movement in our country today is the integra-tion of the struggle against class exploitation with the struggle againstsocial oppression. As we shall see later, it is only through such an integra-tion that the firm unity of the toilers can be forged and strengthened.

Before we take up the task of trying to understand the nature and charac-teristics of caste mobilisation in the present day political life, one needs toexamine, albeit briefly, as to why caste divisions and social oppressioncontinue to persist even after all the tall claims made by the ruling classesthrough the post-independence decades to overcome them.

There is a vast amount of literature on the evolution and sustenance of thecaste system in India. The large number of such works are only matchedby the divergence of its conclusions. I am not here going into the originsof the caste system or its tenacity. Some scholars have also linked it witha discussion of Marx’s Asiatic Mode of production. Without any disre-spect or devaluation of such work, which is of immense intellectual andpolitical value, it would suffice for our discussion to base ourselves on thefact (agreed upon by most) that the caste system, in Marxist terms, is thesuperstructure of an economic base which is pre-capitalist. In that sense,any attempt to overthrow this sinful heritage and obnoxious caste oppres-sion will have to target the elimination of the vestiges of pre-capitalisteconomic formations. This, in our present case, is the elimination of thevestiges of feudalism and semi-feudalism.

This does not mean, even for a moment, that such elimination, through acomprehensive agrarian revolution, however complex and difficult it maybe, will automatically eliminate the caste system and the entire range ofsocial consciousness associated with it. As Engels in a letter to Blocksays, that Marx and he had meant that the economic factor is decisive inSITARAM YECHURY is a Member of Parliament and former President of the SFI


Thus, we find under the British rule, a contradictory process was put inmotion. The effect of modern relations- railways, communications, grow-ing market, few industries, trade- accentuated the tendency towards de-stroying the old structure and with it the caste system and replacing itwith modern day class divisions. On the other hand, the vital interests ofthe colonial power lay in seeking political and economic support from thelandlords and feudal interests, thus maintaining the old land relations andthereby supporting the caste structure and institutions.

Thus, the process of change of the old society, under the British rule, wasslow and painful and never destined to be completed.

Simultaneously within the freedom movement itself, there were two maintrends that contributed to the persistence of the caste institutions. Onewas the revivalist ideology which dominated a number of leaders of thefreedom movement. Coming from upper caste Hindu background, theseleaders in the struggle against the British drew sustenance from India’s socalled ‘golden’ past and in the process they defended the social institu-tions of this past. Tilak was, in fact, a classic example of such a ten-dency. Rajni Palme Dutt in India Today summed up this line of thinkingmost appropriately in the following paragraph:

“So from the existing foul welter and decaying and corrupt metaphysics,from the broken relics of the shattered village system, from the deadremains of court splendours of a vanished civilisation, they sought tofabricate and build up and reconstitute a golden dream of Hindu culture- a`purified’ Hindu culturewhich they could hold up as an ideal and a guid-ing light. Against the overwhelming flood of British bourgeois culture andideology, which they saw completely conquering the Indian bourgeoisieand intelligentsia, they sought to hold forward a feeble shield of a recon-structed Hindu ideology which had no longer any natural basis for itsexistence in actual life conditions. All social and scientific developmentwas condemned by the more extreme devotees of this gospel as the con-querors’ culture: every form of antiquated tradition, even abuse, privilegeand obscurantism, was treated with respect and veneration.” (India To-day, Page 327)

Similar is the attitude of present day communal forces. Precisely becausetheir ideological roots are based on revivalism and obscurantism, they areopposed to a thorough agrarian revolution. Even at the level of the super-structure despite mouthing radical slogans, they only strengthen the castehierarchies of the old Hindu order.

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the final analysis. Even after the change in the economic base the super-structure and associated social consciousness may persist and would re-quire an intense ideological struggle to eliminate it. But without the at-tempt to change the pre-capitalist agrarian order, mere appeals for a changeof heart or behaviour cannot and will not eliminate this obnoxious socialoppression. Our opportunity that was there was to affect a sweepingagrarian revolution along with the anti-colonial freedom struggle. But thiswas not to be due to the compromising character of the leadership.

The main reason for this persistence of social oppression based on castestratification is the inadequacy of the ruling classes, during the freedomstruggle, in addressing themselves to this issue. The overcoming of castedifferentiation was sought through proper social behaviour between indi-viduals and castes without growing into the social roots of thisphenomenon. The sinful heritage of caste oppression was something thatthe national anti-colonial struggle could not repudiate because the leader-ship of the freedom struggle was not interested in going to the root of theproblem and uprooting it. Even it had a correct understanding of the so-cial roots of the problem, it did not have the courage to seize it by theroots. By refusing to sweep away the feudal and semi-feudal agrarianrelations, which was the bedrock for the continuation and persistence ofcaste exploitation, the leadership of freedom struggle not only permittedbut in later years perpetuated the caste exploitation. Thus, the struggleagainst caste oppression over the decades of freedom movement andpost-independence India was divorced from the anti-colonial struggle earlierand from the struggle for an agrarian revolution later.

With the advent of modernisation under the British rule, particularly therailways, many, had thought that the old order would crumble paving theway for a class division of modern society. However, this did not happenas envisaged. This was so because it was not in the interest of the colonialrule to transform Indian society. Its interests lay in exploiting the Indianpeople and its economy on the basis of their backwardness. This requiredto keep the rural land relations intact, in class terms, modifying them onlyto advance the colonial revenue collections without disturbing the eco-nomic or social relations. The British also required that a powerful indig-enous Indian capitalist class does not arise. The result was an alliancewith the feudal landlords for its political survival and the super impositionof minimum modern capitalist relations on the existing feudal land rela-tions which sustained the caste system.


The other tendency which prevented the liquidation of the old order alongwith the freedom struggle was the vacillation of the Congress towardslandlords and feudal interests. At a time when huge mass peasant revoltshad started growing against landlords, the Congress in the 1922 Bardoliresolution calling off the national campaign against the British stated: “TheWorking Committee advises Congress workers and organisations to in-form the ryots that withholding of rent payments to zamindar is contraryto the Congress resolutions and injurious to the best interests of the coun-try. The Working Committee assures the zamindars that the Congressmovement is in no way interested to attack their legal rights...” Thus, theCongress’s efforts to achieve independence was divorced from the agrar-ian revolution. In fact, as we shall see later, instead of carrying on asweeping overthrow of the old feudal order, the Congress compromisedwith the landlords sharing power with them in post-independent India.

These two tendencies put together prevented any meaningful attack againstthe social oppression of the caste system associated with the feudal andsemi-feudal order existing in the country. It was only the CommunistParty of India which linked the struggle against British imperialism with acomprehensive agrarian revolution. Right from the Platform of Action in1930 to the memorandum submitted to the National Integration Council in1968, the Communist movement constantly underlined that caste exploi-tation and social emancipation could be possible only through sweepingchanges in agrarian relations. However, in the absence of a powerful agrar-ian movement, this task has remained unfulfilled till date. As a result,given the compromising attitude of the bourgeois leadership, the atrocitiesand caste oppression continue to persist.

Another current also needs to be properly analysed in order to understandthe persistence of the caste stratification till date, i.e., the Social ReformMovement. There have been huge anti-caste movements that have takenplace in the country and have wielded significant political influence at theirtime. Amongst the giants that stand out of such movements was JyotibaPhule. Jyotiba was a great secular democrat whose passion for the un-touchable and sense of justice was unheard of. He, personally, had abso-lutely no caste bias and the movement demanding equal treatment wasnamed as the satyashodhak - a movement against untruth, injustice andhypocrisy of the Hindu social order dominated by the Brahmins.

Ideologically Jyotiba’s movement was an uncompromising attack on theancient and feudal superstructure. However, this uncompromising attack

did not go beyond to attack the basic agrarian relations based on feudalland relations which was the basis on which this superstructureexisted. While this movement contributed immensely to increase conscious-ness against caste exploitation, it could not reach the levels to the elimina-tion of that precisely because it could not mobilise the peasantry for anagrarian revolution.

Similar has been the experience of Ambedkar. This most outstanding andtireless fighter, who on behalf of the dalits exposed the upper caste hy-pocrisies, lambasted the Congress and its policies but had to finally askhis followers to embrace Buddhism to escape the injustices of Hindu so-ciety. But the grim social reality based on unequal land relations did notchange because of conversion to Buddhism. Unfortunately, smashing thepresent socio-economic system as the decisive step for elimination ofcaste exploitation, was replaced by formal declarations of equality, reser-vation of seats, jobs etc. It was once again shown that despite a leader ofAmbedkar’s structure, despite the strength of the movement, the objec-tive could not be achieved because it failed to target the basic source ofthis exploitation, i.e., feudal and semi-feudal land relations.

Similar also has been the experience of the Dravidian movement led byPeriyar E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker. Periyar did succeed in creating a greatfeeling against caste oppression and his voice boomed large againstuntouchability. But yet again, viewing this merely at the level of super-structure without attacking the economic base that nurtured such a mon-strous iniquitous caste stratification, the movement could not reach itslogical culmination.

Thus, we find that the social reform movement, despite the glorious un-compromising role of its leaders could not achieve the stated objective asit either ignored or bypassed the tasks of the agrarian revolution.

Thus, we find at the time of independence, all these currents put togetherhad created a situation where the tasks of the democratic revolution- chiefly the agrarian revolution- remained unfulfilled under the bourgeoisleadership of the freedom struggle that not only vacillated but compro-mised with landlordism.

This process gets manifested in a concrete expression in post-independ-ent India. The Indian bourgeoisie, in its eagerness to capture state power,on the one hand compromised with imperialism and on the other, com-promised with landlordism and semi-feudal forces. It shared power with

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the later in the ruling class alliance. Thus instead of sweeping away thefeudal and semi-feudal land relations along with the anti-colonial-anti-im-perialist struggle, the ruling classes perpetuated these relations, seekingonly to modify them for their interests by attempting to superimpose capi-talism. Thus, instead of a sweeping overthrow of the old order frombelow what happened over these years of independence was the limitedsuperimposition of capitalist relations in agriculture, that too in limitedpockets without overthrowing the social relations. This only perpetuatedthe social consciousness associated with the semi-feudal relations- casteand communalism.

Further, the system of parliamentary democracy that was adopted wasbased on an electoral system which tended to reinforce the caste con-sciousness. Instead of guaranteeing equality irrespective of caste, the elec-toral system, itself, nurtured the perpetuation of caste consciousness interms of choice of candidates and the appeal to the electorate. The rulingclasses have consistently refused to accept the suggestion to introduceproportional representation. Apart from its other advantages, as peoplewould have to vote for parties and not individuals, this would have mini-mised the appeals based on caste, religion, community etc.

While both these factors tended to reinforce the perpetuation of casteoppression, the Congress leadership continued to mouth concern overcaste oppression and continued to appeal to people to change their way oflife and outlook rather than attack the economic basis on which this op-pression thrived. The inability to proceed with even the limited land re-form legislations because of the alliance with the landlords prevented inthe past and prevents today the Indian bourgeoisie to complete the tasksof the democratic revolution.

This is reinforced by the attitude of the Congress leaders, even thosecoming from the dalits. A case in point is the experiences and opinions ofShri Jagjivan Ram in his book Caste Challenge in India. Unlike manyother dalit leaders who stood aloof from the national movement, ShriJagjivan Ram has a proud distinction of active participation in the freedomstruggle, including imprisonment. With justified passion, he recounts theplight of the dalits and the oppressed castes. Intellectually, he accepts thefact that the struggle against caste oppression can only be successful asan integral part of the struggle of the exploited classes of India. Despiteemphasising this consistently in his book, the final solution he offers ischaracteristic of a bourgeois leader. He abhors class struggle for the eman-

cipation of the poor and urges the people to adopt the Gandhian way, i.e.,the elimination of such oppression with the exercise of the force of mo-rality. Thus, once again, we find that while understanding the problemcorrectly, while describing the situation graphically, the modern day lead-ers of post-independent India also fought shy of mobilising the people fora sweeping agrarian revolution as the basic solution of the problem.

The net result has been not the building up of a movement for the eradica-tion of social oppression that the caste system represents but for palliativesoffered to redress to some degree the suffering of these sections throughthe extension of the British concept of concessions such as reservationsin educational institutions and jobs. That the caste system perpetuatesinequalities generally and in the sphere of access to education in particu-lar, is validated by many empirical studies. The question of reservations ineducational institutions arose in this background and, initially, a 22.5 percent reservation for SC and ST categories were announced. This wasaccompanied by reservations in government employment. This was sub-sequently extended to reservations in government employment for theOBCs in 1990 and with the present 93rd Constitutional Amendment, it hasbeen extended to educational institutions as well. Ashwini Deshpande (Eco-nomic and Political Weekly, June 17, 2006) has created a Caste Develop-ment Index (CDI). It shows using the data of National Family HealthSurvey (NFHS) that the CDI for the OBCs was less than the non SC/ST‘others’ (i.e. upper castes) in all states of India. For the SC/STs, the CDIis much, much lower. Therefore, in order to achieve the objective ofsocial equity and social justice in the Indian education system, it, thus,became inevitable that reservations be introduced. But irony is these res-ervations are projected as an end in itself.

In the very nature of things these palliatives will neither solve the problemof poverty and unemployment, nor change the condition of untouchablesand other downtrodden castes. While reservations definitely address theissue of equity, the issue of both quality and quantity also need to beaddressed. There is an urgency to expand State-run educational facilitiesin order to address the problems of quantity while simultaneously to in-crease expenditures in providing high class educational infrastructure totackle the issue of quality. A holistic approach of such a nature is abso-lutely imperative. They will certainly offer some relief, to individuals fromthese communities, enhance their confidence in their advance, but notchange their status. But for the ruling classes these concessions play an

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important role. In the first place in the general competition for jobs etc,they pit one section of toilers against another. Secondly they create animpression among some sections that government is their real friend andthey should confine the struggle within the framework of the bourgeoissystem. Thus a basis of challenge to the present socio-economic systemfrom the most downtrodden sections is prevented.

Another phenomenon will also have to be noted which was taking placesimultaneously. A parallel development that was taking place during thedays of the freedom struggle and particularly after the independence wasthe process of emergence of a modern state in India. The vast multina-tional character of our country, ensured that different sections- caste,religions, ethnic, regional- began rightfully demanding equality of statusand opportunity in the new independent polity. But, however, as the eco-nomic crisis deepened in the post-independent decades, far from the ex-pectations of these different sections being met, the disparities startedgrowing. This led and continues to lead today for the scramble amongstthese different sections for a share of the cake. As the size of the cakeshrinks this scramble takes the form of conflict between various groups.Hence, the demand for reservations from new sections and the oppositionto reservations from other sections becomes a commonpractice. Therefore, while supporting reservations for the dalits and thebackward castes, we unhesitatingly always emphasise that this is not thefinal solution. Enough statistics can be adduced to show thatdespite reservations, the plight of these sections has not substantially im-proved. Even today in all courses of graduation and above, only 8.18 percent of SCs and 2.9 per cent of STs are enrolled as against the 15 and 7.5per cent reservations provided for them. In the absence of any meaning-ful change in agrarian relations, such concessions must be supported butno illusions must be entertained that this is the only solution.

It is, in this background of deepening crisis in our country, that one mustunderstand the nature of the present caste assertion. There are two as-pects to this. On the one hand, as a result of whatever limited develop-ment that has taken place since independence and in the background ofthe deepening crisis, there is a growing consciousness amongst the op-pressed castes to rebel against their conditions of social oppression. Thisis a positive aspect. Without such a growing consciousness the struggleagainst oppression and exploitation cannot be carried out decisively. Thisis a consciousness that needs to be nurtured and strengthened with theeffort to integrate this consciousness with the struggles against the present

socio-economic system. It is only through such an integration of thestruggle against social oppression and the struggle against modern dayclass exploitation can the struggle for an agrarian revolution bestrengthened and carried forward to its logical culmination.

There is, however, another aspect to the present day caste assertion. This is the attempt to try and confine this growing consciousness withinthe parameters of the concerned caste. This is resorted to by the leader-ship of the present day movements whose outlook is no different fromthe one’s we discussed above. While appealing only to the caste con-sciousness and ignoring, if not evading, the basic issue of the struggleagainst the existing agrarian order, these leaders once again are appealingfor a change in the superstructure without affecting the base. In doing so,they treat this growing consciousness amongst the dalits and the back-ward castes as separate compartments, as vote banks, for their politicalfortunes rather than addressing themselves for a genuine solution of theproblem.

The appeal of such caste leaders to their following is not to strengthen thecommon struggle to change the present socio-economic system. Theappeal is to elect their brethren to power. They are thus spreading theillusion that coming to power within the same system that protects theexisting socio-economic order is a solution to their problems. This mayserve the lust for power of the leaders but the living conditions of themass remain as backward as ever. This has been the experience of thegovernments that have come to power in Bihar and UP. Neither of themeven initiated the implementation of existing land reform legislations thatthe West Bengal Left Front government has done. Instead of sweepingagrarian changes they seek to preserve the existing order that perpetuatesthe caste system and its oppression.

The vested interests and the ruling classes seek to divorce the struggle,against social oppression from the struggle against modern day class ex-ploitation. Thus, instead of strengthening the unity of the toilers againstthe present socio-economic system, they tend to separate the two strug-gles thereby weakening this unity.

It is the task of the democratic movement today to integrate these strug-gles against social oppression with class exploitation in one, overall widerclass struggle to change the existing socio-economic system and unleashthe agrarian revolution. This is a challenge of our times.

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the political. What the Supreme Court order meant in real terms wasthat the judiciary was, in a sense, initiating a policy of de- reservingOBC seats. Reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe(SC and ST) has been on in educational institutions for many decadesnow and at no point of time was there a de-reservation of seats that areunfilled. Both the IITs and the IIMs had opted for a staggered mode ofimplementation of the 27 per cent OBC quota and the 2008 session wasjust the beginning of the process. While the IITs chose to implementnine per cent OBC seats every year beginning this session, each of theIIMs decided on a differential percentage. In short, the institutions werefar from fulfilling the OBC quota in full and yet the Apex Court hadtaken up on itself the task of giving directions to fulfill even the fewvacant seats in that limited share. Over and above this, there werepractical problems too the institutions to implement the order becausetheir academic sessions had started two months ago. Clearly, the ApexCourt order had unleashed a new conundrum in the premier educa-tional institutions.

There was little doubt that the pros and cons of this order would con-tinue to be discussed for some time. And in all probability, this ordercould well be cited as a legal precedent to systematically chip awayseats from the OBC quota in premier institutions. It is also probable thatsupporters of undiluted OBC reservation would launch manifold exer-cises to overcome such chipping away from the allocations. In otherwords, the issue of OBC quota was all set for one more round of legaland perhaps social and political disturbance. But this is nothing new forthis issue.

The history of OBC reservations in any sector, whether it is employ-ment, promotions or education, is indeed replete with such tortuous ex-ercises. Efforts have been made time and again to bottle up the veryrecommendations that ultimately paved the way for reservations. Infact, B.P. Mandal, the man who travelled across the length and breadthof the country, studied various castes and communities thoroughly andtoiled hard to put together the Mandal Commission Report himself knewthat his recommendations would not have smooth sailing in a countryknown for its centuries old discriminatory practices. And that was ex-actly why he followed up the submission of the epoch making report inDecember 1980 to the then Union Minister Gyani Zail Singh with a

The Story of OBC quotaMANY STRUGGLES,

MORE TO COME

Venkitesh R am akrishnan

On 15 September 2008, the Supreme Court of India came up withan order stating that vacant Other Backward Classes (OBC) seats

in the premier educational institutions of the country such as the IndianInstitute of Management (IIM) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)should be allotted to general category students. There were not manysuch unoccupied seats in the premier institutions. All the IIMs com-bined had 13 vacant seats, while the IITs had 23 OBC seats to be filledup. A total of 733 seats in IITs had already been filled up by OBCstudents before the Supreme Court order came. Barring IIM Indore, allthe premier management institutions had filled up their quota.

In this background, the Apex court’s order did raise some questions,especially in terms of its rationale. A large majority of seats had beenfilled up and only a handful was remaining. Was there urgency for theApex Court to issue an order to fill up the vacant seats? Was it legallyand morally acceptable to introduce orders to dilute an allocation thathas been made constitutionally? These questions were raised anddebated in several forums ranging from the legal to the educational to

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN is the Deputy Editor the Hindu-Frontline


ingly getting elected to offices of power at the regional as well as at theState level.

Still, actual implementation of the Mandal Commission recommenda-tions did not happen in a systematic manner. It took another four yearsfor the first appointment to take place on the basis of the recommenda-tions. In the meantime, the Vishwanath Pratap Singh government hadfallen and the appointment was done the P.V. Narasimha Rao led Con-gress government, which came to power in 1991. Even so, the recom-mendations pertaining to reservation in premier educational institutionswas not under the purview of the central government for another 12years. Between 1990, when Vishwanath Pratap Singh first acceptedthe recommendations, and 2005, when Arjun Singh, the Human Re-sources Development minister in the Manmohan Singh led United Pro-gressive Alliance (UPA) government took up the issue of OBC reser-vations in premier educational institutions there were as many as sixgovernments at the centre headed by different political formations. Butnone of them raised this issue.

The 2006 is move of the government was received with the same ap-proach as in 1990 by anti-reservationists, but given the strength thatOBC assertive politics had accrued over the years, the intensity of theobjection was not as much as it was 16 years ago. All kinds of explana-tions were appended to the government move by the anti-reservationists.To start with, it was perceived as a political exercise aimed at bolsteringthe chances of the Congress and its allies in the United ProgressiveAlliance government in the Assembly elections that were to be held atthat time West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Assam.The Election Commission (E.C.) promptly took note of it and sent no-tices to the Minister, treating his statement prima facie as violation ofthe model code of conduct. Secondly, it was argued that Arjun Singhwas initiating something unprecedented in the country’s history and thatit would work against merit in the education sector and cause greatdamage to centres of excellence such as the IITs and the IIMs. Arealpolitik twist was added to the debate with suggestions that ArjunSingh had not consulted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or the UnionCabinet before making the reservation plan public. It was also indicatedthat the Prime Minister was not in complete agreement with the pro-posal and that Arjun Singh had jumped the gun in order to upstage

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sharp comment laced with black humour. “ Today, we have performedthe ritualistic immersion (visarjan) of a historic document” was whathe said after the submission. These words almost acquired a propheticdimension, given the manner in which the recommendations were treatedin later years. Since then report and its recommendations have gonethrough a cycle of sorts, characterised by long periods of governmentapathy and episodic revivals accompanied by raucous protests and po-litical twists.

After its submission in 1980, the report remained in cold storage for onefull decade, until the National Front government under the leadership ofVishwanath Pratap Singh decided to implement a portion of it in 1990.The political demonstrations that followed that action were so stridentand dramatic that they altered radically the style and content of politicaldiscourse in the country. On the one side, it strengthened the politics ofbackward caste and Dalit assertiveness across the country and on theother it supplemented the politics of Hindutva, which was trying to ag-gressively build up a pan-Indian, pan-Hindu identity beyond the divi-sions of caste. There were pitched battles between these formationsover the National Front government’s move leading to the fall of theV.P. Singh government. But all the same OBC assertive politics ac-quired greater bite after that.

OBC assertive politics was indeed prevalent in a large number of stateseven before 1990, but they were all essentially regional political ven-tures that were built up on issues and concerns related to local manifes-tations of caste discrimination. But the V.P. Singh government’s initia-tive as well as the resultant debate on the Mandal Commission recom-mendations united all the diverse practitioners of OBC assertive politicson a common issue and more or less on a common platform. The emer-gence of this common platform enhanced the social, political andorganisational influence of the various practitioners of OBC assertivepolitics. This had its electoral manifestations too with parties and lead-ers that advanced OBC oriented politics ensuring a steady and promi-nent presence in offices of power all over the country. This electoralimpact was most visible in north Indian states like Uttar Pradesh andBihar, where OBC leaders, parties and population had for long beenforced to play a subservient role to upper caste political interests. Theyears following 1990 saw the rise of OBC and Dalit leaders increas-


Manmohan Singh and score political points.

In the midst of all this theorizing it was conveniently forgotten that whatArjun Singh had come up with was nothing new or innovative. In fact,there was nothing new in the proposal brought by the Human ResourcesDevelopment Minister. For, the Mandal Commission recommendationsrefer to the need for reservation in educational institutions in no uncer-tain terms. There are about a dozen recommendations in the report,which propose, apart from reservation in government jobs and educa-tional institutions, separate coaching facilities for students aspiring toenter technical and professional institutions and special vocation-ori-ented education facilities to upgrade the academic and cultural environ-ment of OBC students.

The report also states that fundamental structural changes in the land-tenurial system and production relations through progressive land re-forms are required if steady and long-lasting results are to accrue fromthe recommendations. The Commission has also pointed to the need forthe creation of a chain of financial and technical bodies to assist OBCentrepreneurs and upgrade the skills of village artisans and provide themwith subsidised loans to set up small-scale industries. If anything, ArjunSingh was only following the basic recommendations of the MandalCommission, albeit incompletely and after a gap of two and a half dec-ades. Moreover, the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) for gov-ernance of the UPA had made a firm commitment about implementingreservation for OBCs in educational institutions.

The opposition to reservation in premier educational institutions hadcome up not only as formal and open resistance. It was also advancedin nuanced and at times in a surreptitious manner. The friends of thegovernment - particularly Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and FinanceMinister P. Chidambaram - in the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)were one of the advocates of this nuanced strategy. They said that theIndian corporate world – which is fed significantly by the premier edu-cational institutions - is all for social justice to oppressed communitiesbut this has to come in the form of affirmative action and not as reser-vations. The CII even said that it was working on a formal proposal tothe government highlighting what it perceives as affirmative action.Apparently, the CII’s focus is on rural industrialisation, scholarships,

and a financing system to promote entrepreneurship, job creation andskill development for the underprivileged. The plan apparently assertsthat reservation would be detrimental for industry’s health. The PrimeMinister made his own contribution too the CII concept by suggestingthat corporate leaders should take steps to blend commitment to excel-lence with commitment to social equity.

With this, there was a clear attempt to club the reservations in premiereducational institutions with affirmative action by the corporate sectorand even the debate for reservations in the private sector. It was wellknown that reservation in the private sector could not be initiated with-out amending the Constitution. At the same time the Group of Ministerswhich was going into the reservation- in -private sector- issue had ob-served that the “political desirability, political feasibility and legality ofamending the Constitution need to be carefully considered in consulta-tion with other parties”. The GoM had also interacted with representa-tives of the CII, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce (FICCI)and other trade and industry organisations. According to the GoM, thesetrade and industry organisations accepted the “desirability of affirma-tive action” but opposed the “concept of reservation as prevailing in thegovernment” because they saw reservation as a factor that limits initia-tives in global business competition.

Pro-reservationists, including those affiliated with the Human ResourcesDevelopment ministry, countered the corporate sector’s arguments bypointing out that the system of capitation fee in a large number of pri-vate institutions worked as reservation for the rich. It was also pointedout that merit became an issue only when it came to providing access tothose who for centuries had been denied education. Doubts were ex-pressed at that time that a filibustering tactic was being advanced throughvarious means to stave off immediate implementation of reservation ineducational institutions. The components of this tactic were seen asfollows: an effort to brand the Human Resource Development minis-try’s move as an alternatively as an election code of conduct issue, andan inner-party tussle was the first phase and this was later advanced asan effort to debate the proposal for reservation in educational institu-tions jointly with reservation in the private sector.

An editorial in People’s Democracy, the organ of the Communist Partyof India (Marxist) – CPIM – advanced this argument further through

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an editorial. It pointed out that “until education for all was achieved, itwas necessary to understand that education in the country had, forlong, particularly since Independence, been afflicted with the perennialquest for a proper balance in its eternal triangle - quantity, quality, eq-uity. Reservation definitely addressed the issue of equity; the issue ofboth quality and quantity also needs to be addressed through measuresto expand state-run educational facilities and increasing expendituresfor providing high-class educational infrastructure to tackle quality.However, equity cannot be kept in abeyance until this balance is broughtabout in this eternal triangle. “ The thrust of the argument was thatquantity, quality and equity complement each other and were not inconflict, as vested interests sought deliberately project.

After all these argumentations, the proposal to initiate reservation inpremier educational institutions was taken through a laborious legalwrangle that delayed the process by a full academic year. Finally, theSupreme Court came up with a verdict on 10 April 2008, upholding theHuman Resource Development ministry’s initiative. That was indeedperceived as a historic judgment upholding the spirit of the Mandal Com-mission recommendations. But barely five months later the Apex Courtitself has come up with an order that raises questions whether the res-ervation principle would be upheld in a legal and constitutional manner.But, as the history of reservations, particularly the plight of MandalCommission recommendations over the last 28 years has shown suchimpediments would keep on coming and can be overcome only on thestrength of political will and resolute political practice. As is evident it isa history of many struggles and many are to come in different hues,colours and nuances.

On Reservations inHigher Education

IntroductionThe decision by the government of India to implement the scheme of27% reservations for other backward classes (OBCs) in admission tohigher educational institutions under its purview-and the more generalissue of reservations on grounds of social justice- evoked fierce opposi-tion from certain quarters. Even though such protests are almost alwaysled and articulated by a relatively small, elite section of society, they high-light the need to clarify the issues involved in such a manner that the unityof all the people against all forms of social and economic injustice andoppression can be built. This is an especially important task facing thestudent movement.

It must be made absolutely clear at the very outset that the provision of27% reservations for OBCs in admissions to educational institutions isthoroughly justified, and in fact long overdue. The 93rd amendment, towhich reference has been made by the government in announcing itsdecision to extend 27% reservations to OBCs, establishes the right ofgovernment to make special provisions in matters relating to admission toall educational institutions, whether public or private, or aided or unaided,to subserve the constitutional goals of social justice, the only institutionsexempted being minority institutions coming under the purview of Article

Venkatesh Athreya

VENKATESH .B. ATHREYA is Professor of economics and advisor MS SwaminathanResearch Foundation Chennai.


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30 (1) of the Constitution. While this was most welcome in the backdropof a Supreme Court decision that had practically given a carte blanche toprivate educational institutions engaged in education as commerce, theamendment itself was not really necessary for implementing the schemenow announced. It is now sixteen long years since the National Frontgovernment led by V.P. Singh partially implemented the Mandal Commis-sion Report by providing reservations for OBCs in jobs under the Centralgovernment and its enterprises. Successive neoliberal regimes at the Cen-tre since 1991 have steadfastly refused to pass a simple executive orderproviding reservations for OBCs in higher educational institutions underthe Central government, even after the Supreme Court had upheld theprinciples underlying the Mandal recommendations.

In a society where substantial sections of the people have been deniedaccess to education for centuries on the basis of birth, it is axiomatic thatdemocracy would be meaningless for vast sections of the people withouta serious effort to address this historically evolved inequality. It is cer-tainly true that, under a system of caste-based reservations of seats ineducational institutions, the students from the upper castes will face dis-crimination in the sense that a non-upper caste student with a lower en-trance score could gain admission while the upper caste student does not.But this cannot be equated with the much larger, macro social and histori-cal injustice of denial of opportunity to the ‘lower’ castes. Of course, it istrue that this is poor consolation for the individual upper caste student,and that the student is certainly not personally responsible for the histori-cal fact of caste discrimination. But that does not change the fact that, ofthe two competing equalities (a term that Marc Gallanter uses in his bookCompeting Equalities), the broader one of redressing historical injusticeis of far greater urgency and legitimacy. The advantages of class/castethat upper caste students generally enjoy in acquisition of education andthe learning environment from childhood onwards also need to be kept inmind when using examination scores as an index of merit.

While upholding unambiguously the social justice based entitlement ofOBCs on grounds of social and educational backwardness to reservationsin education and employment, including in the private sector, one mustalso take a holistic stand on the whole question of reservations in generaland in educational institutions in particular. In particular, it needs to bereiterated that our society and economy are characterized by deep struc-tural inequalities relating not only to social status as shaped and reflectedby the caste system but also to ownership and control of productive

assets, location (urban/rural) and gender. Moreover, the path of develop-ment followed since independence has not only accentuated the structuralinequalities but has also entailed a neoliberal economic policy frameworkthat resists state intervention. Without addressing these structural issues,it is not possible to arrive at a proper understanding of the question ofreservations and how it is to be addressed.

The Case for ReservationsIn the course of the recent anti-reservations agitation, it is not only thereservation for OBCs in admissions to higher educational institutions thathas been called into question, but even the very principle of reservations.It therefore becomes necessary, once again, to restate the case for reser-vations. While the abysmally poor indicators of material and social devel-opment of the scheduled tribes and the practice of untouchability againstthe scheduled castes and their near-landless status make the claims ofSCs and STs to reservations obvious to any but the most insensitive, thereis considerable reluctance among sections of the intelligentsia to admit theneed for reservations for OBCs. But a dispassionate look at the data onsocioeconomic characteristics of the OBCs from the 55th round of theNational Sample Survey pertaining to the year 1999-2000 and the secondNational Family Health Survey of 1998-99 (NFHS 2) should convinceanybody that there is a considerable social and educational distance be-tween the OBCs and the others among the non-SC, non-ST population.According to NFHS 2, the proportions of agricultural and manual labour-ers among STs, SCs, OBCs and Others were respectively 75%, 68%,61% and 47%. The data from NSS are even more telling. Just to give onefigure, the proportion of rural households with no literate adult femalewas, in 1999-2000, 74.5% for STs, 72.4% for SCs, 63% for OBCs and44.9% for Others. The distances remained for urban areas as well, thecorresponding percentages for STs, SCs, OBCs and Others being 48.4%,54%, 38% and 24.9% respectively. Even more strikingly, the percentageof rural persons 20 years or older with at least higher secondary pass wasa mere 4.9% for STs, 5.3% for SCs and 7% for OBCs as against 13.4%for Others. Even in urban areas, only 18.3% of OBCs had 12 or moreyears of education as against 36.7% in the case of Others, the figures forSCs being even lower at 13.2%. The same inequality gets reflected inconsumption levels and landholding status, though not to the same extentor in the same manner across all states. In states like Gujarat, U.P., Bihar,Haryana and Rajasthan, the social distance between OBCs and Others isvery large, especially in rural areas. The percentage of rural OBC house-


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holds without a single literate adult female is as high as 82 in Rajsthan,78in Bihar, and 75 in U.P., as against corresponding figures of 67, 58 and 54for non-SC, non-ST Others. The interesting aspect is that, even in statessuch as Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, and to a lesser extent, TamilNadu, where reservation for OBCs has been in existence for decades, theeducational distances between OBCs and the other non-SC, non-ST castesremain considerable, especially in rural areas.

Reservation for OBCsAlthough recent data on the occupational status of persons in the OBCcategory is not available, the broad picture that emerges from both NSSand NFHS, circa 1998-2000, confirms the Mandal Commission view thata substantial proportion of the rural OBC households are labour house-holds deriving the major proportion of their incomes from employment aswage labourers. A sizeable proportion of such labour in both urban andrural areas is of a casual kind, with no protection and low wages. At theall-India level, 57% of rural OBC households own less than 1 acre of landwhile 37% are rural labour households. A large proportion of the OBCcastes and households within these castes would appear to be small andmarginal farmers or artisans in low productivity, low technology occupa-tions. It needs to be recalled here that the bulk of the OBCs are from thenon-dwija, shudra castes, who have suffered discrimination and oppres-sion over a long historical period, the intensity of which has been nextonly to what the STs and SCs have suffered. The case for reservation forOBCs, just as in the case of STs and SCs, is thus quite clear.

While the case for OBC reservation is thus quite strong in view of thesocial and educational as well as economic distances that separate OBCsas a whole from the upper castes, especially in rural India, it is also truethat there is considerable heterogeneity within OBCs. This is of two kinds.It is both inter-caste, meaning that, in terms of the relevant social andeducational indicators, some castes within the OBC category are consid-erably more advanced than other OBC castes and not significantly behindthe non-SC, non-ST households. Such a state of affairs is partly the resultof reservations having been in force for many decades, but is more im-portantly a reflection of the class differentiation that has taken place as aresult of the type of capitalist development that has taken place in bothrural and urban India. Disaggregated data on who precisely are thesecastes may not be readily available, but would certainly not be too difficultto collect and put together. Of course, the picture would vary from state

to state, and even across regions within a state. Secondly, within anygiven OBC caste, there is considerable differentiation in respect of socialand educational status and opportunities. Considerations of this kind havebeen reflected in the historic 1992 judgement of the 9-Member Constitu-tion Bench of the Supreme Court of India, in the case of Indra Sawhneyand Others Vs. The Union of India and Others. The judgement, whileupholding the principle of reservations for Socially and Educationally Back-ward Classes (SEBCs) on account of social and educational backward-ness, directed at the same time that the socially advanced persons of theSEBCs ought not to be given the benefit of reservation. As pointed out inthe Report of the Expert Committee for specifying the criteria for identi-fication of socially advanced persons, the dominant consideration for res-ervation being social and educational backwardness, the same must bethe consideration for exclusion of what has been referred to as “the creamylayer”. It must also be noted at the same time that a sufficient degree ofeconomic advance will result in social and educational advance as well,and this must surely be taken into account. The view that, unlike in thecase of SCs and STs, there ought to be some criteria for prioritizing themore backward among the OBCs in extending the benefits of reservation,is consistent with this understanding. Given that the OBCs constitute alarger share of the population than 27%, some principle of allocation withinthe OBCs becomes necessary as well. In evolving such a prioritization,the relevant criterion does not need to be a simple income criterion, butcan in fact consist of a number of elements such as asset ownership,educational and professional status of parents. The Expert Committee inthis regard already referred to has, in fact, taken such an approach, andcorrectly erred on the side of caution, meaning that the error of exclusionof an eligible person has been minimized. It must also be pointed out thatthe ‘creamy layer’ exclusion is only a means of prioritizing the most back-ward, the poorest and the landless as against the most advanced, the verywell-to-do and the larger landholder. In the event of the OBC quota notbeing filled completely by such persons, the remaining OBC quota seats,in our understanding, should go the ‘creamy layer’ among the OBCs, andshould not be reallocated outside the reserved quota.

It must be noted that the use of exclusion criteria to prioritize reservationwithin the OBCs is not an idea that came only from the Court judgement.The Kerala Administrative Reforms Committee chaired by the then ChiefMinister E.M.S Namboodiripad in 1958 had suggested some criteria forbackward classes reservation, as did the Nettoor Damodaran Commis-


sion report of 1971. Justice Chinnappa Reddy Commission for Karnatakahad also proposed certain exclusion criteria.

Reservations not a panaceaWhether it is in employment or in education, reservation of seats can onlybe, at best, a palliative and interim measure to address economic, educa-tional and social deprivation. The roots of such deprivation go much deeperinto the socio-economic structure.

The Mandal Commission itself noted that, “..unless the production rela-tions are radically altered through structural changes and progressiveland reforms implemented rigorously all over the country, OBCs will neverbecome truly independent. In view of this, the highest priority should begiven to radical land reforms by all the states”. Since the Mandal Commisionsubmitted its Report in 1980, the Indian economy has been on an increas-ingly crisis-ridden capitalist path of development. Added to the woes of ahighly unequal economic structure in terms of the distribution of produc-tive assets in both agriculture and industry, the working people of thiscountry have had to face the onslaught of neoliberal economic policysince 1991. Even as the Mandal Commission recommendation on 27%quota for OBCs in central government departments and public sectorenterprises was accepted by the Central government and came up forimplementation, the economy moved towards both far greater privatiza-tion and jobless economic growth. With ban on recruitments in place, theOBC reservations provided extremely limited relief. Worse, as the govern-ment cut back outlays on development and social sectors rapidly andsavagely in order to target an “appropriate” level of that World Bank-IMFholy cow, the fiscal deficit, education, especially higher education, suf-fered grievously. Within an extremely limited higher education budget, theelite IITs and IIMs got more than the others did, but even they did not seehuge increases in government spending. Infrastructure in publicly fundedhigher education suffered badly. Neoliberal theology argued that the Statewas not essential for education, and that higher education in particularshould be left to the operation of market forces. In the name of universali-sation of elementary education, a dual school system became part of pub-lic policy, whereby the urban and rural poor would get ‘some’ educationunder Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, while the well-to-do could send their chil-dren to the most elite schools. As for higher education, “self-financing”(misnamed, it should read parents-financed) institutions would flourishwithout let or hindrance, charging hapless students and their parents what

the traffic would bear. Merit, whether measured by marks in regular ex-aminations, entrance tests or by other means, was not relevant to thequestion at all, it was just a matter of how much a parent could pay. Thenew-found defenders of meritocracy were of course deafeningly silentwhen all this was going on. Meanwhile, with liberalization and opening upof the higher education as well as the other modern services sectors andthe global IT boom, lucrative avenues were opening up for qualified engi-neers and doctors on a much larger scale than before. Admissions toprofessional degree courses became ever more competitive, with the termsof competition being set by the commerce of education rather than anyreasonable notion of academic merit. This scenario of extremely limitedadmission opportunities in publicly funded professional education at af-fordable cost and enormous profitability of commercially run private sec-tor professional education constitute a significant part of the material ba-sis of the agitation in elite institutions against reservations for OBCs andits fierceness.

Age-old caste prejudice plays its part in inventing arguments against res-ervations, the most specious being the one that posits an opposition be-tween merit and reservations. Neither the argument that admission on thebasis of reservations as opposed to merit measured by marks on an ex-amination compromises ‘quality’ nor the argument that reservations arean anti-competitive anachronism in a modern, globalizing economy evendeserve consideration and rebuttal. Reservation at best provides entranceto a course of study. At the exit point, all candidates have to satisfy thesame passing requirements. On the other hand, it can be argued that aseducation gets increasingly commercialized under the neoliberal dispensa-tion, the rich can buy their degrees! The argument that reservation is notthe most precise or efficient tool to address social and educational depri-vation has some validity. However, it is the most workable, practicalinstrument, even if somewhat blunt, and in a society like ours where thedifferent forms of deprivation are closely correlated with caste status, it isreasonably sound as well.

The real grievance behind the negative reaction of a section of the studentcommunity to OBC reservations in higher education that needs to be ad-dressed is the extremely limited opportunities for education in general,and higher education, especially in the professions of engineering andmedicine, in particular. There is a much larger pool of eligible candidatesthan seats available. This issue can be addressed in the long run only by

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substantially increasing public investments in education at all levels fromthe primary school upward. This is precisely why the movement for so-cial justice for socially and educationally backward segments of the popu-lation has to be linked up with the movement for the right to quality edu-cation for all. All the three oft-spoken parameters of education-quality,quantity and equity-can only be addressed within a larger framework of ademocratically transformed economic structure and policy framework. Italso makes sense in this context to demand that some provision be madefor the poor from all communities as well in admissions to institutions ofhigher education.

Even while the justice of and arguments in favour of reservations forOBCs need to be firmly upheld against the big business and media inspiredopposition, it is important to see the need to move beyond the question ofreservations to questions of land, assets and livelihoods. To deny the needfor radical land reforms, and confine oneself to the demand for a fewseats in professional colleges under the central government, or even byextension in all higher educational institutions, will not serve any usefulpurpose. Similarly, denying the need for criteria to prioritize the needs ofweaker sections within OBCs through schemes such as the prima facieexclusion of socially advanced communities as well as persons will onlyresult in the gains of reservation being monopolized by a small elite withinthe OBC, which tends to identify increasingly with the neoliberal policyregime. It is important to recognize the impact of neoliberal policies andideology on attitudes to social deprivation. The callousness of elite as wellas media reaction to the deprivation faced by a substantial proportion ofthe OBCs is rooted not in mere ignorance of the plight of OBCs, but muchmore in the social Darwinist ethos that underlies neoliberalism. The ethosof neoliberalism, with its implicit social Darwinism, provides the soil foropposing reservations in yet another way, in so far as all state interventionis deemed as unwarranted interference with the ‘natural’ (read ‘market’)order of things.

The elite argument that the demand for and observance of caste-basedreservations promotes casteism is of course absurd and deserves to bedismissed with contempt, since it is caste discrimination and oppressionthat make reservations based on caste necessary in the first instance.However, to pose the issue of reservations as if it is the only thing thatmatters, and to keep the fight entirely on the terrain of reservations, with-out developing a critique of the structure of the economy and policiesoperating to serve those in control of the economy, objectively serves the

interests of a very small elite. There is an urgent need to advance a properunderstanding of the issue of reservations for OBCs in higher educationwithin a wider framework of understanding of the nature of the structureof India’s political economy, and the impact of policies as well as thestructure on opportunities that are available for the pursuit of higher edu-cation. The student movement has to forge a wide consensus on thisissue that both serves the interests of social justice and builds the widestunity of all democratic forces.

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These days the papers are full of the word ‘equality’, a term otherwiseof not much credence to them. The ‘youth for equality’ by stating

that they are for ‘equality’ and against reservations, have made clear theirintentions on the reservation policy as one that breeds inequality and thusis unjust. On the other side of the debate the proponents of reservations,as we ourselves are, have argued that they are one of the means to achievesocial justice and thus real equality that is denied to the vast majority ofour people on the basis of their birth into a particular caste. ApplyingBushism, all the subscribers of reservations, as they are opposed to thestand taken by the ‘youth for equality’ are branded as against equality.The question that arises and needs to be examined is whether it is possibleto achieve equality without caring for social justice.

It is unfortunate that even the majority members of the National Knowl-edge Commission have voted against reservations ignoring the existingsocio-economic realities. The National Knowledge Commission (NKC)was established on June 13, 2005 and given a timeframe of three yearsfrom October 2, 2005 to achieve, in the words of our prime minister, to“leapfrog in the race for social and economic development” by establish-ing a knowledge-oriented paradigm of development. The prime ministerstated that the agenda of the commission will be shaped by a knowledge

Reservations arenot against merit

R . Ar un K um ar

pentagon with five areas of action, “to increase access to knowledge forpublic benefit, develop new concepts of higher education, rejuvenate sci-ence and technology institutions, enable application of knowledge by in-dustry to enhance manufacturing competitiveness and encourage inten-sive use of knowledge-based services by the government to empowercitizens”.

The concept of ensuring social development and ‘increasing the access toknowledge for public benefit’ are some of the important functions of theCommission. The stand taken by the majority members of the Commis-sion on the issue of reservations is quite contradictory to these two objec-tives. The demographic advantage of having more than 54 per cent of ourpopulation in the below 25 years age group would be lost unless thesehuman resources are tapped for national development. This can be achievedonly by ensuring to the majority of our population access to the best ofour knowledge building avenues. Unfortunately, majority of our popula-tion is poor, marginalised and deprived in economic terms. To identifythem in sociological terms they belong to the dalit (16.23 per cent), adivasi(8.3 per cent) and other backward castes (little more than 52 per cent).Thus if the ‘majority’ of the Commission members are serious of theirtask, they should think of empowering them instead of taking a standagainst reservations.

Expressing their opposition to the government’s proposal of reservationsto the OBCs, the majority has stated “How we go about doing this in away that is compatible with the goals of a knowledge society is a difficulttask and requires more social debate and careful thought.” With the abovestatement they have subtly stated that reservations are not ‘compatible toknowledge society’. Through this they cast aspersions on the achieve-ments of the dalit, adivasi and other backward caste communities so faras also on their potential. This demonstrates not only their ignorance ofthe 93rd Constitutional Amendment but also of the Indian realities.

In Indian society whether we like it or not caste is a reality. Any interestedreader can see scores of literate, professional persons advertising in mat-rimonial columns of newspapers seeking marriage from the opposite sexbelonging to the same caste. In spite of the dramatic displays of blood andasking its caste by our upholders of ‘equality,’ the reality is that many ofthe premier institutes breed caste and are places of caste discrimination.Even in the recent agitation against reservations, some of the dominantupper caste members among the faculty warned the students comingR. ARUNKUMAR is SFI President


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from the OBC, SC and ST families not to speak out in favour of reserva-tions. Their entire argument that merit does not exist in these sections andthey become professionals sans quality also speaks volumes of their casteprejudice. The incidents of coloured answer sheets given to SC and STstudents to identify them in the examinations or the upper caste studentscalling SC/ST students, as ‘shuddus’ are too recent to be forgotten. Whatis surprising is the belated reaction of the judiciary, which is otherwiseoverzealous in taking suo moto cognizance of many issues and in inter-vening to stop or curb the protests. The not so surprising reaction camefrom the media.

REALITY OF CASTE DISCRIMINATIONTogether with caste, discrimination based on caste too is a reality. Thebias on the basis of caste has a huge influence on our society with itspangs not leaving even the education system. It starts from the entry leveland shadows you till you leave it. A position paper by the NCERT’s ‘Na-tional Focus Group on Problems Of Scheduled Caste And Scheduled TribeChildren’ notes that “several studies have affirmed that educational in-equality (of access and achievement) has multiple bases in the contempo-rary structures of caste, class, gender and ethnicity evolving in interac-tion with political economy”. It asserts that ‘poverty and caste act asfundamental deterrents to education’.

The general argument that is put forward against reservations is that it isagainst merit and enables all sub-standard students to enter the prestigiousand reputed institutes. Even the majority of the Knowledge Commissionmembers raised this issue. It is ironical that those people who are cryinghoarse over the loss of merit have never bothered to raise their voicewhen the government was commercialising education and allowing allsub-standard institutes to be set-up across the country. The only criterionfor admission in these institutes is money and never merit. There areinstances galore across the country where meritorious students are de-nied admission in many private institutes because of their financial back-wardness. In spite of several directions from the Supreme Court thatadmissions to all the professional institutes should be provided only aftergetting through a merit-based entrance examination, they are openly vio-lated. Neither the government bothered to rein them, nor the newly self-proclaimed protectors of merit and national interests ever raised their voice.

Merit is a very relative concept. In our country there are entrance exami-nations for admission to many or almost all the institutes of higher learn-

ing. All the students who appear in these entrance examinations are sup-posed to get through the qualifying examinations too i.e. a student appear-ing for admission in a IIT should clear his +2 board examinations also.There are many instances where the top ranker of the qualifying examina-tion (+2 here) failed to attain a rank good enough in the entrance examina-tion. Now, can this student be regarded as a meritorious student or not?

It is a known fact that coaching institutes play a big role in preparingstudents for the entrance examinations. Access to quality education (thisdoes not mean just the institute but also includes the availability of books,academic atmosphere etc) is not available to majority of students stayingin rural areas and slums in the urban regions as it comes at a cost. Thistoo plays a big role in the marks that a student secures. Both these condi-tions are available to a privileged few in our society. Is it right to denyaccess to higher education just because a child is born in a poor andunprivileged family that does not have the means to provide him the bestof education?

The NCERT position paper also states the condition of the schools thatexist in the SC and ST locations and the role of the teachers who are thesculptors shaping the ‘destiny of our country in the classrooms’. It statesthat the ‘teacher’s social background (caste, religion, language) affecttheir interactions with the students’. Middle class, higher caste teachersare very unhappy with the environments of schools for the poor and arepoorly motivated to teach children of the poor, particularly of SC/STbackground, who are derogatorily categorised as ‘uneducable’. An ap-palling body of evidence exists which suggests that teacher’s preconcep-tions, bias and behaviour, subtle or overt, conscious or unconscious, op-erate to discriminate against children of SC/ST background. Teachers areobserved to have low expectations of SC/ST children and girls and gener-ally have a condescending and downright abusive attitude to poor childrenfrom slums. Levels of hostility and indifference to dalit/tribal cultural traitsand value systems are high. They perceive dalit and adivasi children in anegative light, see them as unclean, dishonest, lazy, ill-mannered etc. Thechildren could be criticised for their clothes, the dialect they speak, theabhorment of uncouth habits of meat eating, the ignorance of their par-ents and even the colour of their skin. They are punished and shouted at inefforts to ‘discipline’ and ‘civilise’ them.” The paper points out severalexamples to substantiate these findings. Children are assigned a range ofmenial tasks - from cleaning and sweeping the school to fetching ‘paan’and cigarettes for the teacher. They assign SC/ST children menial jobs


from this that students from that particular forward caste cannot copewith the stress of IIT course and thus be advised not to enter? Thatwould be ridiculous to state the least. The cases of students from the dalitand adivasi communities too should be viewed in the same way. Hundredsof students are committing suicides at the pass out stages of 10th and +2examinations. It is the failure of the education system, the increasingstress on getting a ‘good’ result, depleting opportunities of higher educa-tion and employment that are leading them to commit suicide and not thecaste into which they are born.

That these arguments against reservation in the name of stress and qualityare emanating from some of the members of the Knowledge Commis-sion, in spite of their assertion that they are for ‘social inclusion’, is reallysad for the country. This reminds one of the obsession Hitler had aboutthe superiority of the Aryan race and responsibility for the progress ofcivilisation and nation. Hitler argued that all other races were inferior andassociated them with the decay in civilisations. He further argued that allthe inferior races should provide with physical labour subjugated and putunder the command of the Aryans. (Hitler Mein Kampf) The argumentthat SCs, STs and OBCs are not fit for premier institutes but can beallowed in other institutes appears to hinge somewhere to the argumentmade by Hitler and other fascist forces. At least Hitler was more explicit.

All those who are expressing concern about the quality of education arenot too much concerned with the vacant teaching faculty posts in theIITs and IIMs. According to sources out of a total of 406 posts that existin the IIT Kanpur only 330 faculty members exist, leaving the rest 76vacant. This would indeed adversely affect the quality of education morethan anything else. Moreover quality of education took a dive to abyssonce the government started abdicating its social responsibility and startedstarving education and social sectors of resources. This has adverselyaffected the quality right from the primary to the university level. Most ofthe private institutes that have entered into the space vacated by the gov-ernment have failed to ensure quality in education as their prime motive isearning ‘returns’ for their ‘investment’. It is no wonder that many of theprivate institutions do not adhere to the prescribed norms of the certifyingagencies like AICTE, UGC, MCI, NCTE, etc. The state of various privateuniversities and deemed universities is a worthy example (Tamilnadu arecent addition to the list) to be remembered here. Thousands of studentsare graduating from these institutes with poor quality and none of today’smessiahs of merit and quality bothered to voice concern. Hiding all these

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and shift the onus of low learning on children and their families. Is it notthe duty of the government to initiate special provisions like reservationsfor them? After all, it takes lots of polishing even to make a diamond shinefrom its crude state and the absence of this makes it just as worthy as anordinary carbon stone. We should not forget that merit is directly linkedwith the policies of the government and the availability of quality educa-tion to all students irrespective of their economic and social conditions. Itis to be noted here that the Director of IIT, Kharagpur has said that theirinstitute derives its name from the output and not the input and that reser-vation does not in any way effect the quality of education imparted inthese reputed institutes.

All the premier institutes while calling for applicants prescribe a minimumlevel of qualifying marks necessary for appearing for the entrance exami-nation. In the case of IIT it is 60 per cent. This is not decided randomlybut with a scientific understanding that the students with this thresholdlevel of knowledge would be able to cope up with the rigours of thecourse work prescribed in that institute. Likewise the exemption of amaximum of 5 per cent of the marks offered to the SCs and STs has beendecided with the same rational understanding. The students are admittedin these institutes only after clearing these initial hurdles.

The course work in these institutes is known for its scientific design andthe methodology adopted in teaching is also modern. Every class, and thisincludes even a class constituted without taking into consideration reser-vations, has in it a top-ranking student and also one at the bottom. Apreliminary rule in teaching is that one should not teach only to the topone/few or the bottom one/few, but to the class in its entirety. So, it is thisscientifically moulded system that ensures quality and not the caste of thestudent. Moreover, there is no exemption or consideration shown to anystudent on the basis of his or her caste at the passing out examination. Allthe students are expected to clear the exam, which is again scientificallydesigned to ensure top class quality for the award of degree.

Here some bring the argument of coping with the stress of the course.Leading from the above argument stress is not caste specific but studentspecific and it is the concern of the education system to reduce the stress.A recent report in the Hindustan Times talks of a suicide of an IIT Kanpurstudent. He is not from the castes that ‘enjoy’ reservation but is from theforward caste. The above quoted report states low grades and the failureto cope up with the stress as the reason for the suicide. Shall we infer


facts and just stating that reservations will lead to graduation of sub-standard engineers and doctors, adversely affecting the national interest isdubious. This shows their casteist bias and denigration of the efforts putup by the OBCs, SCs and STs. An important fact is that there are manybrilliant professionals from dalit, tribal and other backward caste commu-nities who have graduated after availing the reservations and are contrib-uting to the national development. Outlook, the weekly news magazinehas carried out interviews of few of these people and it can be confidentlystated that there are many of their ilk. Thus the argument that providingfor reservations in the central institutes would compromise quality is faultyand does not have any credence.

DENIAL OF JUSTICE: FOR WHOM?Unfortunately the statements against reservations made by the ‘names’among the majority in the Knowledge Commission and their like aremisguiding students. One of the important demands being raised by themin the course of their protests is their ‘right for justice’. They are alsosaying that they are being ‘denied’ by their ‘own country’. However, theyhave to understand the Indian reality and look behind the media prisms.Only through this will they understand that in our country there are mil-lions of people who are really denied social justice and economic justice.And added to this, the policies of successive governments at the centrehave denied them their just due. Reservations are only one of the meansthat gave succour to them. While majority of the dalits are landless agri-cultural labourers, majority of the OBCs are from the artisan class. Out ofthe 2.8 crore OBC population of Andhra Pradesh, 1.87 crores are engagedin 63 types of activities are artisans. These are the very sections that arehit hard by the neo-liberal economic reforms. We have heard and seen ofhundreds of weavers committing suicide in Andhra Pradesh unable tobear the distress under which they were subjected to live because of theseneo-liberal policies.

It is a fact that the OBCs do not suffer to the extent as the SCs. But weshould not forget the fact that the present day OBCs are the shudras ofyesteryears and they too were down the social ladder in our hierarchicalcaste system. This made the Supreme Court observe in the Indra Sawhneycase “Social backwardness – it may be reiterated – leads to educationaland economic backwardness.” Majority of the OBCs are artisans. In spiteof the changing generations, many occupations even to this day are ‘re-served’ for particular castes only. This is true in the case of fishermen,washermen, potters, barbers, weavers, stone cutters, shepherds and many

of their like. Some sections among them have secured possession of landand are well off and this should not confuse us with the vast multitudeswho are still poor. Whatever occupational mobility has taken place is verylimited. The socio-economic ‘progress’ of our country ensured that themajority of the artisans did not go up the graph but took the downwardtrajectory. Thus we do find that many of them are living in conditions ofutter deprivation and some are even forced to commit suicides. The oncefamed weavers of our country are next only to the peasants in the numberof suicides that we have seen in the recent days because of the deteriorat-ing economic conditions. It is but natural for the economic factors to addto the social factors and impede their educational ambitions. It is afterstruggling against all such heavily placed odds few from these sectionsare coming to higher education. It is the duty of any liberal and demo-cratic society to provide helping hand to these sections of the society.

Some people do argue that reservations have benefited only a small sec-tion of the people. At the level of facts, this is true. But instead of pointingto the futility of reservations it only points to an important fact-that unlessdemocratic movement becomes strong enough to get the provision ofreservations effectively implemented, unless the old feudal structure inthe villages is dismantled and social oppression done away with, this limi-tation will continue and cannot be avoided.

The arguments that the reservations intended for these sections will beeaten away by the well-to-do sections should not be made with the inten-tion of denying the benefits even to the needy amongst them. It is alsonecessary here to understand what criteria the Second Backward Classes(Mandal) Commission has adopted to determine the OBCs. The Commis-sion worked out 11 indicators to determine social backwardness. Theseindicators are social, educational and economic, and as the major contro-versy resolves around the caste criteria allegedly adopted by the commis-sion, it would be relevant to reproduce the actual criteria used by theCommission. The 11 indicators formulated by the commission are:

SocialCastes/classes considered as socially backward by others.

Castes/classes which mainly depend on manual labour for their live-lihood.

Castes/classes where the percentage of married women below 17 is25 per cent above the state average in rural areas and 10 per cent in

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urban areas; and that of married men is 10 per cent and 5 per centabove the state average in rural and urban areas respectively.

Castes/classes where participation of females in work is at least 25per cent above the state average.

EducationalCastes/classes where the number of children in the age group of 5 to15 years who never attended school is at least 25 per cent above thestate average.

Castes/classes where the rate of student drop-out in the age group of5-15 years is at least 25 per cent above the state average.

Castes/classes amongst whom the proportion of matriculates is atleast 25 per cent below the state average

Economic Castes/classes where the average value of family assets is at least 25per cent below the state average.

Castes/classes where the number of families living in kachcha housesis at least 25 per cent above the state average.

Castes/classes where the source of drinking water is beyond half akilometer for more than 50 per cent of the households.

Castes/classes where the number of the households having taken aconsumption loan is at least 25 per cent above the state average.

In the Supreme Court judgement on creamy layer, it has been explicitlystated in paragraph 85 “No objection can be taken to the validity andrelevancy of the criteria adopted by the Mandal Commission.” It has di-rected the government to identify creamy layer among the OBCs andensure that they do not garner all the benefits of reservation.

DEFINITION OF CREAMY LAYERThe committee defined the ‘creamy layer’ as when a person has been ableto shed off the attributes of social and educational backwardness and hassecured employment or has engaged himself in some trade/profession ofhigh status and at which stage he is normally in no need of reservation.Thus according to this definition children of: (i) persons holding Constitu-tional posts, (ii) of persons in service category Group A/Class I, Group B/Class II officials and employees holding equivalent posts in PSUs, Banks,

Insurance, organisations, universities and private employment (iii) per-sonnel from armed forces and para military forces above the rank ofcolonel including navy and air force, (iv) persons in professional class,trade business and industry (v) persons holding irrigated agricultural landmore than 85 per cent of the statutory ceiling area (vi) plantation owners(vii) holders of vacant land and/or buildings in urban areas and urbanagglomerations and (viii) persons having an annual income of above Rs2.5 lakh or possessing wealth above the exemption limit prescribed in thewealth act are excluded from the purview of reservations.

If the opponents of reservation still feel that only the better off will some-how avail the reservation opportunities then they should suggest means tostop this and not cry hoarse over reservations per se. If they believe thatreservations are against equality then they should propose an alternatesystem to replace them. The failure to do so will certainly raise doubtsabout their notions of equality, which is certainly bereft of social justice.

It is true that 55 years have passed since India was proclaimed as a Re-public and its Constitution adopted. Reservations have become part of theConstitutional guarantees to the Indian people because of the social re-form movements, the freedom struggle and the aspirations harboured bythe people on them. Reservations initially were intended for only 10 years.But so was the case with the achievement of universal literacy rate amongthe age group of 0-14 years in 10 years. The same is the case with the Acton untouchability passed in 1955. Official statistics prove the prevalenceof untouchability and the growing incidence of atrocities against SCs andSTs and the State’s inaction in most of the cases. However, all this shouldnot lead to the conclusion that we abandon all these endeavours becauseof the failure in achieving the set target, as some seem to suggest in thecase of reservations. These people forget that through this argument theyare in fact demanding punishment for the people who were deprived ofthe promised rights instead of making a case against the government. It isnot the people but the caged political will of the ruling parties at the centrethat is responsible for this non-implementation. Time and again it has beenproved that only through popular vigil and pressure would we be able toactualise a right promised to us and this is true even in the case of reser-vations.

The chairman of the Knowledge Commission in a press conference hasstated that the time has come to ‘review all these issues’ and that ‘reser-vations have to be thought ‘in terms of where we are headed in the 21st

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century’. ‘Social debate and careful thought’ is necessary on all the issuesconcerning social life but in this name things cannot be put in abeyanceforever. It speaks of bias if we speak of ‘social debate and careful thought’only on the question of reservations, shunned from all other issues likedisinvestments, closure of public sector units, trade and economic poli-cies.

We must understand that it is not the policy of reservation that lies at theroot of the problem but it is the limited number of employment and educa-tional opportunities that is the root cause. In today’s world where thepublic sector is being systematically dismantled, government is going backfrom its social responsibilities this is even more important. Living in thetimes where the private sector is accorded a key role in the economy, wehave to demand for reservations even in private sector. United, we shouldall fight for education for all and jobs for all and not against reservations.We must also remember the fact that the solution to the problems ofaccess to education, unemployment, social disparities, injustice, requiresthe united endeavour of all sections and communities for a basic changein the socio-economic structure of our society.

The Knowledge Commission terms this as a ‘historic opportunity to craftmore effective policies to make educational institutions more socially in-clusive’. If the majority of the Commission is sincere about this theyshould immediately recommend for the implementation of the land re-forms act, protection of the interests of the artisans and small producers.We have been arguing time and again, that reservations alone will notsolve the whole problem of backwardness. The Mandal Commission re-port itself recognises this basic truth and notes: “unless the productionrelations are radically altered through structural changes and progressiveland reforms implemented rigorously all over the country, OBCs will neverbecome truly independent. In view of this, highest priority should be givento radical land reforms by all the states”. Pitroda himself has promisedthat the body will not come out with a “voluminous report that gathersdust but give concrete actionable points”. This is a good actionable pointeven for the government as it increases productivity and address their‘growth’ concerns. Together with this another suggestion should be madeto direct the entire government machinery towards a time-bound eradica-tion of social discrimination in our country. The government should takethe campaign to the ‘deserving’ people, involve its officials as in the pulsepolio campaign and make them lead peoples’ action against discrimina-tion. The government and the judiciary should be asked to be ‘pro-active’

in disposing off the cases dealing with the atrocities on these marginalisedsections. These alternate and effective steps will really empower peopleand then may be we can think of doing away reservations.

The questions against reservations are raised when the opportunities foreducation and employment are dwindling. There is a big demand for highereducation in our country and this is going to increase in the coming days,as there is a demographic shift towards youth in our country. More thanhalf of our population is under-20 years of age. Only 7-9 per cent of thestudents are in higher education in the relevant age group. The CentralAdvisory Board on Education (CABE) report on the financing of highereducation states that many of the developed countries have more than 20per cent of the youth in the relevant age group in higher education. Thoughthis is not the reason for their present developed state, nobody can denythe fact that for a country to become a super power it needs many quali-fied personnel. Only widening the net of our higher education system canachieve this and this can be done only by the government and not byprivate players. This has been the experience worldwide. Governmenthas to come forward in a big way and start many new institutes, improvethe conditions of the institutes run by it and ensure access to qualityeducation for all. Instead of this, the government is keeping silent on thedemands for increasing the number of IITs and IIMs. The IIM manage-ments too are not thinking of starting a new centre in India but are moreinterested in starting their centres in Singapore, Dubai and other foreignlands. These moves give rise to a question regarding their interests. Is itnot profit that is driving their decisions than national interests and socialresponsibility?

One heartening fact is that the chairman of Knowledge Commission hasasked for the increase in the number of IITs and IIMs. Of course themention of private-public partnership is part of the suggestion. The deputychairman of the Planning Commission immediately joined with the pro-posal for the establishment of private education companies. All these sug-gestions are being made in spite of the knowledge that worldwide theexperience of expansion in higher education shows it to be possible onlythrough government action. The apathy of the central government to-wards this is apparent from the fact that it is sitting on the unanimousrecommendation of the state legislature of Andhra Pradesh for establish-ing an IIT in the state, which was passed not once but twice and for-warded to the centre. The offer, together with the promise that the stategovernment will provide land and other infrastructure facilities, fell on

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deaf ears. The government should immediately start many new educa-tional institutes and thus do its duty for the expansion of education. Thenumber of applicants to the IIT entrance at the time of its inception andtoday has increased many times – much more than the seats available tothem have increased. The Indian society has not achieved the saturationpoint vis-à-vis the number of engineers and doctors required to it. InRajasthan, for example, the number of doctors per thousand populationhas in fact come down. In 1996-97 there was one doctor per 7418 popu-lation while now it is one doctor per 9816. The Indian average for doctorstoo is not encouraging and stands at 52 doctors per 10,000 population(1998). These statistics prove the fact that we need more and more num-bers of professionals to serve the people of our country.

Indian industrial houses that have immensely benefited from the reserva-tions provided to them in the name of protection by the government arearguing against reservations now. They do not think twice when demand-ing incentives and tax holidays in their competition with foreign players inthe ‘market’ even in this era of ‘globalisation’. For them this is the levelplaying field, but the same is not true for the unprivileged sections in oursociety who genuinely need reservations and government support. Ironycan never get better.

As the NCERT report that was quoted earlier notes, “Structural adjust-ment has provided the legitimacy and impetus for a number of educationalreforms that pose a direct threat to the mission of universalising elemen-tary education and equalising educational opportunity for SC/ST, espe-cially those left behind”. In the era of neo-liberal globalisation a unitedfight has to be waged against these policies that are curtailing both educa-tional and employment opportunities. This struggle should demand notonly reservations to the backward sections but also strengthening of thepublic education system and employment opportunities together with theimplementation of the land reforms.

We in the Left support reservations even though we look at them as apartial remedy because they provide a minimum solace to the deprivedsections of our society. The people who avail of reservations and benefitfrom them should use their knowledge and resources for the interests ofthe class and sections from which they come and not become the stoogesof the ruling classes. In the appeal issued to the students during the antiand pro reservation stir earlier, SFI has stated: “we all know that the realsolution to the burning problems of the people, including SC/STs and

OBCs, lies in the reversal of policies-industrial, economic and educational-which led to the overwhelming destitution of the people, as well as inradical land and other reforms. Unless these are achieved reservation hasa definite but limited role to play”. Till such a socio-economic change isushered in, reservations should continue as a minimum support to thescheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward castes.

All the concerned citizens, especially youth ‘for equality’, if they are seri-ous about achieving equality should join their hands to realise this agenda.They have to denounce caste based discrimination and shun all the feudalvalue systems. The fight for social justice has to go along with the fightfor economic equality and real equality cannot be achieved without socialjustice. It is another matter that if they take this agenda the media that hastaken upon itself to “supply them with banners and posters free of cost”will black them out and the “over 50 corporate houses and private hospi-tals of the likes of Batra, Fortis and Apollo” sponsoring them with “funds,fans, coolers and mineral water” will despise them. Rest assured realIndia will be standing by you. Come let us together take the ‘broom’ to‘sweep’ away all the evils from our society and not the ‘roads’.

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Communal Assaulton Education


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VALUES OFHIGHER EDUCATION IN AMULTICULTURAL SOCIETY

K.N . PANIKKAR

The UNESCO International Commission on Education for Twenty-firstCentury headed by Jacques Delors has identified ‘learning to be’ and

‘learning to live together’ as two among the four pillars of education.They represent some of the fundamental values which education tries toimpart in any society. ‘Learning to be’ addresses the question of thedevelopment of the inner capacity of the individual which would preparehim to meet the social and political responsibilities. ‘Learning together’,on the other hand, would involve the creation of a harmonious life, tran-scending sectarian loyalties and differences. There is no education with-out values, but in all societies values are a mixed bag. They are so becauseof differing ideological needs. Yet, there are certain universal values whichall societies cherish and disseminate. Education is an effective agency ofthis process in modern times when a network of communication is inplace. The values in education are therefore a combination of the univer-

sal and the particular, both subject to changes according to the differingpatterns of human experience rooted in global and local exchanges. Thevalues of higher education in India as obtained at the time of its liberationfrom colonial rule in 1947 and developed thereafter were shaped by theinfluences of these two dimensions.

The reorganization and restructuring of the system of education inheritedfrom the colonial rule inevitably followed the liberation struggle, even ifthey proceeded through a slow process of reform. Given that educationalreform had a central place in the initiatives for the creation of a new Indiaa system of education, qualitatively different from the colonial, had to beenvisioned and implemented. The new system had to be different, notonly in structure and content, but more so in values as it was entwinedwith almost all endeavors of the nascent state. It was realized that thenature of the society that emerged after independence would largely de-pend upon the values the system of education would bring into being. Thedecolonization in the field of education and the alternative envisioned were,therefore, quite central to the future of Indian society and polity.

ANTECEDENTSThe search for the creation of new values in education had a fairly longhistory, reaching back to the period of early colonial rule. The Indianintelligentsia during the colonial period had sought to evolve a system ofeducation qualitatively different from the colonial and the traditional. Thealternative did not entirely reject the traditional or the colonial. It was aneffort to reconcile tradition with modernity in which tradition was identi-fied as the dominant literate culture and its religion and modernity as theculture of the capitalist West filtered through colonialism. The beginningof the quest for such reconciliation can be traced to the intellectual en-gagements in the early part of the nineteenth century. The genesis ofmodern ideas of education in India is generally attributed to the colonialsystem but in reality they emerged in opposition to them. The Indianintelligentsia tried to evolve an alternative which was neither colonial nortraditional, although they borrowed ideas from both. Given the colonialhegemony, however, the alternative was still born, remaining mainly at thelevel of ideas without much of an impact on practice. As a result themodern educated intelligentsia was nurtured on the social and politicalvalues that the colonial system tried to disseminate, which continued to bean influential factor even after independence.

The values the colonial system tried to propagate had several internal

K.N.PANIKKAR is former professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University and aformer vice-chancellor of Sree Sankaracharya Sanskrit University Kerala and cur-rently the chairman of the Kerala Higher Education Council


contradictions. Although education was rooted in the basic necessity ofproviding an ideological foundation for the colonial rule, it also proved tobe an effective vehicle for the communication of the liberal ideas gener-ated in the mother country. The political and social values of liberalismthus available through education became an encompassing passion withthe intelligentsia. Their intellectual and cultural world was underscored bythese values. Initially this led to an almost complete neglect of traditionalvalues, but they soon realized the importance of returning to the sources.This led to a dialogue between the traditional and the modern which wasmost articulate in the realm of values they sought to create in education.

In almost all attempts to reform education after independence the impor-tance of incorporating value education was given due importance. Thecommittees and commissions appointed immediately after independenceto recommend changes in education devoted considerable attention tomoral, ethical and spiritual values. The University Education Commissionheaded by Dr.Radhakrishnan constituted in 1948-49, although opposedreligious instruction in educational institutions, was in favour of providingspiritual training in them. Both the Secondary Education Commission(1952-53) and the Committee on Religious and Moral Instruction (1959)took almost a similar view. The latter made specific recommendations topromote inter-religious understanding as well as the life and ideas of reli-gious leaders. In all these attempts the values were attributed mainly toreligious sources.

The recommendations of the Education Commission of 1964-66, chairedby Dr.D.S.Kothari, were a distinct advance over the earlier efforts. Itapproached the question of value education in the context of the nationaland international realities as well as its religious and secular dimensions. Itrecommended the study of comparative religion and made a distinctionbetween religious education and education about religion and forbade theformer in educational institutions. It also advocated secularism, socialjustice and equality and the integration of scientific outlook. ‘This is whatwe envisage as the direction of our future development. We believe thatIndia should strive to bring science and the values of the spirit togetherand in harmony, and thereby pave the way for the eventual emergence ofa society which would cater to the needs of the whole man and not onlyto a particular fragment of his personality’.

A further elaboration of this tendency can be discerned in the NationalEducation Policy of 1992. It unambiguously put forward the notion of a

value education anchored in social and secular values: ‘The growing con-cern over the erosion of essential values and an increasing cynicism insociety has brought to focus the need for readjustments in the curriculumin order to make education a forceful tool for the cultivation of social andmoral values. In our culturally plural society, education should foster uni-versal and eternal values, oriented towards the unity and integration of ourpeople. Such value education should help eliminate obscurantism, reli-gious fanaticism, violence, superstition and fatalism. Apart from this com-bative role, value education has a profound positive content, based on ourheritage, national and universal goals and perceptions. It should lay pri-mary emphasis on this aspect.’The National Policy of education made adefinite departure in the field of value education. It drew attention to secu-lar values and underlined the importance to bring together traditional andmodern values. Unfortunately this tendency to orient value education onsecular-democratic lines received a set back thereafter. During this periodtwo tendencies acquired prominence. First, to promote religion centerededucation by defining value education mainly in religious terms. Secondly,to discard the critical approach to tradition-modernity relationship and toprivilege traditional values over all others.

The implication of this historical experience which underlined the incor-poration of secular values and their attempted reversal is of importance inthe formulation of value education. These two tendencies representedtwo different conceptions of Indian society. The former implied a pluralsociety struggling to become multi-cultural whereas the latter attemptingto turn a plural society into a mono-cultural one. India being a multi-religious society with a variety of cultural practices one of the aims ofvalue education should be to promote the former and discourage the lat-ter. If so, value education has to be primarily secular with out howeverdiscarding the humanist elements in religious traditions. Such an approachwould lead to two sets of values. The first, universal moral values liketruth, honesty, and compassion and the second, values like secularism,democracy and equality. These two sets of values are not mutually exclu-sive, as for instance moral elements are inherent in secular values. Theincorporation of the latter in higher education would help create sociallysensitive and responsible citizens.

SECULAR VALUESThe three pillars of secularism, to borrow the terminology used in theUNESCO report, are religious universalism, humanism and rationality. Ina multi-religious society universalism is one of the ideological bases of

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secularism. It would help to create harmony among religions by empha-sizing the commonly shared religious truth which could lead to mutualrespect of religions. Without respecting the religious rights of differentreligious denominations a multi-religious society can hardly have peacefulexistence. One of the travails of Indian society since the colonial timeshas been religious strife which is, among other things, a result of theabsence of mutual respect. The faith in religious universalism which iscentral to secularism alone can bring about a harmonious relation betweendifferent religions. Therefore the core belief of universalism that all reli-gions are essentially the same and differences are only in their externalmanifestations is a necessary value to cultivate in a multi-religious society.

In all considerations of values in education the multi-cultural and multi-religious character of Indian society figured prominently. The resolutionof the likely contradictions arising out of this situation was located in thedissemination of secularism as a value through education. This naturallybrought into discussion the place of religion in education. The overwhelmingconsensus has been in favour of education about religions distinct fromreligious education. The distinction is extremely important as the formerwould reinforce universalism and the latter would strengthen particularism.Therefore education about religions would serve as a means for the incul-cation of secular values. Mahatma Gandhi had suggested that ‘A curricu-lum of religious instruction should include a study of the tenets of faithsother than one’s own. For this purpose the students should be trained tocultivate the habit of understanding and appreciating the doctrines ofvarious great religions of the world in a spirit of reverence and broadminded tolerance.’

Secularism as the core value in education has multiple significance. Itwould help to define the social, cultural and political life of the nation.Secular consciousness which education can promote could bring aboutequality in all these spheres. India is generally considered a multi-culturalsociety. If equality is central to multi-culturalism, India qualifies only as aplural society which tolerates the existence of different cultures. Culturalequality in practice is yet a far cry. What secularism would strive for isthe transition from the plural to the multicultural. Such a transition couldbe adversely affected if cultural homogenization is attempted. The ten-dency to privilege an invented mono-culture of the past tends to under-mine the possible realization of muti-culturalism. In this context, there-fore, imbibing secularism as a value in education assumes great impor-

tance. In recent times both cultural homogenization as well as privilegingthe invented monoculture of the past gained ascendancy in the realm ofhigher education.

A major debility of Indian education has been that it has not so far suc-ceeded in ensuring social justice to traditionally marginalized sections ofsociety. The scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, women and minorities havenot been able to derive adequately the benefits of modern education. Thereasons are very many for this neglect. But it could be argued that it isbecause the society, even if sensitive to the value of equality and socialjustice in principle, is not prepared to implement them in practice. It is asmuch a matter of social consciousness and intellectual conviction as aneconomic and political problem. In the field of higher education it has led tothe exclusion of a large section of the population to gain desirable opportu-nities. Overcoming the prejudice inherent in this exclusion is possible throughthe internalization of the value of equality and social justice. This is contin-gent upon a qualitative change in social attitudes for which the idea of socialequality needs to be firmly inscribed as a value in education.

In all discussions on educational values there is a tendency to differentiatethe secular values from the moral and the ethical. The assumption is thatthe secular and moral values are distinct and unrelated. A strict divisionbetween the two is unreal, not only because they are interrelated in prac-tice but also because most of the moral and ethical values are also embed-ded in the latter. One of the foundations of secularism, for instance, ishumanism which incorporates almost all moral and ethical values derivedfrom religious teachings. This is not to argue that values derived fromreligious teachings need not be part of education, but to suggest thatreligion is not the only possible source for the incorporation of moralvalues like compassion, love, mutual respect etc. It is possible to incorpo-rate such values from secular sources also.

An important aspect of the secular and democratic values is the dignity ofhuman beings. The movements for emancipation and liberation were es-sentially efforts to recover and ensure human dignity. The renaissanceand the anti-colonial movements were attempts in that direction. The ren-aissance, rooted in humanism, rationalism and universalism, was an at-tempt to create a new sense of social and cultural values, free from super-stitions and uncritical social practices. Applying the criteria of reason tosocial and cultural practices renaissance tried to create a new sense ofvalues which would guide the social behavior of human beings and to

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provide a new personality to them. The national movement on the otherhand, not only tried to free the nation from the shackles of colonialism,but also tried to create subjectivity different from the colonial. Much ofthe values they had fore grounded have been lost to the society. Whetherthese values are to be retrieved and if so how is perhaps a major challengethat higher education is facing today.

The purpose of education could be variously interpreted, ranging fromthe mundane to the spiritual. That it helps to understand the meaning oflife, to realize the creative potential of human beings and to locate oneselfin society is beyond dispute. Today when Indian society is entering a newphase of global participation a variety of tensions are likely to emerge.One among them is related to the place of traditional values in a fastchanging social, cultural and intellectual climate. That they can not bediscarded is generally acknowledged. It is equally true that there is noplace for revival. The solution is creative integration of the values of bothfor which higher education, as a sphere of critical interrogation, couldpave the way.

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SOME THOUGHTS ONCOMPOSITE CULTURE OF INDIA

PART I

Asghar Ali Eng ineer

India saw wave after wave of outsiders and invaders rather from beginning of history. Only those who are known as adivasis or aboriginals

and Dravidians are known to be original inhabitants of India. The Dravidianculture may not have had composite character as also the aboriginal onewhich was essentially a folk culture. The Aryan culture that begins withAryan invasion, is the dawn of composite culture in India. I know a sec-tion of scholars, especially those affiliated with Sangh Parivar, maintainthat Aryans were original inhabitants and never came from outside. How-ever, most noted historians and scholars do not subscribe to this view andmaintain that Aryans came from outside.

I propose in this article to deal with composite culture which came intoexistence with the invasion of various Muslim dynasties in Sultanate aswell as Mughal period. Preceding these Muslim dynasties were manyothers like Sakias, Huns and Greeks and all of them left their deep im-prints on our culture. It is more difficult and challenging to trace theirinfluences now as they constitute remotest past.

However, influences of Turks, Tughlaks, Khaljis, Lodis and especiallyMoghuls have been very well recorded and continue to be part of our

DR. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER is the director of the Mumbai-based Centre for the Studyof Secularism and Society and the Institute for Islamic Studies.


In India its existence for almost thousand years gave rise to Indo-Islamicculture which in northern India is also called by various names like Ganga-Jamni tehzib (culture of the region between the rivers Ganga and Jamunaor Mili-juli tahzib(syncretic culture) or Sanjhi virasat (composite heri-tage). Though these terms mainly refer to north Indian culture. Compos-ite culture is not essential restricted to north India. India is land of manycultures and all regional cultures from north to south and east to westernparts of India.

When we refer to culture it includes art and architecture, language, po-etry, music, paintings, dances, draperies, food habits, customs, traditionsand some religious, especially spiritual practices. After years of compos-ite traditions coming into existence it becomes so assimilated that weconsider it part of our original culture. Only scholars know its compositenature.

The discourse about Composite culture is also deeply influenced by politi-cal needs. The communal forces, as pointed out before, want to denyexistence of syncretism or composite nature of culture and those whopromote national integration and communal harmony try to develop acomposite discourse for our culture as it helps bringing communities to-gether.

This composite discourse becomes a great political need in a society likeIndia which is so diverse and in the process of nation building fusion ofvarious communities and harmony among them becomes very necessary.The British rulers were busy dividing us and our liberation from Britishrule would not have been possible without bringing various communities,especially Hindus and Muslims together. Thus even during our freedomstruggle communal forces were emphasizing our separate communal iden-tities.

The theories of Hindu Rashtra and Islamic nation was result of suchattempts by communal forces. Ultimately these communal forces on bothsides succeeded in dividing our nation despite such composite nature ofour cultural and some religious practices. The national discourse, of course,emphasized composite nature of our culture but for various reasons, notto be discussed here, this discourse was drowned in the separatist ca-cophony and more than half a million human beings lost their lives.

Today in contemporary India communal forces are no less active. Theseforces still talk of Hindu Rashtra and have coined slogan of ‘one nation,

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culture. But in our mutual animosities we deliberately ignore these influ-ences or even try to reduce our culture to a monolithic one or pure one. Itis well known that all communal as well as bigoted elements try to projecta ‘pure’ culture. They try to emphasise a pure Hindu or pure Islamicculture. In other words we communalise our culture as we communalizeour politics.

When we say pure Hindu or Islamic culture we imply that culture isproduct of religion and nothing else. This is not true. Religion undoubt-edly is an important influence but not the only one. Religion is, amongothers, one of the factors in giving birth to a culture. Culture, in fact, isproduct of several factors like customs, traditions, whether, locally avail-able materials, geographical conditions and so on.

A religion may appear within the frame of a pre-existent culture. And thenreligious teachings may deeply influence that pre-existent culture and re-fashion it in its own way. For example, Islam appeared within the frameof pre-existing Arab culture and subsequently remoulded that culture in itsown way. But what we call ‘Islamic culture’ cannot be thought of with-out Arab culture of its time.

Similarly what we call ‘Hindu’ culture or Buddhist culture came into ex-istence within the framework of pre-existent Dravidian and Aryan cul-tures and the Hindu or Buddhist cultures cannot be imagined without theirpre-existent cultures. Also, when these religions spread to areas otherthan that of their origin, they imbibed, assimilated and integrated elementsof cultures already existing in those areas.

Buddhism spread to various countries like Sri Lanka, China, Thailand,Tibet, Cambodia, Vietnam and Japan and so on. This gave rise to syn-cretic cultures in Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, Cambodia and Tibet. TheBuddhist culture in India cannot be same as say Buddhist culture of Tibetor Buddhist culture of Japan. All these cultures are radically differentthough Buddhism is a common factor among them.

Similarly Islam also spread to many areas far away from Arabia, the landof its origin. It spread from Indonesia in South East Asia to Algeria inNorth Africa. Though Islam is a common factor and yet indigenous cul-tures of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Iran, CentralAsia, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, china, Turkey andEastern Europe gave rise to numerous cultures different from each other.If religion were the only factor all these cultures would not differ.


one culture and one language. Such an approach denies the rich diversityof India and our composite heritage. Thus it is in the interest of our unityto emphasize and re-emphasize the syncretic nature of our heritage todraw people together.

It is true that this is our political need but one should not emphasize syn-cretic nature of our heritage such for the sake of political need but also inthe interest of our authentic history. History should not be distorted eitherway - to divide people as also to unite people. Distortion of history, evenfor positive purpose, is a dangerous thing. History should be written ris-ing above all religious, political or cultural needs. Those who temper withtheir past would temper with their future as well.

Fusion of religious and spiritual practicesIslamic ritual practices influenced indigenous Hindu practices and viceversa. Many scholars have pointed out that Satya Narayan Katha which iswidely prevalent in northern India today came into existence by imitatingMuslim practice of public narration of Prophet’s life story especially inBengal and subsequently it spread to other parts of north India. CommonHindus are hardly aware of origin of practice of Satya Narayan Katha.

Similarly several Sufi rituals, practices and beliefs, have deep imprint ofindigenous practices. The noted German scholar Gruhnbalm thinks thatthe Sufi doctrine of fana’ fi Allah (annihilation in Allah) is result of Hindudoctrine of smadhi in which a person annihilates himself in Ishwara, theultimate being. It is also important to note that many great Sufi saints likeBaba Farid of Punjab, Sheikh Mohammad of Maharashtra and others wrotein local languages like Punjabi or Marathi. This made them much moreacceptable among the local populace.

Baba Farid is highly respected by Sikhs as his Punjabi verses have beenincluded in the Adi Granth sahib. The Punjab University has establishedBaba Farid Chair and lot of work on Sufism is done through this depart-ment. Sikh Gurus had great regard for Sufi saints. When the foundationstone for Har Mandir was being laid the Sikh Guru Arjan Dev insisted thatMian Mir, the Sufi saint of Lahore would be the one to lay the foundationstone. He was requested and he came and laid the foundation stone of HarMandir.

Sufis showed respect for Hindu religion and indigenous practices. Manyrituals during the urs (death anniversary) of a Sufi saint have been bor-rowed by local Hindu customs around a temple. Khwaja Hasan Nizami in

his book Fatimi D’awat-e-Islam have described in detail some of theserituals. According to him the annual day rituals of Hindu temple wereadopted for urs rituals like taking out sandal paste in procession and chadorin a palkhi (palanquin) and washing the grave of the Sufi and offeringchador is adoption of temple rituals.

Only difference is that idol is replaced by grave. In annual day ritual idol iswashed with sandal paste and on urs Sufi saint’s grave is washed with thepaste after bringing it in a procession along with a chador. It is interestingto note that in Mahim, Mumbai, the police inspector (generally a Hindu)carries the chador in a thali (large dish) on his head and offers on thegrave of Sufi saint Makhdum Mahimi.

Again in Mumbai there are Hindu, Muslim and Christian shrines wherepeople of all religions go and take vows and pay their respects. Threeshrines like Haji Ali, Siddhi Vinayak temple and Mahim and Mount Marychurches are such shrines. Ajmersharif also attracts, along with othershrines like Nizamuddin Awliya in Delhi and Baba Gesudaraz inGulbargasharif attract large number of non-Muslims.

Sindh (now in Pakistan) and Kashmir have strong Sufi traditions and inboth these regions Hindus have been highly influenced by Sufis. In unitedPunjab too, apart from Baba Farid, Bullehshah, Makhdumshah Inayat andothers were highly respected by non-Muslims as well. Bullehshah wasfrom Qadiriya school and was also influenced by Shatariayah school andhence one finds elements of rebellion in his poetry.

In Sindh Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai was extremely popular among Hindus,apart from Muslims. Shah is a great symbol of Sindhi culture and person-ality. No student of Sindhi culture and poetry can ever work ignoringShah Abdul Latif. His poetic work has been collected in Risalo and Risaloiis as popular among Hindu Sindhis as among Muslim Sindhis. In fact allSindhis irrespective of their religion sing verses from Risalo; with greatdevotion. Shah Abdul Latif is, indeed part of our great composite heritage.

Kashmir is another region where Sufis helped create syncretic culture.No one can think of Kashmir without mentioning Nundrishi (Sufi Nuruddinis popularly known as Nundrishi in Kashmir) and the Shaivite saint Lalded.Though Nuruddin was Muslim and Lalded a Shaivite Hindu both sharedvery close relationship of mother and son and both are highly respectedby all Kashmiris irrespective of religion. Both have left deep imprint onsyncretic culture of Kashmir. Both Kashmiri and Sindhi cultures, despite

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political divisions, remain highly syncretic even after partition.

Amir Khusro, a great poet and very close to Nizamuddin Awliya, the greatSufi saint from Delhi, was himself a Sufi and has made very seminalcontribution to composite culture of north India. His father had come toIndia from Uzbekistan and Khusro was born in India. His father married alocal Muslim woman. Thus he was both an Uzbek from his father’s sideand an Indian from mother’s side.

He composed poems in Persian but also poems whose one line was inPersian and one line in local dialect Biraj. He also composed dohas in Hindiwhich were on the lips of people. He was very proud of being an Indianand wrote an article on India in which he compares India with othercountries and proves India’s superiority, its flora and fauna and maintainsthat India is unparalleled in its beauty. Anyone would feel proud of Indiaafter reading his essay.

Khusro was not only a great poet but also a musician and invented somemusical instruments like sitar which is in fact sah tar (three strings) asthere are three strings in this instrument. Khusro also invented qawwali agenre of poetry which is sung in accompaniment with harmonium andtabla on Sufi mausoleums. Khusro was very close to Nizamuddin andwrote a dirge on his death in Brij which is highly popular even today.

Urdu language itself is the great symbol of our composite culture. It wasborne in bazaar by mixing of different communities like Turks, Hindus,Indian Muslims and others. It was always spoken by people in Bazar andnever became court language except towards the end of Moghul period.Urdu is mixture of local Indian dialects like Brijbhasha, Haryanvi, Maithili,Purbi, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit etc.

Towards the end of Moghul period it became language of ruling class andwas spoken by people of all communities and it never was language ofMuslims alone as it is projected today. Urdu produced great Hindu poets,storywriters and novelists during freedom struggle as well as in earlierperiod. Among story writers and novelists in Urdu Premchand is the well-known name. He wrote volumes of short stories and acquired legendryfame through his Urdu fiction.

Krishanchand, Rejindra Singh Bedi, Ramlal, Maniktala, Jogendra Paul andseveral others are well-known fiction writers in Urdu. Similarly BrijnarayanChakbast, Anandnarayan Mulla, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Jagannath Azad, Pandit

Zutshi Gulzar, Kalidas Gupta Raza, Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar, DayaShankar Naseem, Fikr Tausvi, Belraj Menra and several others are re-puted to be good poets. Firaq Gorakhpuri carved out his own niche afterFaiz Ahmed Faiz. Thus Urdu was and is most significant symbol of ourcomposite heritage.

Even Muslim poets of Urdu language wrote poems celebrating Hindu holyplaces and festivals. Ghalib who wrote in nineteenth century wrote a longpoem in Persian on Benaras and named it Kaa’ba-e-Hindustan (chiragh-e-Dair) in which he showers praises on the Hindu holy place of worship. Hesays in one of the verses of this masnavi (long duet) that even grass ofBenaras is like a garden and its dust like the essence of soul (jawher).Ghalib says further in this colourful city of temples bahar (season ofspring) remains permanent and never changes. In all seasons spring, orcold or summer it always remains like paradise.

Thus Ghalib lavishes praise on Benaras, the holy city of Hindus. He hadstayed in Benaras for few days while going from Delhi to Calcutta and hefell in love with this holy city. Similarly Nazir Akbarabadi wrote severalpoems celebrating Hindu festivals. His poems are in simple Hindustani.Many Sufis also wrote popular songs on Holi, the festival of color. Aprogramme based on these songs was presented at Nehru Centre, Mumbaiwritten by Shamim Tariq, an Urdu writer and journalist. It was indeedvery impressive programme.

Also Holi, Dasehra and Diwali were officially celebrated in Mughal Darbarswith great pomp and pageantry. On the day of Diwali Moghul princesseswould go round and distribute saris to poor Hindu women and Red fortwas decorated with lamps and it was known as jashn-e-chiraghan (i.e.festival of lamps). Both Nauruz and Diwali were celebrated in grand man-ner. Nauruz is central Asian festival.

It is also important to note that both the Hindu epics Ramayana andMahabharata were translated into Persian and Arabic and were beautifullycalligraphed. I have seen one such copy of Ramayana calligraphed inArabic script and bound with golden margins like the Qur’an in AlwarMuseum. It is said there are 60 different Persian and Arabic translationsof Ramayana and Mahabharata.

Dara Shikoh, son of Shah Jahan who was appointed successor to thethrone of India but lost to Aurangzeb in the battle of Samugarh, translatedUpanishad into Persian and named it Sirr-e-Akbar (The Great Mystery).

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Dara Shikoh had mastered Sanskrit language by spending few years inBenaras with well-known scholars of that language. He was of the opin-ion that concept of tawheedi (oneness of God) was found in UpanishadAFTER Qur’an. The handwritten manuscript of Sirr-e-Akbar preparedby Darasikoh himself is in the library of Darul Musannifin, Azamgarh andit was shown to me by its Director. Dara Shikoh begins with Bismilliah al-Rehman al-Rahim on left side and Ganesha namaha on the right with asmall figure of Ganesha.

Darashikoh also wrote his magnum opus which he named Majma’-ul-Bahrayn i.e. Commingling of Two Oceans (i.e. Hinduism and Islam). Hecompares teachings of two religions and concludes that difference is oflanguage (one is in Sanskrit and other in Arabic), not of content. Hinduismand Islam have remarkable similarities in terms of contents and he dis-cusses all the theological terms of two religions and draws this conclu-sion. Books like Majma’-l-Bahrayn are true representative of our compos-ite culture.

Music, and architectureMuslims and Hindus made rich contributions in the field of music, paint-ings and architecture also. We evolved a composite architecture whichcan be seen in Hindu temples as well as in structures constructed byMuslim kings, emperors and nawabs. Adilshahi structures are an excel-lent example of composite architecture in Bijapur which was centre ofAdilshahi rule.

Ibrahim Adilshah, popularly known as Jagatguru, was also scholar ofSanskrit language and wrote poetry in Kannada as well as in Persian andDeccani Urdu. Golgumbad, counted among the wonders of the world ismausoleum of Ibrahim Adilshah and his wife and other relatives and itsarchitecture is good example of our composite architecture. One evenfinds idol of Lord Ganesha in one of the forts built during Adilshahi rulenear Kolhapur.

Muslims enriched Indian classical music through their own contribution.Dhrupad and Khayal are their contribution in Indian classical music. Khusroalso invented some ragas. There have been several Muslim gharanas(schools) who made rich contribution to Indian classical music. Tansenwas one of the greatest musician during medieval times. In our own timesBade Akbar Ali Khan, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Zakir Husain, they are allgreat musicians in their own right.

On the other hand Shankar Shambhu two brothers were great qawwalisingers and sang qawwalis on the day of urs at Ajmersharif. Whereverthey were they would come to Ajmer on the day of urs (death anniver-sary) to sing qawwali there. They had great faith in Khwaja Moinuddin,the Sufi saint of Ajmer.

Thus we see that India has great and rich tradition of composite culturewhich our communal politics has completely ignored today and raisingslogans of pure Hindu and Muslim culture widening communal dividebetween two religious communities. Unfortunately our textbooks alsodownplay our syncretic culture. It is time we do away with this divide byprojecting this rich culture calls it ganga-jamni tahzib, sanjhi wirasat or byany other name.

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In 1968, the Government of India issued the first statement of National Policy on Education in the form of a Resolution on the Report

of the Education Commission which had been appointed to advise theGovernment on 'the national pattern of education and on the generalprinciples and policies for the development of education at all stagesand in all aspects'. This was followed, in the 1970s, by the adoption of acommon structure- the 10+2+3 structure- envisaged in the Policythroughout the country. The adoption of a common structure was ac-companied by a process of modernization and reform of school cur-ricula for general education up to Class X and for the higher secondarystage. The modernization and reform of school curricula was facilitatedby the preparation of 'The Curriculum for the Ten-Year School-A Frame-work by NCERT' in 1975 and a framework for the higher secondarystage subsequently, and the new syllabuses in various subjects based onthese frameworks. These may be seen as among the first steps in theprocess of establishing what the 1968 Policy called the 'national patternof education'. The National Policy on Education adopted by Parliamentin 1986, which was a more elaborate and comprehensive statement

National Curriculum Framework 2005Reversing the Main Thrust of the

National Policy on Education

Arj un Dev

PROF. ARJUN DEV is former Head of Department of Social Sciences and Humanities,NCERT

than the 1968 one, further articulated the concept of what it called theNational System of Education. It stated, "The concept of a NationalSystem of Education implies that, up to a given level, all students, irre-spective of caste, creed, location or sex, have access to education of acomparable quality." The National System of Education, envisaging acommon educational structure which had by then been accepted in allparts of the country, the Policy stated, 'will be based on a national cur-ricular framework which contains a common core along with other com-ponents that are flexible'. [Para 3.4] The Policy laid down various ele-ments of the common core and emphasized that 'All educational pro-grammes will be carried on in strict conformity with secular values'.The concept of a 'national curricular framework with a common core'as a basis for developing the National System of Education, thus, be-came a part of the National Policy on Education. The adoption of thePolicy by Parliament was followed by the formulation and adoption of aProgramme of Action for implementation of the Policy and as its fol-low-up, NCERT prepared the 'National Curriculum for Elementary andSecondary Education-A Framework' in 1988 and, based on this Frame-work, guidelines and syllabi in various subjects along with new/revisedtextbooks in conformity with the new syllabi. The Government of Indiaalso launched a Centrally Sponsored Scheme on Reorientation of Con-tent and Process of Education for the implementation of the 1988 cur-riculum framework. Beginning in 1989, almost every State/UT under-took programmes in this direction. The Programme of Action whichwas formulated in 1992 took note of the progress made in the imple-mentation of the Framework and laid down that the 'implementation ofthe National Curricular Framework up to the secondary stage through-out the country will be pursued' and 'the curricula in various subjectswill be examined for any deficiencies and inadequacies and for its mod-ernization keeping in view keeping in view the increased emphases onsome issues of major concern, advance in knowledge and pedagogicalconsiderations'.

The 1988 Framework sought to reflect the national developmental goalsand the goals of education as defined in the National Policy on Educa-tion in the formulation of objectives of curriculum. It recommended, onthe basis of these objectives and the developmental characteristics andneeds of children of different age-groups, a scheme of studies, the gen-eral framework of curricular areas at different stages of school educa-

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tion along with the instructional time needed for the transaction of cur-riculum as a whole and respective weightage of each, and desirableinstructional strategies. It also recommended the framework of evalua-tion and examination reform as well as strategies of implementation.

It may be noted that NCERT had also brought out a curricular frame-work for the higher secondary stage. The 1992 Programme of Actiontook note of this but pointed out that this had not been authorized. NCERTwas asked to finalize this framework, of which semesterization wasstated to be an important feature, at the earliest.

In the mid-1990s, NCERT initiated a study on the position of socialsciences in school curriculum in all States/UTs to assess the implemen-tation of the 1988 Curriculum Framework, including of the core cur-ricular elements. Though the study remained incomplete and work on itwas stopped when the 'new regime' came to power in NCERT andstarted the process of developing a new curriculum framework, it broughtout that though the implementation of the 1988 curriculum frameworkin different States/UTs had been uneven, a great deal of comparabilityand commonality had been achieved in the curricula in social sciencesat the upper primary, secondary and higher secondary stages through-out the country. It can be said that the two developments-the adoptionof a common structure and implementation of the national curricularframework, even though uneven, throughout the country- were impor-tant steps towards establishing a National System of Education.

Communalization of School CurriculumThe coming to power of the BJP-led government in 1998 marked thebeginning of a thoroughgoing communal assault on all aspects and sec-tors of education. The first attempt in this direction made by Dr.M.M.Joshi, Minister of Human Resource Development, in October 1998ended in a fiasco. The Ministers of Education of States/UTs meeting inthe only conference convened by the BJP-led government during sixyears of its rule refused to allow the Minister of HRD to include in theagenda of the conference a document on the 'Indianization, nationaliza-tion and spiritualization of curriculum' prepared by the Vidya BharatiSansthan, the main RSS organization in the area of school education.With the change of 'regime' in mid-1999, NCERT became the maininstrument to implement the communal agenda in school education. In

November 2000, NCERT brought out a new curricular framework-National Curriculum Framework for School Education [NCFSE]. Thisframework violated the basic thrusts and features of curriculum laiddown in the National Policy on Education, particularly its emphasis onsecularism, inculcation of scientific temper, and elimination of obscu-rantism, religious fanaticism, violence, superstition and fatalism. Basedon this framework, syllabuses, vitiated by communalism and obscurant-ism, were brought out in various subjects for all stages of school educa-tion towards the end of 2001. During 2002, new textbooks based on thenew syllabuses began to be introduced. It is interesting to note that thelast set of new textbooks-for Class VIII - were introduced during theacademic year 2004-05 when the BJP-led government had been oustedfrom power.

It may seem odd that in the year 2005, a little over one year after theBJP-led government was thrown out of power on, among others, theissue of communalism. It has become necessary to recall that duringthe years 1998 to 2004, the communal assault on education was amongthe most important issues that united all the secular parties, groups andorganizations and all secular persons concerned with education through-out the country on a common platform to resist and defeat this assault.All national level academic and cultural bodies and organizations overwhich the Union government exercised control had been converted intoinstruments of communalization. In the area of school education, thechief instrument of communalization was NCERT and it had imple-mented the communal agenda through its NCFSE and the syllabusesbased on it and the textbooks that were brought out to implement theNCFSE and the new syllabuses. It may be recalled that all non-NDAparties, with the sole exception of AIADMK, unanimously expressedtheir rejection of the NCFSE and its follow-up in the form of syllabusesand textbooks at a meeting held on 25 November 2002. Reversing theprocess of communalization of education- the UPA government's Min-ister of HRD called it 'detoxification'- was among the major objectivesof the Common Minimum Programme adopted by the UPA.

Is Communalization of School Education no longer a major issue?It would seem so if one were to go by what has happened or not hap-pened in NCERT, the Union government's apex body in the area ofschool education since the UPA came to power. It was expected that

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the UPA government would abrogate the NCFSE and withdraw what-ever had been done as its follow-up or, after the CABE was consti-tuted, place the NCFSE before it for consideration as two judges of theSupreme Court's three-member bench had directed the Union of Indiato do on 12 September 2002 in their judgment in the PIL filed againstthe NCFSE. [The Union of India, not NCERT, was the main respond-ent in the case.] The BJP-led government defied the directive and theUPA government also remained indifferent to it. The NCFSE remainsin force along with most of what NCERT during BJP-led government'srule did as its follow-up, except insofar as history textbooks were con-cerned. However, what was done in the case of history books was, tounderstate it, somewhat odd. In July 2004, the Executive Committee ofNCERT, which is headed by the Union Minister of HRD, 'accepted thereport of the Committee of Historians [which had been set up by theMinistry of HRD] in so far as their finding that the history books [broughtout by NCERT as a follow-up of NCFSE during 2002-04] were biased,badly written and full of inaccuracies rendering them unsuitable forcontinuation'.[emphasis added] However, it decided not to withdrawthese books but to continue them for the 2004-05 session. How a gov-ernment organization continues to prescribe books and sell them to un-wary students even after it agreed with the finding that these bookswere 'biased, badly written and full of inaccuracies rendering them un-suitable for continuation' is beyond comprehension. It is a pity that thematter- continuing to sell wares which were admitted to be substandardand unsuitable for continuation- was not taken to even a consumercourt. Further, it was decided to reprint the pre-BJP era history text-books of NCERT and make available five copies of each of these booksfree to all CBSE-affiliated schools in the country. This was done for allhistory books except for those meant for Classes IX and X and freecopies were sent to schools with a stamp- For Reference Only - printedin bold letters as though cautioning students against their use. An advi-sory was also sent to schools along with these books. It was entitledLearning History without Burden as if the main problem with the bookswas not their 'bias' [communal distortions], their being badly writtenand full of inaccuracies but their 'burden'. However, worse was still tocome. It had been decided to discontinue the 'biased' history booksproduced during 2002-04 as a follow-up of the NCFSE from the 2005-06 session and replace them by the earlier pre-2002 [pre-BJP, pre-

NCFSE] history books. All earlier books were reprinted except onethat dealt with the history of human civilization from earliest times tillabout the end of the 19th century- this particular period of world historywas abolished for students of CBSE-affiliated schools. More interest-ingly, NCERT decided to remove the stigma of being communal andobscurantist which secular opinion in the country, including all secularparties and groups, had attached to NCFSE and the syllabuses basedon it. NCERT authorities discovered that the earlier history books forClasses VI to X which had been brought out long years before theNCFSE and syllabuses based on it were formulated and had been re-placed by 'biased', badly written versions which were full of inaccura-cies were, in fact, 'based on NCFSE- 2000 and the syllabi prepared inaccordance with it'. The Publisher's Note which was printed in thereprinted versions of earlier history books for Classes VI to X broughtout in March 2005 made nonsense of the campaign against NCFSE andthe syllabuses and textbooks brought out by NCERT to communalizeschool curriculum. For reasons known to them, the violence done byNCERT authorities to the reprint versions of the earlier history booksfor Classes XI and XII is somewhat less serious. These books areclaimed to be in accordance with the revised syllabus prepared byNeeladri Bhattacharya Committee, though no author of any of thesebooks has ever heard of the revised syllabus or of the committee whichis stated to have prepared it. As with all authorities, the absurdity ofwhat they have claimed or alleged makes no difference to the authori-ties of NCERT.

What has been stated above with regard to the NCFSE points to theirrelevance of the issue of communalization of education insofar as thehighest authorities in the area of school education in the country areconcerned. The National Curriculum Framework 2005 brought out byNCERT recently seeks to finally put a seal on the issue.

Neither Review nor RevisionNCF 2005 was prepared/finalized some time during the last week ofMay 2005 and rushed through the Executive Committee meeting andAnnual General Meeting of NCERT on 6 and 7 June 2005 respectivelyfor approval. When it was placed before CABE on 7 June afternoon,after it had been approved by NCERT's Annual General Meeting heldearlier that morning, it was realized that it needed to be examined fur-

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ther before it was brought to CABE for its consideration. Who pre-pared it and who approved it before it was placed before NCERT'sExecutive Committee is not known? It is stated to have been preparedby a National Steering Committee which had been set up by NCERT to'review' NCFSE- 2000 and had held its first meeting in November 2004.

Its last meeting, before it was presented for approval, was held on 8April 2005 but in the minutes of that meeting, available on NCERT'swebsite, there is no reference whatsoever to the preparation of NCF2005. Whether the approval of the members of the National SteeringCommittee was obtained through circulation by email is not known.There was little consultation with NCERT's academic faculty; the as-sociation of the academic staff conveyed its sense of deep dissatisfac-tion to the President of NCERT at the marginalization of the faculty inthe preparation of the NCF on 6 June 2005, the day NCERT's Execu-tive Committee met to consider and approve the NCF 2005.The statedobjective of the National Steering Committee was to review the NCFSE-2000. MHRD's Secretary for Secondary and Higher Education hadwritten to NCERT's Director on 21 July 2004 to undertake the reviewof NCFSE-2000 as, according to the letter, the curriculum frameworkwas required by the Policy to be reviewed every five years. There is, infact, no such requirement laid down in the Policy. [It may be recalledthat Dr. J.S.Rajput, BJP-led government's appointee as NCERT's Di-rector, had mentioned exactly the same reason to impart legitimacy tothe NCFSE -2000 which was prepared to communalize school curricu-lum.] The Education Secretary's letter further stated, "While undertak-ing the review, we are sure you would take into account the YashpalCommittee Report on 'Learning Without Burden' and Chapter 8 of theProgramme of Action (1992), prepared under the National Policy onEducation 1986. "It was expected that the review of the NCFSE -2000,entrusted to NCERT by MHRD, would bring into sharp focus the com-munal and various other distortions that the NCFSE introduced in theschool curriculum, which were further given effect to in the syllabusesand textbooks based on it brought out by NCERT during 2001-04. How-ever, this seems to have been a completely non-issue, not even deserv-ing a mention, to those who have prepared the NCF 2005. There is inthis 112-page document precisely one sentence by way of review ofthe NCFSE -2000 and that one sentence has absolutely nothing to sayabout communalization of school curriculum which was the chief ob-

jective for which it was prepared and 'promulgated' by the Governmentof India with unbounded enthusiasm.

Chapter 8 of the 1992 Programme of Action, which the Education Sec-retary's letter wanted to be taken into account, has been ignored by theauthors of the NCF 2005.There is no reference to the action pointswhich this chapter on Secondary Education required NCERT to imple-ment at the earliest. It recommended the implementation of NCERT's1988 national curriculum framework throughout the country. It askedNCERT to prepare a curriculum framework for the higher secondarystage, with semesterization of higher secondary education recommendedby the Policy as its important feature, at the earliest. While the 1988curriculum framework is presented in the NCF 2005 as the main sourceof the basic problem of school curriculum, semesterization recommendedby the Policy finds no mention at all.

Curriculum Load - the New ParadigmThe new paradigm, the sole driving force, of the NCF 2005 is curricu-lum load as expounded in Learning Without Burden, a Report submittedby the National Advisory Committee to the MHRD in July 1993. TheCommittee was headed by Professor Yash Pal; hence its report is gen-erally referred to as Yashpal Committee Report. Professor Yash Pal isthe Chairperson of the National Steering Committee in whose name theNCF 2005 has been prepared. The present Director of NCERT was amember of the Yashpal Committee. A Research Associate appointedby the Yashpal Committee is also a member of the National SteeringCommittee. So it is perhaps not entirely fortuitous that the 'review ofNational Curriculum Framework, 2000 was initiated specifically to ad-dress the problem of curriculum load on children'. [For 'review of 'Frame-work', read preparation of NCF 2005' as no review was, in fact, under-taken] The NCF 2005 also says that 'the present document draws uponand elaborates on the insights of Learning Without Burden'. Some mayfind it odd that the preparation of a new national curriculum frameworkis stated to have been initiated not to modernize, update and, wherenecessary, upgrade the curriculum but to deal with the problem of cur-riculum load. The 1986 Policy is stated to be 'the first uniform NationalPolicy on Education' as though the 1968 Policy was a varying one.Contrary to what is stated in NCF 2005, there is not a word in the 1986Policy which is supposed to have 'entrusted NCERT with the responsi-

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bility of developing National Curriculum Framework and review theframework at frequent intervals'. [There are numerous similar looseand inaccurate statements in the NCF 2005 which it would be too tedi-ous to point out.] As stated earlier, there is precisely one statement byway of review of the NCFSE 2000. The review of the 1988 curriculumframework has been done more elaborately, in one paragraph. All ills ofthe curriculum load are traced to the 'articulation of this frameworkthrough courses of studies and textbooks' which 'resulted in an increasein 'curriculum load' and made learning at school a source of stress foryoung mind and bodies during their formative years of childhood andadolescence'. The only statement on NCFSE 2000 is the following:"Despite the review of the Curriculum Framework in 2000, the vexedissues of curriculum load and the tyranny of examinations remainedunresolved." [There is a failure here to recognize that Dr. Rajput'sNCFSE 2000 did try and succeed in somewhat reducing the load- he'reduced the quantum of history', abolished history as a separate sub-ject up to Class X and more or less banished the world from the schoolcurriculum!]

It may be useful to briefly discuss the 'noteworthiness' or relevance ofthe Yashpal Committee Report. Strangely, the Education Secretary, whilecommending that report to NCERT Director, showed no knowledge ofanother report of a group set up by the same MHRD- Report of theGroup to Examine the Feasibilty of Implementing the Recommenda-tions of Yashpal Committee. It was submitted to the MHRD after abouttwo months of the submission of the Yashpal Committee Report. Bothreports were published by NCERT on behalf of MHRD. Why has noreference at all been made to the Report of the Group? Is it a case of[selective] amnesia or pure and simple suppression?

Despite its many useful insights, some of them aphoristic, the YashpalCommittee Report has little to commend itself as an informed state-ment of the problem and its roots, much less the solutions it offered inthe form of Recommendations. It ignored some of its terms of refer-ence- for example, 'entrance criteria and exit attainments at variouslevels' and 'impact of admissions to higher education institutions, includ-ing professional courses'- and took absolutely no notice of the NationalPolicy on Education, 1988 national curriculum framework and 1992Programme of Action. Almost every observation in the Report is pre-

sented in absolute terms but without any reference to any particularcurriculum, textbook series or stage of education. In the entire report,there was only one specific reference to a specific textbook. The re-port as a stated policy does not give any references enabling the com-mittee to quote isolated examples to damn all textbooks. [In dealingwith the issue of textbooks, the same 'policy' has been followed exten-sively in the NCF 2005.] An issue that may be relevant to the primarystage insofar as the question of 'burden' is concerned may be irrelevantat the higher secondary stage but the issues raised in the report notspecifically related to specific stages of school education. From whatthe report states on 'knowledge Vs information' it seems to mean thatnot only the upgradation of the curricula but even their updating is det-rimental to education.

The report also presumes a dichotomy between 'process' and 'product'and that the 'process' or what is mentioned as 'concept-formation andgrowth of capacity for theory building' is closely linked with minimumessential 'information' and 'knowledge' is something the report consid-ers totally irrelevant. [Many statements and phrases used in the NCF2005 are exactly the same as in the report.] In what appears to be agross understatement, the Report of the Group has stated that 'some ofthe statements in the [Yashpal Cmmittee] Report do not indicate thedata or basis on which the Committee has relied'. It also said, "Whilethere may be some flaws in the syllabi and textbooks prepared by theNCERT, it does not seem that they can be accused of being grosslyunsuitable or overloaded."

The Yashpal Committee Report made 12 Recommendations. One wouldexpect that the recommendations made by any committee are based onthe issues that are raised and discussed in the body of the report. In thepresent case, most of the Recommendations have little to do with thebody of the Report. This was pointed out in the Report of the Group. Afew examples of this are being given. The Report recommends that'The repetitious nature of history syllabus' should be changed whilethere is absolutely not a word in the body of the Report to indicate thatthe history syllabus is repetitious. It further recommends that 'the his-tory of ancient times be introduced for systematic study in secondaryclasses [IX-X]' and 'the history syllabus for classes VI-VIII focus onthe freedom struggle and post-independence developments'. The basis

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for these recommendations is nowhere stated. It would appear thathistory courses are to be concerned with only ancient India and free-dom struggle. Civics is recommended to be abolished because 'as it istaught today, [it] puts a great load on children's capacity to memorize'and should be replaced by 'contemporary studies'. This is the only timethe word Civics occurs in the full text of the Report and, there is, ofcourse, not a word on what 'contemporary studies' is supposed to mean.{It may be noted that Civics has been abolished by the NCF 2005 to bereplaced by Political Science which was earlier introduced in ClassesXI-XII. The focus group on social sciences headed by a well-knownPolitical Scientist in its report decided to abolish Civics because, in itsconsidered view, it was a colonial subject.]The entire Report seems tobe directed against the very concept of a national curriculum. Followingthis Report, the NCF 2005 tries to do exactly the same thing.

The Textbook QuestionThe NCF 2005 repeatedly pours scorn on textbooks as the major sourceof all educational ills. However, a 'discordant' note has crept in, perhapsunnoticed by the 'authorities', in a section dealing with Natural Sci-ences. It reads, "The science curriculum must be used as an instrumentof social change to reduce the divide related to economic class, gender,caste, religion and region. We must use textbooks as one of the primaryinstruments for equity, since for a great majority of school going chil-dren, as also for their teachers, it is the only accessible and affordableresource for education".

The main focus of the NCF 2005 is on the preparation of multiple text-books, including by private publishers. For social science subjects, prepa-ration of dictionaries of technical terms so that the use of technicalterms is avoided in textbooks. But, of course, no national level text-books which can be used/adapted for use in different parts of the coun-try. In this context, it may be relevant to quote what the EducationCommission had to say. "Textbooks produced at the national level willhave other advantages as well. One of our major recommendations isthat we should attempt to evolve national standards at the end of theprimary, lower secondary and the higher secondary stages. The defini-tion of these standards as well as the organization of a programme fortheir implementation will be greatly facilitated by the production of text-books at the national level.

Such books can indicate the expected standard of attainment far moreprecisely than any curricula or syllabi; and their practical use in schoolsis the surest method to raise standards and make the teaching in schoolsin different parts of the country fairly comparable." Contrary to everylogic and every precedent, NCERT started preparing subject syllabieven before an outline of the new NCF was available. These syllabi arebelieved to have been already finalized, even before the NCF has beenfinalized. Clearly, the authorities do not think that the subject syllabishould be based on a curriculum framework. [Why then have a cur-riculum framework?] What is even worse is that the preparation oftextbooks under a new scheme already approved by NCERT's FinanceCommittee has already started. According to the new scheme, text-books will be prepared in workshops in 15 to 20 sittings under the guid-ance of a chief adviser. The scheme when implemented will ensure theextremely poor quality of what is produced. It would further make surethat no one would be responsible for what is produced. No better schemecould have been worked out to subvert the preparation of quality text-books, something for which NCERT could be held guilty before BJP-RSS Parivar decided to convert NCERT into an instrument ofcommunalization of education. The Chief Advisers will be paid Rs. 15,000/for each book they advise on and those who write the books in work-shops will be paid sitting fee for each day of the workshop and a nomi-nal one-time payment for their labours at the end of the exercise.

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COMMUNALISATION OFEDUCATION: CONTINUING

THE DISCUSSION

Nal in i Taneja

For most people communalization of the educational system in Indiarefers to the changes brought about in the National Curriculum Frame-

work of Education, and consequently in the social science textbooks, bythe BJP-led government when it was in power at the Centre. With thechange to the Congress-led UPA government and a new NCM and newsocial science textbooks prepared by the NCERT, which has a new teamat its helm, it is safely assumed that the problem of communalized educa-tion remains confined to the BJP ruled states. Such an assumption slidesinto another presumption—that defeating the BJP in these states will re-verse the educational scenarios in those particular states. Most attentionon our part in analyzing the communalization of education is therefore onthe BJP ruled states and on the state board education syllabi in these states.

The reality is in fact far more complex and frighteningWe need not only to broaden our definition of what we mean by theeducational system in this country; we need to also widen our definitionof what we see as contributing to the communalization of this educationalsystem. More: a failure to expand and redefine the scope of our battle fora secular educational system at this juncture can only mean concedingdefeat to the right wing fascist forces in the important arena of the battle

for minds. For this reason I would not like to confine the issues involvedto the BJP-ruled states alone, as asked for.

BJP rule and non-BJP rule: some issuesAt the outset it needs to be clarified that there is a difference between BJPrule and non-BJP rule in the matter of education, if only because the BJPhas been much more serious about its agenda in education than otherpolitical parties have and also because of the thorough manner in which itinitiates and implements its agenda and rides roughshod over the demo-cratic resistance.

But let us not confuse this thoroughness with creativity and inventive-ness. On the contrary, there is almost total absence of creativity and in-ventiveness in so far as its educational policies are concerned—in termsof ideas or pedagogy. What it has achieved has been solely through itsthoroughness in implementation and utter disregard for consensus or otheropinions. The creativity and inventiveness lies elsewhere—the RSS shakhasand the social networks of the Sangh Parivar which transcend the BJPrule in terms of time-periods and regions. It is important to keep thisspecificity and distinction in mind if we are to assess the reach and impactof communalism in our educational system.

The goals of a secular educational policy, which should seek to align theentire educational enterprise of this country with the constitutional man-date of secularism, scientific temper and democracy, are reversed. Thestate system is sought to be aligned with the private parallel stream op-posed to this mandate. The chief impact of BJP rule in the Centre or in thestates therefore lies in the expansion of the reach of the parallel RSSsponsored educational system. Yet for the most part political parties haveonly expressed concerns but not demanded anything of non-BJP govern-ments with regard to this RSS sponsored parallel stream, which has beenencroaching upon the government recognized system.

The difference between BJP government and non-BJP governments isthen confined to distinct educational policies while the communalized par-allel system is allowed to operate unchallenged.

In this matter of education we also need to understand that we are dealingwith minds of impressionable children or equally impressionable youth,and five years of a government educational policy are not automaticallywiped off from the experience of those who have spent them in schoolsand colleges during those years. What they have learnt carries with themNALINI TANEJA is Reader in History, School of Open Learning, Delhi University


a long time. It would be foolhardy to conclude otherwise. They are theeducators of the subsequent years, if not within the formal educationalsystem, then within homes and in civil society at large. The gains made bythe communal forces during their periods of rule are a long term invest-ment that pays rich dividends for them in subsequent years—years whenthe BJP government is not in power.

We may additionally remember that history textbooks of the ‘BJP era’were made to align not merely with the ‘Hindu rashtra’ agenda, whichthey did very crudely and unashamedly, but with popular common senseas well constructed through years of RSS sponsored Hindutva propa-ganda. This alignment of popular common sense and communalized men-talities with education needs to be broken, and education needs to bealigned with promoting progressive change rather than any moorings withpopular common sense, which at its best can only reflect status quo andat its worst could promote prejudice and parochialism. It hardly needssaying that such an initiative can only come from the Left.

A long term view on social science teaching challenges the view thatcommunalism in education thrives only under BJP rule.

Ideological perspectives and scientific temperOnly an educational content and imbued with a scientific temper and ob-jectivity and not shy of presenting facts that ‘hurt sentiments’ can reallypose a challenge to the communalization of education. It is not the job ofeducation to celebrate culture as it exists or to promote religious pluralismas an antidote to religious strife. A de-linking from the competing varietiesof nationalism and community rights, of the majority or the minority, anemphasis on the common material culture as opposed to religious plural-ism, and a strict adherence to the constitutional mandate arrived at throughthe freedom struggle can alone render the educational system free of thecommunal virus.

While it is generally understood and accepted that BJP governments inpower have promoted communalism and parochialism, and that historytextbooks brought out under BJP rule in the Centre and in the states haveshown utter disregard for even facts, leave alone interpretation, thosebrought out during non-BJP governments have not been subjected to thesame scrutiny.

An NCERT survey of textbooks carried out much before the BJP came topower in the Centre had found the books prescribed and used by state

boards in several states to reflect communal biases and parochialism.This had generated an initiative on the part of NCERT which bore fruit insome excellent history textbooks for schools authored by eminent histori-ans like Romila Thapar, RS Sharma, Satish Chandra, Bipan Chandra andArjun Dev and Indira Dev.

While they transformed history teaching in the schools affiliated to theCBSE, their reach remained limited to a minority of schools if one takesinto account the entire educational edifice of the country. Majority of thechildren not only in schools but also in colleges across the country con-tinued to receive a social science education lacking in scientific temperand imbued with communal biases and parochialism, and no large scaledetermined effort was ever made to intervene in social science teaching inschools outside the CBSE stream. We may also remember that the firstattack on the secular history textbooks (at the behest of the RSS of course)came during the period of the Janata Party after the defeat of the Emer-gency! These books were finally done away with by the BJP government.

Constraints of space do not allow a detailed analysis, but it is not difficultto argue that the new Curriculum Framework which replaced the BJP-sponsored document, and the textbooks brought out by the ‘autonomous’(for the first time, it is claimed!) NCERT reflect a retreat in many waysfrom the progressive goals of yesteryears.

The NCERT has brought out several position papers on themes it consid-ers important in education. These include gender education, education forscheduled castes and scheduled tribes, vocational education, peace edu-cation. What is missing is secular education or communal harmony, whichwas obviously not considered important enough. Retreat is also apparentin the emphases and silences in the textbooks. While there is a celebrationof pluralism and difference, secularism is downgraded and the word barelyoccurs except as reference to the clauses of the Constitution in a politicalscience textbook. The macro picture is considered outdated and replacedby ‘fragments’, the pages given to the national movement and the impactof colonialism are reduced, empowerment is preferable to emancipation,equity to equality, social movements get their due, trade unions and com-munist parties do not, and so on. They are true to their mandate of ‘nei-ther left nor right’, while the earlier secular textbooks had a decided tilttowards a left vision.

There has been a slideback in other senses as well: the NCERT of the UPAregime has been susceptible to ideological perspectives that do not meet

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the criteria of objectivity and scientific temper. Passages from books werewithdrawn under pressure from parochial minority sentiments when Sikhsor Jats claimed to be offended by historical facts. The textbooks deliber-ately refrain from naming and identifying the divisive communal forces,and Gandhi deserves a chapter in the textbook on modern Indian historywhile many other important leaders do not find even a mention. The DelhiSCERT textbook on modern Indian history in its first edition (perhaps itmay have been revised now) had only favourable references to Savarkar,the major ideological differences are shown as between Nehru and Gan-dhi rather than with the communalists, the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabhaare not identified as communal organizations, and there were referencesto only Hindu musicians in the section on Hindustani classical music, etc.

Customs and traditions continue in these books to be described with ref-erence to primarily religious beliefs; pluralism and diversity and sharedculture are similarly rooted in religious beliefs. One is not even talkingabout the economics textbooks which give the pluses and minuses ofglobalization, without critiquing capitalism, and where one can hardly hopeto find an explanation for why so many people starve despite overflowingfoodgrains in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India. And wehave really not paid attention to the Hindi textbooks in use since independ-ence and in use today.

One cannot but arrive at the inescapable conclusion that many textbooksof social science and Hindi dating to the period prior to the BJP regimealready contained a framework that could be utilized effectively by theBJP to spread its communal bias and the notion of a Hindu nation, and theoverall situation in the country remains the same despite the new NCERTtextbooks. The coming to power of non-BJP governments leads to littlechange—except perhaps the cosmetic changes involving mention of Con-gress leaders—and so on. The nitty gritties of coalition governments ac-tually works against substantial change in the parochial content for fear ofangering one or the other caste or religious minority, or of losing out onthe majority Hindu vote bank.

The RSS -linked parallel systemWhat most people are unaware of and underestimate is the sheer size andquality of the RSS linked network of schools, institutions and organiza-tions, under various names and nomenclatures, imparting formal and nonformal education, spread across the entire length and breadth of this coun-try, and its impact on minds. It is a huge independent parallel sector in

education whose agenda is determined by the religious sectarian organiza-tions collectively constituting the Sangh Parivar. Their primary purpose isindoctrination and they fill the syllabus with their interpretation of theworld and society.

Because they are so well organized and networked and are able to retaincontact in some way or the other with huge numbers of those who havetraversed through their institutions, it is they who primarily harvest thefruits of education among the poor. They provide access and opportuni-ties for local involvement in areas where the government system fails toreach. They create an India at odds with the constitutional order built onthe aspirations and achievements of the national movement and in theprocess create another nation that works at cross purposes with the secularframework of our political system.

When the BJP governments are in place they use the state fiat to primarilystrengthen this parallel system. Although most public attention has re-mained focused on their tinkering with the government linked formal sys-tem of education, in comparison with what they have transferred in termsof resources to this independent private stream their tinkering with thegovernment system is only partial. While they squeeze the governmentcoffers for resources their primary aim is the transfer of resources andexpansion of their own organizations. Land allotted, schemes devised,funds allocated, textbooks revised, excavations begun, infrastructuralsupport sanctioned quietly continue into the new regimes after the BJPregimes are replaced through elections by non-BJP governments.

The government stream for all its weaknesses retains some checks andbalances deriving from the constitution, and some scope for public scru-tiny and accountability, while their organizations are only accountable tothemselves. As the experience of the last three decades shows tinkeringwith the National Curriculum Framework and revisions of NCERT andstate level textbooks prescribed in the government stream caused a publicoutcry followed by retaliatory action on the part of non- BJP governmentsand many political parties. There has been no comparable political re-sponse to the unbridled communalism of the RSS linked system.

This system works unhampered under the non-BJP governments, oftenwith the complicity of the ruling Congress governments. States likeRajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra andUttar Pradesh, and the districts now in Uttarakhand, where the Congresshas been in power for longer stretches of time than the BJP or the earlier

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Jan Sangh, have seen unhampered expansion of the educational enterpriseof the Hindu right wing. Gujarat and Orissa have become the laboratoriesof the Sangh Parivar with the full connivance of the non-BJP parties inthese states. In the north east states, the Jammu region of J& K, Chattisgarh,Jharkhand, Goa and in Karnataka their presence has been significant,whichever the government, and is felt also in Tamilnadu and Kerala.

In Gujarat most Gandhian institutions have given way to Hindutva ideol-ogy and the hegemony of the Hindutva is complete within the educationalsystem. In Rajasthan the Vasundhara Raje government has ensured com-plete hegemony for the Hindutva project in education. Even the privatepublications of textbooks have fallen in line. The mapping out of the Mus-lims as internal enemies is part of the dominant discourse, feudal prac-tices and religious festivals are emphaised and glorified within the educa-tional system and textbooks. The representation of women as primarilyhome makers, the glorification of sati and of Rajput ‘valour’ find theirway into the government school system.

In Orissa the present attacks on Christians have been preceded by dec-ades of educational efforts by the Sangh Parivar organizations. SwamiLakshmananda, the VHP leader whose murder became the occasion fororganized violence against the Christians, came to Kandhamal in 1969 andby now Orissa has more than 1200 cultural organizations alone, not tospeak of the network of shishu mandirs, branches of the Vanvasi KalyanParishad , involved in education of the tribals, and the Ekal Vidyalayas.Without the network of these educational organizations such political cloutis unimaginable.

In all these states the RSS system has infiltrated and hegemonised theentire educational enterprise within these states.

Their Vanavasi Kalyan Parishad is a registered NGO and can receive funds.It receives huge funds from abroad, as revealed by the report of theCampaign to Stop Funding Hate based in UK. Ekal Vidyalayas in Gujaratalone received as “charity” more than 500,000 pounds(more than fourcrore rupees) from a single organization—Sewa International. But theyhave received enormous funds from the government as well—when theBJP government was in power and continuing into the UPA regime. TheHRD Ministry stopped their funding after a public report in 2005, but theMinistry of Tribal Affairs continues to fund them.

The vanguards of expansion in the tribal areas in most states are these

Ekal Vidyalayas. Not just the indoctrination of students, these one-teacherschools constitute the core of the Sangh Parivar activities in the tribalbelts, and the teachers are the active cadre of these organizations. AsShankar Gopalakrishnan testified before a Peoples’ Tribunal organized inNew Delhi in 2007: “If you see some of the track records of the teachers,there is a definite progression. They began as Acharyas of Ekal Vidyalaya,and then they became pramukhs of the Ekal Vidyalaya system. Then theybecome the pracharaks of the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram and if they fit thebill, then they move into the VHP or the Bajrang Dal.” They run hostelsand hospitals where they ‘educate’ young children and the youth. Whiletheir activities have been going on for the last forty years, they haveespecially targeted the tribals only since the nineties. Many of the tribalbelts in MP, Jharkhand, Orissa, which were traditionally Congress votingareas are now voting for the BJP. (Rise of Fascism, report of the Inde-pendent People’s Tribunal, March 22-23, 2007). The numbers of theseEkal Vidyalyas and Vanavasi Kalyan Parishad branches has grown phe-nomenally in the last two decades.

The textbooks prescribed in the shishu mandirs and the Vidya Bharti schoolsare poisonous, full of hatred for the minorities, breed superstition, pro-mote casteism and deny gender equality. Their history texts contain con-cocted ‘facts’ and unashamedly argue for a Hindu rashtra and identify theMuslims as enemies. The writ of the Indian constitution and law does notapply to these schools. Their numbers run into thousands. Extracts fromtheir textbooks have been quoted so many times that most of us are nowfamiliar with their content—and sadly it seems also reconciled to theirpresence on the educational scene.

Higher educationHigher education has not escaped communalization. Most college text-books in history even today project a Hindu view of our nation and cul-ture. There has been a determined entry of the Hindu communal bias inthe fields of archaeology, women’s studies, environmental studies whichcannot be erased. It may be crude and counter factual in archaeology, butis more sophisticated in the fields that have received recent attention.

To give one example: Just this month the Indian Express reported on the“initial findings of a UGC project” which state that feeling ill could havesomething to do with planets. With a Rs 32 lakh budget the project isstudying the impact of planets on the heart, diabetes and mental diseases.The five year study is being conducted by the Delhi based Lal Bahadur

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Shastri Sanskrit Vidyapeeth’s department of medical astrology. (IndianExpress, Sept. 6, 2008). There are hundreds of such projects being car-ried out throughout the country. This has been cited as example to showthat projects opposed to a scientific temper and to agencies interested inpromoting parochialism have been funded and continue to be funded byprimary government agencies, and under UPA as much as BJP regimes, atthe national as much as the state levels of higher educational research.

In the recent decades, particularly since globalization policies have heldsway, commercializing and bringing together the interests of the authori-tarian state, the industrial lobby and the religious establishments, Hindutvahas intervened in higher education through funding of Vedic Sciences,courses on astrology and karmakand, Vedic Mathamatics in Universitiesand the many deemed to be universities being started as businesses by theHindutva lobby. Many of these deemed universities are the many “deemeduniversities” affiliated with tax-exempt ashrams and temples and offerdegrees in conventional science and engineering subjects. As Meera Nandaargues (in a forthcoming publication titled God and Globalisation) thesanction for courses on karmakand were available well before the BJPgovernment, through a 1962 Report of the Hindu Religious EndowmentCommission which argued:

“Temples may be defined as occult laboratories where certain physicalacts of adoration coupled with certain systematized prayers, psalms,mantras and musical invocations can yield certain physical and psycho-logical results as a matter of course. And if these physical processes areproperly conducted, the results will accrue provided the persons whoperform them are properly equipped. One of the essentials for the properconduct of rituals is the proper ordaining of the priest. Also, the efficacyof prayers, poojas, archanas, abhisekas, festivals, etc., very much de-pends upon the expertness of the priestly agents employed in the physicalprocess and ritualistic details. It is therefore essential that the correctapproach and proper conditions should be rigidly followed to enable thetemples to fulfill their purposes. …” ( p. 500, emphasis added). Quoted inNanda.

Again, this government appointed Commission has been cited to showthat entry of parochialism and Hindu communalism within the higher edu-cation system have a broader sanction than just from the BJP govern-ments, and many such sanctions date to the Nehruvian era, but there arenumerous such examples.

Nanda herself shows that Tamilnadu has been a pioneer in the educationfor priesthood and that there are such institutions all over the countrynow. She has devoted a whole chapter to the nexus between the State,Religious Establishments and the Industrial sector in contributing to theHindutva agenda either through grants and sanctions for courses further-ing the Hindutva agenda or recognition to their certificates and degrees, orgrants of land by governments to these purposes.

Sanskrit education and the establishments sanctioned and given funds bythe BJP government have a much larger presence and agenda than just theteaching of a language, and we have been underestimating their spreadand the funds available to them through allocations from the educationalbudgets.

While a few celebrated projects in secular history writing stopped by theBJP have been restored within the revamped ICHR and some key institu-tions headed by pro-Hindutva academics now have secular people at theirhelm—ICHR, ICSSR, NBT, NCERT, CBSE, ASI, IIAS, CSIR etc to namea few—this reversal has not been complete, and many projects sanc-tioned and schemes initiated during the BJP regime continue. Books basedon research projects and grants then sanctioned saw the light of dayduring the UPA regime. One such important project was an ICSSR-spon-sored project on saffron demography. Saffron archaeology has a visiblepresence and continues to feed RSS initiated campaigns.

Religious tourism and religious festivals promoted through governmentbrochures and notions of ‘Incredible India’ abound in religious imageryand the image of India as essentially Hindu but tolerant of minorities.Government produced brochures available at places of tourist interestreveal the same predilections. They are distributed to millions of people.The tourist guides at most places present imaginary and biased accountsof the history of these places. These are areas over which governmenthas considerable control.

In fact it would not be out of place to stress here the distinction betweenNehru’s own secular credentials and the hegemony of soft Hindutva withinthe state educational system during the Nehruvian era, and similarly be-tween Gandhi’s religiosity and the communal biases of the Gandhian insti-tutions that dominated this era. The BJP governments in the differentstates of course lead the way in this, but these institutions happily existunder the Congress governments as well if there is a change in govern-ment.

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Related issues of neo-liberalism and privatizationIt just cannot be that economic policies and ideological predilections cango the neoliberal way and education continue to abide by its agenda ofdemocratization: there is a fundamental contradiction here. The commer-cialization and privatization of education is bound to align the educationalenterprise to the service of Capital and a State wedded and enmeshed inthe interests of this Capital rather than the needs of its people. The public-private partnership can only work in the interests of the ruling classes justas WTO dictated entry of foreign universities can only promote the inter-ests of imperialism at the cost of national sovereignty in the realm ofideas. Privatization and hegemony of neo-liberal ideas produced in theimperialist countries will also ultimately affect the content of education inthis country.

Sudeep Banerjee, the former Secretary of Education, in an impassionedtalk refers to the proliferation and alignment of management studies edu-cation and the related decline in liberal social science education as a resultof this hegemony and the trend towards privatization. (Where Knowledgeis Free, Tagore Memorial Lecture, IIT Kharagpur, May 6, 2008). Is thepurpose of education merely to enable an individual to earn wealth? Hepoints out that the issues of access, equity, relevance and quality arerelated. He has pointed towards the disjunction between the perspectivethat looks on education as a transaction between teacher and students foran end product which could be used in the economy, and an activity onbehalf of the of the people in which both students and teachers engage toproduce organic intellectuals. The dominance of the first trend has al-ready produced a privileging of subjects in which social science is at adisadvantage.

We may add that a knowledge society geared to serve profit making con-tributes to a secular vacuum that creates space for communal worldviewsto flourish.

Privatization, the withdrawal of the State from its commitments towardsuniversalisation of elementary education and expansion of higher educa-tion, and the decline in funding of social sciences is already contributingfast to the creation of this secular vacuum and the enlargement of thespace for communal educational institutions and retreats within the intel-lectual realm.

Drawing inspiration from the western countries we can see already seethe down grading of social science teaching in universities, and thousands

of schools in the country simply do not offer this option in the plus twolevel. A report in the Hindu stated that Andhra Pradesh has all but doneaway with social science teaching at this level.

Directed by the pattern of funding from foundations in the western coun-tries and the hegemony of neo-liberalism and post modernism, social sci-ence courses in many universities across the country have been revampedand diluted of their progressive anti-imperialist content. Celebration of‘difference’ takes precedence over secularism. There is the promotion ofa whole knowledge geared to weakening rational, democratic and pro-people perspectives. While space constraints do not allow for a detailedanalysis here, it can be said that not all course revampings represent achange for the better, and that most revampings move away from world-views that build bridges with scientific, rational and emancipatory per-spectives on history and society.

In the field of school education it can be clearly seen that the collapse ofthe government system and the failure of the State to rise to the growingdemand for education directly contributes to the expansion and proliferationof the parallel RSS linked educational enterprise. There is no alternativeexcept a common school system that takes over and brings within its foldthis parallel system. It has to be recognized that there is no peaceful co-existence with it: the parallel system will not allow peace as we can see.

A related matter of concern is the devaluing of education itself in relationto and as competitor with corporate owned mass media. As this mediagrows and increases its hegemony, the role of the formal educationalsystem in fulfilling the agenda of democratization becomes correspond-ingly difficult. In the event of unwillingness on the part of the governmentand the political leadership it actually becomes next to impossible.

It is not surprising, therefore, that despite hunger, unemployment anddespair about livelihood, it is ideological issues raised by these fascistforces that dominate the political landscape today. Their educational net-works constitute the building blocks for the preparation of communalviolence and fascism, and their enemies are well defined and identified:the Left, the trade unions, the kisan organizations, the dalits, the adivasis,the minorities, the women’s organizations, the rights-based and secularorganizations and all those who oppose their narrow bigoted view of theworld. Without seriously concerning ourselves with this parallel systemof education we cannot even hope to proceed towards effective seculareducation in this country.

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Science and Education


However, today, the market and the demands of global capital areincreasingly driving the control of science and its advances. Neither arethe objectives of advancing science as a knowledge system nor that ofserving the needs of the people being served in the current regime ofscience. Increasingly, knowledge and larger social goals are being sacri-ficed to the needs of a neo-liberal economic order that puts value only onimmediate gain as the driver of science. Increasingly, science as an opensystem, at least amongst the scientists, is giving away to the logic of thecapitalist enterprise. The role of science in the new knowledge economyhas driven structure of private research within the heart of the educationalsystem. The goal of research is no longer production of knowledge butcreating monopolies for either private capital or the “scientist as entrepre-neur”. The output of scientific research is not scientific papers in journalsbut patents, which can be turned into money.

Intellectual Property Rights and Knowledge CommonsThe monopoly exercised over knowledge translates into the ability to ex-tract super profits by using this monopoly to sell either software or amedicine or a seed. However, this aborts the possibility of science beingdone in and open, networked way, which has immense possibilities. WithInternet and open access to knowledge, it is possible to think of largegroups people working all over the globe to bring about a major advancesin science. The Free Software movement has shown the power of thenew networked structures in the creation of new software. Never before,the society has the ability to bring together different communities andresources. What stands in the way of liberating this enormous power ofthe collective for production of new knowledge and designing new arte-facts is the monopoly rights and private appropriation inherent in the neo-liberal Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) order.

It is the understanding that science needs to be put back as an open andcollaborative exercise that has given birth to the commons movement.While the environmental and ecological movements have looked at com-mons and fought against their privatisation, the kind of commons thatthey have looked at are finite resources such as grazing lands, forests,fisheries, oceans and atmosphere, etc. These commons are still naturalresources, which appeared to have been infinite in an earlier era and arenow realised to be finite and capable of over–exploitation and degradation.The knowledge commons are intrinsically different in that they do notdegrade with use. A law of nature or the knowledge of a genetic code

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SCIENCE AND THE UNIVERSITIES:THE NEO-LIBERAL ORDER ANDTHE PRODUCTION OF SCIENCE

Science was always thought to be knowledge of nature which we gainin order to solve the larger problems of society. Scientists always

claimed that their discoveries were guided by this thirst for knowledge.Research therefore had a goal for uncovering the secrets of nature. Whilethis might have been the stated goals of science, it was always true thatscience was never simply a disinterested quest for pure knowledge. Thesocial needs, quite often the needs of the ruling classes, and under capitalismthe market, has always been a major driver of the institutions of science.However, there was always a distance between the knowledge of naturethus gained and their being turned into “useful” products that could beused as weapons or sold in the market.

The university and research institutions, particularly after state supportfor higher education and research emerged in the twentieth century as themain source of funds, were kept relatively autonomous. It was believedthat this relative autonomy allowed new ideas to emerge and also madepossible the advance of “basic sciences”. Without this advance, it was feltthat applied science could not develop further and therefore technologydevelopment need to be supported by the state by its support to the edu-cational and research institutions.

Prab ir P urk ay asha

PRABIR PURKAYASTHA is scientist-activist and associated with Delhi Science Forum


does not does not degrade with their repeated use. The repeated use, forexample, of the law of gravitation does not diminish the law in any way.

Intellectual property rights, in this “commons” view of the world is noth-ing but an attempt to exclude people from the domain of knowledge byenclosing it, similar to the enclosing of commons carried out over the last500 years. It is simply using a legal artifice called IPR to privatise knowl-edge which is publicly held. Any enclosure of knowledge is doubly perni-cious – it not only reduces access by others, it also puts a price on accessto something which has infinite capacity. The enclosure therefore of knowl-edge using the IPR regime is far worse than the earlier forms of enclosuremovements. The struggle against intellectual property rights of variouskinds becomes a battle for preserving the global commons, specificallyknowledge in its various forms.

The University System and the Production of ScienceThe earlier system of development of scientific knowledge resided prima-rily within the structures of higher education. The universities, collegesand other institutions of higher learning were the centres were new ad-vances in science were located. As these centres of education were rela-tively autonomous of both the state and the market, the system of gener-ating new knowledge was not closely bound by immediate class needs ofsociety. This is what produced within the university system a sense ofindependence and self-regulation – the education given to the studentshad larger purpose than merely serving capital or the needs of the state.This is also why the educational system also provided a place where newideas arose not only in the various disciplines but also about society itself.

The humanist view of science and technology fitted itself very well intothis overall structure. Science was supposed to produce new knowledge,which could then be mined by technology to produce artefacts. The roleof innovation was to convert ideas into artefacts — therefore the patentingsystem that provides protection to useful ideas embodied in the artefacts.

The transformation of this system that existed for more than a hundredyears has come from two different sources. One is that science and tech-nology are far more closely integrated than before, making the distinctionbetween scientific knowledge and technological advance more difficult todistinguish. An advance in genetics can translate to the market place muchmore quickly than earlier. Computers and communications have also asimilar pace of development, drawing some of the sciences much closer

to the systems of production than earlier. The earlier difference betweenbasic and applied sciences is much more difficult, particularly in comput-ers, genetics, and communications. The second is the conversion of theuniversity systems to what are essentially profit making commercial en-terprises1 under the current neo-liberal order. The dwindling public fi-nancing of education and the rise of corporate funding has emerged as amajor threat to scientific research.

Market fundamentalism is today profoundly altering how education itselfis taking place. Students are regarded as consumers and the university-education system is structured like any other commercial enterprise thatlooks primarily at its bottom line. A deeper analysis of nature, which hasno immediate commercial market, is now being downgraded in favour ofwhat the industry considers as “lucrative” research. Not only does it dis-tort the larger system in which long term knowledge is devalued in favourof immediate and short term gain, it also shifts research priorities awayfrom what society needs as a whole to the needs of those who can pay.As university research is increasingly being funded by private corpora-tions, a wholesale shifting of research priorities is taking place. Science isno longer for advancing knowledge and the well-being of society butalmost entirely for generating profits for the educational enterprise itself.

The impact of this new IPR regime, coupled with the global trading re-gime under WTO, has lead to the private appropriation on a grand scale ofcommonly held biological and knowledge resources of society. The pat-ents regime today has expanded to patenting of life forms, genetic re-sources, genetic information in life sciences, patenting methods and algo-rithms in computational sciences and even patenting of how business isdone. Not only are methods and algorithms being patented, the copyrighthas been extended to software and all forms of electronically held infor-mation. Traditional knowledge and biological resources held and nurturedby different communities are being pirated by global corporations. In-creasingly, the enterprise of science as a collaborative and open activityfor creating knowledge is being subverted into a corporate exercise ofcreating monopolies and milking super profits from the consumers.

The impact of such appropriation is now visible. The HIV/AIDS epidemichas shown that what stands between life and death of the victims is theprofit of big pharma. It is impossible for the vast majority of the people inthe globe today to pay the costs of new life saving drugs which are patentprotected. If the IPR regime has been damaging to the life of those suffer-

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ing from disease, what lies in store for agriculture is even worse. Withbiotechnology and bioinformatics, corporate seed companies and corpo-rate plant breeders will control global agriculture and food production.With food prices already sky-rocketing, the impact of such a monopolyon the vast sections of the people can well be imagined.

The impact of this can be seen from earlier if we compare science as itexisted decades ago and now. Let us take two examples. The green revo-lution came out of public domain science – there was no price to be paidby the farmer for utilising its advances. Today, the gene revolution iscontrolled by a few private corporations – Monsantos and various pharmacompanies. The second example is when Salk was asked about who ownedthe patent to his polio vaccine, he said the people. An answer a scientist isunlikely to give today.

The Bayh Dole Act passed in the US in the 80’s, is the one that convertedpublicly funded research into privatised knowledge. It has had very ad-verse impact in the US. Fortune Magazine (The Law of Unintended Con-sequences, Clifton Leaf, September 19, 2005) held the Bayh Dole Actresponsible for pushing up the cost of medicine in the US. “Americansspent $179 billion on prescription drugs in 2003. That’s up from ... waitfor it ... $12 billion in 1980.” The same article also stated that the BayhDole Act had actually retarded the progress in science instead of helpingit, discovery of new molecules, a measure of innovation in pharmaceuti-cal industry, has actually come down. This has stagnation in drug discov-ery2 has been commented upon by other popular and scholarly articles. Ithas however helped a few companies, universities and scientists becomefabulously rich, but at the expense of scientific development and the com-mon people. Unfortunately, the market fundamentalists world-over in-cluding India, are pushing ideas similar to the Bayh Dole Act and othermeasures to convert the educational systems to University Industrial Com-plexes.

Today, the information technology sector has shown that new technolo-gies and methodologies can be developed by cooperative communities.The question needs to be posed whether it is possible to design suchapproaches for other areas such as, say, the life sciences? Is it possible tohave new ways of establishing ‘creative commons’, in which new tech-nologies and methodologies are developed by cooperative communities?Interestingly, both in agri-biotechnology and in medicines, major effortsare under way to develop science and technology in this way. In agricul-

ture, various groups are using “open source biology” to put advances in away that it is available to all and not only to private companies. Similarly,medicines, particularly for poorer sections and tropical diseases are be-coming the focus of such activities. CSIR is also pioneering a new TBinitiative using this approach.

The second question we need to address is how do we bring back societalconcerns back into science institutions? How do we exercise democratisethese institutions that the larger social gaols determine the priorities inscience? How can diseases that affect the poor become objects of re-search if the budget is coming from corporate sector who are not inter-ested in developing medicines for people who cannot pay? How do webring the concerns of the poorer countries who have neither the moneynor the scientific resources to address their problems? How do we bringequity back into the system of advancing scientific knowledge?

Science and DemocracyThis brings us immediately to the larger issue of how does society as awhole exercise control over the enterprise of science. If science today isa major economic force, the larger goal of democracy

and equity in society will also play itself in science. It is not surprisingthat a number of crucial questions in today’s world requires an under-standing of science. In the absence of this understanding, a few scientistsin the ruling establishments place their decisions as the “scientific” deci-sions for society.

Earlier movements of scientists placed this within the context of the so-cial responsibility of the scientist. The scientists, in this view owes it tosociety to be conscious of his or her activities and bring it to public no-tice. The scientist had this two fold responsibility – understanding theimplications of science for society and also becoming an active championfor the right kind of science. The role of scientists in the nuclear disarma-ment is perhaps the most important of this earlier work. The scientificworkers movement, the movements for popularising science amongst thepeople that developed in the in the 40’s and 50’s grew out of this perspec-tive.

Today, the need for organising the scientists to struggle for a more demo-cratic scientific decision making must go hand-in hand with a strongmovement for bringing science to the people. If global warming is to becombated or nuclear disarmament pursued, it is not enough for the scien-

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tists to say so. There is a need to bring out science from the ivory towerand de-mystify it so that people, who are affected by such decisions canalso assert their voice. Science is too serious a business to be left to thescientists – it must be a part of our larger struggle for equity and democ-racy in society. This is the challenge before us today.

1 “Academic administrators increasingly refer to students as consumers and to educa-tion and research as products. They talk about branding and marketing and now spend moreon lobbying in Washington than defense contractors do.” Jennifer Washburn, University,Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education, Basic Books, 2005.

2 Arti K. Rai, Jerome H. Reichman, Paul F. Uhlir, and Colin Crossman “PathwaysAcross the Valley of Death: Novel Intellectual Property Strategies for Accelerated DrugDiscovery”, VIII Yale Journal of Health Law, Policy & Ethics 53-89, 2008.

UNDERSTANDING THECLIMATE CRISIS

Humanity is facing its most serious and existential crisis on planetearth which is witnessing the most dramatic climatic change since

the previous ice age. The threat posed by global warming caused by societalactivity now looms large. Apart from other effects, average global tem-peratures may rise to levels at which human survival itself may be inquestion.

Since the dawn of civilization, human activity has of course always im-pacted upon the environment. Some people may believe that the currentproblem is only an extension of such impact and that nature will some-how, as in past historical periods, restore the requisite balance. But if theplanetary ecosystem is damaged beyond a certain extent, then, like anyliving organism, it would lose its ability to recover by itself or throughexternal intervention. The scientific evidence suggests strongly that wemay today be dangerously close to this “tipping point” beyond which thedamage could become irreversible.

It is therefore very important for humanity as a whole, for nations andindividuals, to understand the problem and to find ways to tackle it beforeit is too late. We need to grasp the changes taking place in the globalclimate system and the reasons behind these changes. We must under-

D. R agh un and an

D. RAGHUNANDAN is Secretary, Delhi Science Forum

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stand the possible impact of these changes on different aspects of theeconomy and society in our country, our region and the world as a whole.We need to look at the various alternative measures that can, and need to,be taken for mitigation i.e. prevention or amelioration. Most importantly,we need to understand how to ensure that these measures are taken.What actions can be taken at individual or community levels, and whatactions need to be taken at national and international level?

There is however a major problem as regards answers to these questions.Correct knowledge and appropriate information based on which informedopinions may be formed are not readily available. This may sound surpris-ing in the so-called information age, when all the information one maywant is available on the internet. But that itself is part of the problem!There is so much information overload, and such a wide variety of opin-ions and approaches, that the average person can easily get lost in themaze. Additionally, climate change and environmental issues in general arequite “in fashion” these days and the media, both print and electronic,often carry stories that both inform and misinform.

The most troubling fact is that, even those whom lay people would nor-mally consider “experts” or at least having reliable knowledge, personsfrom scientific institutions, from colleges and universities, also often pur-vey information and opinions on environmental issues in a manner thatdoes not contribute to an informed understanding with an approach tofuture solutions. Even in schools and colleges where environmental is-sues are now increasingly discussed both within curricula and in co-curricular or extra-curricular activities, despite sincerity of efforts, theapproach rarely goes beyond lamenting the damage done to nature —which is assumed to be an unspoiled constant — or propagating the ideathat all human activity must necessary be harmful or even that develop-ment is by itself somehow anti-environmental and advocating that someactions by well-meaning individuals somehow constitutes a solution.

All this reflects a poor understanding of the issues involved in climatechange, its causes and thus measures to tackle the crisis, and the multi-dimensional implications of possible mitigation strategies.

A large part of this problem is due to the lack of a proper perspectivewithin which to understand climate change in particular and environmen-tal issues in general, especially their relationship with and impact uponhuman beings and society.

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Even the IPCC Reports, and much of the scientific discourse on the cli-mate crisis, use the by-now familiar phrase of “anthropogenic” carbonemissions or “anthropogenic” climate change to describe the root causeof the crisis and in order to underline that global warming is taking placedue to “human activity” rather than due to natural causes. But the issue is:Has the crisis been brought about by all human activity or by certainactivities of all human being solely by virtue of their being homo sapiens?Clearly not: the tribal living a subsistence life in the Amazonian jungles orin the Andaman Islands does not contribute to global warming, nor doesthe poor farmer constituting about half the Indian population using twigsand cow dung as cooking fuel, using no or minimum electricity and notdriving a car. In fact it is certain types of activity, by some sections, ofsocieties organized in a particular way, that make the overwhelming con-tribution to global emissions and thus to the climate crisis. It thereforeconveys a more correct understanding if one speaks of socio-genic causesrather than anthropogenic ones. And the difference is far more than sim-ply terminological.

\Environment & Society Before we examine the interaction between hu-man civilization and the environment, let us first look at the planet’s eco-system itself. Are all the changes being witnessed today unique? Are thesechanges merely of degree or do they represent a qualitatively new phase?Was the environment always in some unchanging state and is it nowsuddenly transforming in some unfamiliar manner?

Our planet’s history shows huge environmental changes at several pointsof time. Even before human beings appeared around 150,000 years ago,the Earth had witnessed several ice ages going back millions of years withdramatic changes in the global ecology and wiping out almost all life forms.There are also natural climate cycles lasting 50,000-100,000 years in whichglobal temperatures rise and fall. But over and above these natural cycles,human activities especially over the past few hundred years are now causingglobal warming and climatic changes with far-reaching consequences.

Since human civilization began to flourish, other kinds of ecological changesbegan to occur as a result of the growing interaction of human societieswith their natural environment. In ancient times, small communities sub-sisting on hunting and gathering had almost negligible impact. As settledagriculture developed, and surpluses began to be generated to sustaingrowing populations, deeper environmental impact came to be made overwider regions. Large tracts of forests were cleared, as in the Indo-Gangetic


plains, which were known to be much cooler in earlier periods. Yet theenvironment adapted to these changes and adjusted into a new equilibriumat another level both in itself and with respect to the social formationssupported.

However, the industrial era that dawned in Europe and the capitalist eco-nomic system that went with it, spread throughout the world throughWestern colonial conquest, and saw the environment damaged in entirelynew and different ways. The damage became of far greater extent and ofwider geographic spread and, in many cases, began to exceed the abilityof the ecosystem to recover.

Several such threats face people in different parts of the world today.Desertification especially in sub-Saharan Africa, depletion of fish stocksto below replenishment levels in the Atlantic ocean and northern seas,drastic reduction in water availability in India and elsewhere due to over-extraction of groundwater much beyond recharge levels, are all cases inpoint. In each case, we appear to be at or close to the “tipping point”beyond which the damage may become irreversible. And it is clear that itis not just the environment that would suffer but also the people whodepend on land, fish, water and other natural resources for their survivaland livelihoods.

But the biggest threat that humanity as a whole faces today is globalwarming and climate change caused by societal activity. If current trendscontinue, besides other serious impacts, average global temperatures nowseem poised to rise to levels at which human survival may be in question.

Climate Crisis The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),the concerned scientific body set up under United Nations aegis, releasedits Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC/AR4) in mid-2007 summarising thelatest findings on the status of global climate, potential impact of human-induced global warming and measures that could be taken to tackle theproblem. The findings of the IPCC are shocking and have rung alarmbells all around the world.

IPCC/AR4 completely discounts claims by sceptics that global warmingcould be due to natural causes and confirms, once and for all, the cer-tainty of man-made climate change as evidenced by “observations of in-creases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread meltingof snow and ice, and rising global average sea levels”. The Report showsthe direct correlation of these effects with rising levels of carbon dioxide,

methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) emanatingfrom power plants using fossil fuels such as oil or coal, vehicles, facto-ries and machinery, agriculture mainly paddy cultivation and animal hus-bandry, deforestation and buildings. These gases are now being added tothe atmosphere at much larger quantities and at a much faster rate thanthe ability of forests and oceans to absorb them in the normal naturalcycle. Accumulation of these gases in the atmosphere leads to trapping ofheat resulting in rise of surface temperatures and a wide range of changesin the global climate.

IPCC/AR4 records that levels of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gasamounting to about two-thirds of all GHGs) levels in the atmosphere in2005 are much higher than they have ever been and their rise from pre-industrial levels is far greater than the natural range of variation goingback over 650,000 years. Annual growth rates of CO2 concentration havebeen greater during the past 10 years than ever before and 10 of thehottest years in the past century have been seen during 1990-2005.

If we take all GHGs together, they have now climbed from a baseline level(taken by climate scientists to be 1750 representing the start of industriali-zation) of around 300 ppm to around 425 ppm. If current rates of GHGemissions continue in a “business as usual” (BAU) mode, GHG concen-trations will reach around 475 - 490 ppm by 2030 causing a catastrophicrise in global temperature by 2.0-2.8 degrees Celsius, and will furtherclimb to 550-600 ppm with a consequent rise of 4-5 degrees Celsius bythe end of the century threatening the very existence of humankind onearth.

Rise in GHG levels & Temp. (projected for BAU)

Year

1750 2005 2030 2100

GHG levels (ppm) 300 425 475-490 550-600 Temp. rise (°C) - 1 2.0-2.8 4.0-5.0

These conclusions are the most authoritative to date. The IPCC Reporthas been written by over 3000 scientists from 105 countries, based onmore than 30,000 published papers and enormous volume of scientific

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data and modelling exercises. The Report has also been vetted by thegovernments of over 130 countries including India.

Prognosis: The Report further states that we are already at, or veryclose to, the “tipping point” beyond which climate change may becomeirreversible. In order to avert this, GHG levels should be stabilized at amaximum of about 450ppm which is more or less today’s level. It is clear,therefore, that we are facing not just global warming but a full-blownclimate crisis.

With this warning, IPCC/AR4 states that it is still possible to avert theultimate disaster provided determined goal-oriented action is taken imme-diately by all countries to tackle this global problem.

It is therefore very important for us to understand the problem and to findways to tackle it before it is too late. We need to grasp the changes takingplace in the global climate system and the reasons behind these changes.We must understand the possible impact of these changes on differentaspects of the economy and society in our country, our region and theworld as a whole.

Global warming and climate change are projected to have substantial im-pact in many aspects of the society and economy.

At a global level, besides rising temperatures, extreme weather phenom-ena such as storms, floods, droughts and heat waves will increase in bothfrequency and intensity. Sea-levels will rise affecting coastal communitiesbut especially small islands many of which are expected to be completelysubmerged. Polar ice would melt further contributing to both cause andeffect, triggering more global warming and causing further sea-level rise.

In India, temperatures are expected to rise by around 2 degrees C in thenext two decades and rainfall patterns are expected to change substan-tially, both with profound impact on agriculture. Production of rice andwheat are projected to drop by 20-40% by 2050. With decreasing snowfall and melting of snow cover and receding of glaciers, more frequentand more severe floods are expected accompanied by long-term watershortages. Simultaneously, droughts are also expected to increase espe-cially in northern and western India. Many coastal areas are expected toget inundated due to rise in sea-levels.

We need to look at the various alternative measures that can, and need to,be taken for mitigation i.e. prevention or amelioration. Most importantly,

we need to understand how to ensure that these measures are taken.What actions can be taken at individual or community levels, and whatactions need to be taken at national or international level? After all, globalproblems need global solutions.

Who is responsible? Since emissions of greenhouse gases are mostlycaused by industrial activities and vehicular transportation, it will be read-ily understood that the main culprits are the Western industrialized coun-tries such as the USA, European nations, Japan, Australia etc. Since theseemissions began with the industrial revolution, and developing countrieshave started industrial activities relatively recently and that too at muchlower levels, these rich countries have contributed over 80% of GHGaccumulated in the atmosphere. Even in terms of current emissions, theUSA is the largest emitter and alone accounts for over 16% of total globalemissions despite having only 4% of the world’s population. Compared tothis, India despite having more than 5 times the population, has only 3%of total emissions! In fact, on a per person basis, the average American isresponsible for at least 10 times more GHGs and 20 times more carbondioxide than the average Indian!

The higher the income levels in a country, the more energy its people useand consequently the more GHGs will be emitted. The opposite is ofcourse also true that poorer countries have lower income levels, lowerper capita energy consumption and so lower emissions.

At the same time, we should not forget that there are huge disparities inper person incomes, energy consumption and emissions even within de-veloping countries. In India, for instance, close to half the households donot have electricity and more than one-fourth of households use onlycow-dung cakes, twigs and other non-commercial fuel. It has been esti-mated that the per capita carbon emission of the top 10% of the urbanpopulation in India is 13 times that of the bottom 50% of the rural popu-lation!

Framework for a solution Over 165 countries of the world havetogether framed and adopted a global Climate Treaty commonly knownas the Kyoto Protocol. Keeping in mind and acknowledging the historicaland present inequality in incomes, energy consumption and emissions,and therefore the major responsibility of rich and developing nations, thatthe Kyoto Protocol, the international Treaty on climate issues, adopted theprinciple of “common but differentiated responsibility”. That is to say, we

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are all responsible at least in some way for global warming but the richnations bear far more responsibility than developing countries. The Treatytherefore requires rich countries to reduce their emissions 5% below 1990levels by 2008-2012 but exempts developing countries from such bindingtargets.

The advanced industrialized countries have shamelessly failed to fulfil thislegally binding obligation despite the seriousness of the problem and theirclear responsibility for global warming and its consequences. Since 1992when the Treaty was first mooted, global emissions have gone up bymore than 11%. Only the UK, Germany and a few smaller countries haveactually brought down their emissions even beyond their Treaty target,showing that that emissions reductions are very much possible if coun-tries are determined.

The worst offender has been the USA which, under President Bush, hasrefused to join the Treaty, first arguing that global warming was only anatural phenomena which would correct itself, and then using the excusethat large developing countries such as China and India were exempt,even though compelling them to accept emissions reduction targets wouldonly mean freezing existing inequalities. Despite not joining the Treaty, theUSA has used every dirty trick in the book to dilute the Treaty provisionsand distort them in such a way as to favour the capitalist system and theneo-liberal economic policy framework. Because of these distortions, theKyoto Protocol contains numerous compromises and places too muchreliance on market mechanisms which have together rendered it quiteineffective in tackling the impending catastrophe.

Nevertheless, the Treaty is the best framework for going forward. It is aninternational agreement binding all nations together and thus best placedto work out global solutions for a global problem. Under the Treaty, sub-stantial homework has been done and institutional structures have beendeveloped. Above all, being under UN aegis, it has the widest acceptabilityamong nations and provides the best framework to obtain results.

Currently international negotiations are underway to redefine the Treatyprovisions for the period after 2012 as originally envisaged. IPCC/AR4has recommended that, in order to stabilize and then reduce emissions asoutlined above, advanced countries need to reduce their emissions by 40-50% below 1990 levels by 2030 and by 80-90% by 2050. While not fixingbinding targets for developing countries, IPCC has called upon them tomoderate their growth in such a way that their emissions in 2030-2050would be lower than currently projected. IPCC also calls upon advancedcountries to assist developing countries through technology transfer andfunds, at last partly as repayment of the “carbon debt” they owe to thedeveloping countries for the problems caused by the rich nations.

But most of the issues raised during the earlier negotiations are once againbeing raised, mostly due to the obstinate role of the USA, which insiststhat China, India and other large developing countries should also acceptemissions reduction targets. At US insistence, the “G8” rich countries’club has not even accepted any specific targets for themselves and haveechoed the suggestion that larger developing countries should also take ontargets. Both propositions are completely unacceptable.

The only just and equitable way forward is for advanced countries toundertake sharp cuts in emissions and move towards a non-carboneconomy, while poorer countries continue to develop and increase thewell-being of its people albeit in energy-efficient ways that seek to mini-mize emissions and adopt available environment friendly technologies.This would gradually bring about convergence of per capita emissions ofrich and poor countries so that, ultimately and ideally, we arrive at a situ-ation of more or less uniform per capita emissions throughout the world.

Emissions reduction measures The IPCC report has spelled out, in con-siderable detail, the various ways in which emissions can be reduced tothe extent required, especially in the short to medium term, that is, till2030-2050. In the long term, of course, the world needs to move towardsa non-carbon or carbon-neutral society with appropriate technologies.

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But in the interim, the Report’s main conclusion is that the task can mostlybe achieved even with available technologies such as:

l increasing efficiencies in power generation

l shifts in fuel sources for energy from oil and coal to natural gas andrenewables such as wind and solar

l reducing emissions from transportation through increased fuelefficiencies, better fuels and hybrids, and shift from private to pub-lic mass transport

l improved urban planning and infrastructure to reduce transportationand other energy consumption

l better building designs and materials to reduce energy consumptionsuch as heating and cooling

Importantly, the IPCC Report also makes clear that all this would costmuch less than the US and other sceptics have tried to argue. Adopting allsuch measures are likely to cost less than 0.1% of global GDP over thenext 20 or so years, a pittance considering the enormity of the crisis weface.

The above may sound easy but it is far from being so. We should notforget that powerful corporate and other vested interests are involved inthe energy, transportation, automobile manufacturing, construction andother industries. Many if not most governments of the major industrial-ised and developing countries are now operating within the dominant neo-liberal policy framework under which market forces rather than socialgood are allowed to determine the type of society we live in.

Important societal goals cannot be achieved by relying on market forces.They have not solved the problems of poverty, education or health, andwill certainly not solve the climate crisis. Even the IPCC Report statesthat experience of tackling environmental problems shows that suitablelaws, mandatory norms and proper regulation are far more effective thanmarket mechanisms. The problem of the ozone hole was solved by ban-ning the use of chloro-fluoro carbons (CFCs) in refrigerators and air-conditioners within a 10 year time frame, and similarly cars today havecompulsory emission norms that manufacturers must follow.

These goals cannot be achieved by wishing for them but will require

profound changes in our economy and society, and above all in the politi-cal sphere.

Political & Ideological Struggle Needed Therefore, achievingthe desired goals through the above measures will require a prolonged anddetermined political and ideological battle at both national and interna-tional levels.

In India the do-nothing lobby is, even if inadvertently, strengthened by thepositions taken by some seemingly progressive or even radical sections.Recently a group of NGOs and intellectuals from India signed up to aninternational petition submitted at the time of the G8 Summit in Hokkaido,Japan, calling for a halt to any further coal-fired power plants and de-manding that the World Bank not advance any loan assistance to develop-ing countries for the same, ostensibly because this technology is so “dirty”and carbon-intensive. This despite the fact that in countries such as India,with its extremely low per capita consumption of electricity and thereforehunger for more power generation, depend on coal for up to 60% ofelectricity generation and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.The approach by these NGOs places all countries, both developed anddeveloping, on the same footing, and condemns the poor to low-energyliving, not allowing for the latter to increase affordable power generationwhile adopting cleaner technologies to the extent possible and assisted bytechnology and fund transfers from developed countries.

In similar vein, some radical groups reject outright even the very frame-work of the Kyoto process under UN aegis on the grounds that the inter-national system, including the United Nations, is run under the hegemonyof global capital and therefore the poor have no stake in the process at all!This rejectionist position refuses to acknowledge that the poor are andwill be the biggest sufferers of the global climate crisis and that is all themore reason that their interests need to be defended and advanced by anyand all means. As argued above, the on-going Kyoto process underUNFCCC aegis is the only forum for arriving at some global measuresthat would tackle the climate crisis while also pushing for equity, bothbetween and within nations, as regards energy consumption and utiliza-tion of the global commons.

Whatever gains have been made under the global Treaty and negotiationsprocess that are underway, for all their limitations, have been possibleonly through sustained campaigns and building up of public pressure in

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different countries and globally, with a substantial body of opinion push-ing for measures in pursuit of these broad equity goals.

If Europe today is taking a leading position in pressing for urgent stepsand stiff targets to reduce emissions, it is because there is strong andvibrant public mobilisation on the issue with substantial influence even onthe political process. The recent elections in Australia saw the LabourParty voted into power primarily on the promise that it would pull out ofthe US-alliance in Iraq and reverse the earlier right-wing government’sstand of towing the US line and not joining the Climate Treaty: withinthree days of taking office, the new Prime Minister signed the Treaty!Even in the US, 25 out of 50 States and over 250 local bodies have adoptedKyoto-type emission reduction targets due to mounting public pressure.

In India too a massive campaign needs to be built up and public aware-ness generated to pressurise the government to take appropriate stands ininternational fora and take requisite measures within the country.

The official Indian position in the climate negotiations has been weak andvacillating, often going along with US efforts to by-pass the UN frame-work and undermine the Kyoto Protocol. It has not been able to effec-tively counter the mounting US and international pressure to adopt emis-sion reduction targets, at least partly as a result of an unjustifiable do-nothing posture which is being supported by a powerful lobby of industri-alists, corporate houses and other vested interests. The do-nothing stancein fact effectively supports and encourages the US position of denying theneed for targets and concerted action.

India’s recently announced National Climate Action Plan is a deeply disap-pointing document containing only vague intentions and little by way ofsubstantial measures. It is one thing to argue, correctly, that India will notaccept binding emission targets similar to those applicable to rich nations,but it is quite another to put forward the notion that India does not need todo, or is incapable of doing, anything substantial. India need not reduceemissions below current levels, because that would mean freezing oureconomic development, but India can and should adopt measures thatwould reduce emissions in 2030 to below what it would have been with abusiness-as-usual trajectory. This would be as per IPCC recommenda-tions and also along the lines projected by official studies that show apotential 25% reduction in emissions below what they would be if currentpolicies continue to be followed.

Many of the measures suggested above are eminently feasible for India toadopt at little cost: in fact, since energy saved is money earned, suchmeasures would actually benefit the country economically. India shouldalso adopt suitable measures to reduce the present unacceptable inequalitiesin energy consumption between rich and poor, urban and rural. India willnot stop “shining” or “rising” if the much touted economic growth ratesdrop from 8.5% to 8.4%! Ultimately, India needs to do what she can be-cause it will be good for its people and good for the world. A bold initiativeby India would galvanise the international Treaty negotiations, leave the USno excuse to stay out and restore to India at least some of the leadership roleshe once enjoyed in the developing world and in the international commu-nity as a whole.

All these will require a sustained political and ideological campaign thatneeds to build, not simply better awareness, but a better understanding andinternalization of the right perspective as regards the relationship betweenenvironment and society so that the problems and societal implications ofpotential solutions are better understood. The struggle to promote such aperspective and understanding needs to be waged at all levels and in alltheatres of ideological struggles: in the policy domain, in teaching and re-search institutions, in formal and informal education, and among the publicat large. The struggle against the climate crisis and is an integral part of thestruggle for sustainable development, equity and social justice.

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THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OFASTRONOMY (IYA 2009)

S.Chatterjee

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The United Nations has declared the year 2009 as the InternationalYear of Astronomy (IYA 2009) to commemorate the 400th year afterGalileo's epoch-making revolutionary experiment to look into the skywith the telescope. The world was never the same after he did it. Whathe observed was astounding. He saw that Jupiter has its moons, theVenus has its phases (like the chandra kala of the moon). He looked at

the Milky way, which many thought was nothing but a patch of cloud, ora river flowing in the sky. The view of the Milky way was simply baf-fling! It was found to be full of stars, numerous and countless at that!These raised doubts and as Bertolt Brecht said in his famous play, theLife of Galileo, "The age of reason could have begun."

Mark the words, "could have begun". This means that the age of reasondid not come automatically. A long struggle was to follow to establishthe triumph of reason and of science. Had Galileo just made someobservations, discoveries, recorded and communicated them to his com-munity of scientists, the IYA 2009 would hardly have deserved thiscelebration. The student community in India, which is waging severalbattles for the establishment of a rational and scientific education andfor the demand of "free and compulsory education for all", fighting adetermined struggle against obscurantism (spearheaded by various re-ligious fundamentalist groups, feeding each other) must take its rightfulplace in this celebration, advance the struggle and draw participationfrom larger and larger sections of the society. It is an important oppor-tunity for them. Before we go into the great social struggle that was tobe waged to establish the triumph of reason over unreason and religiousdogma, let us first examine what the IYA 2009, calls upon the citizensof the world to do.

The Vision: The details of the IYA 2009 programme are available at thewebsite (www.astronomy2009.org). The opening words themselves arevery inspiring. "The International Year of Astronomy 2009 is a globaleffort initiated by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCOto help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universethrough the day -and night- time sky, and thereby engage a personalsense of wonder and discovery. Everyone should realise the impact ofastronomy and other fundamental sciences on our daily lives, and un-derstand how scientific knowledge can contribute to a more equitableand peaceful society."(emphasis added). The resonance of the ideaswith the democratic student movement is strikingly obvious so that fur-ther justification of its importance is superfluous.

Back to Galileo(1564-1642): It is important to remember that the cel-ebrations are also to recognize that Galileo was a path breaker. WeDR. S.CHATTERJEE is a scientist, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore

http://www.astronomy2009.org)


must recall what he did. Galileo, studied in Pisa and Florence and hisfather forced him to study medicine, against his wishes (not uncommonthese days either!). He had also studied as a boy in a monastery, wherehe first learnt Aristotle's philosophy. While studying medicine Galileodiscovered that he had a talent in mathematics. At the age of twenty-one, he gave up medicine to study the subject he loved, i.e. mathemat-ics. It was at this time that doubts about Aristotle's philosophy tookshape in his mind. But the stage was not yet set to challenge it.

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(Galileo Galilei : 1564-1642)

Though known mainly for his contributions to astronomy, Galileo wasessentially concerned with mechanics. He first became famous for hisstudies about floatation and was appointed the Professor of mathemat-ics at the University of Pisa, where he was to teach Ptolemy's model ofthe universe. The model that Ptolemy gave was extremely complicatedand the calculational methods were ad hoc. It was based on the picturethat the earth was the centre of the universe. The ad hocism, as isunderstood today is because of the wrong conceptualization of the uni-verse. Astrological calculations, our panchangams all suffer from thissince the ancients DID NOT know enough about the solar system. In

1592, Galileo came to the University of Padua (close to Venice) as aProfessor of mathematics, where he spent the next eighteen years. Itwas here that he came across the works of the Polish astronomer,Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543), who explained the motion of planetson the basis of a heliocentric model, i.e. planets move in circular orbitsaround the sun.

The Telescope: In my childhood days I had come across many generalknowledge books, which said that Galileo was the inventor of the tel-escope. This is not true. Lenses and spectacles were already in use inearly fourteenth century and Euclid in the third century BC had writtenabout refraction, reflection and that light travels in a straight line. Mosthistorians acknowledge the Dutch spectacle maker, Hans Lippersheyas the inventor of telescope. Though an illiterate mechanic, Lippershey'sinvention found immediate royal patronage, in the army, as Holland wasthen engaged in a fierce war with Spain.

[A typical model of the telescope, used by Galileo]

In about a year after Lippershey's invention, Galileo came to knowabout it in May 1609. In just twenty-four hours Galileo made a tel-escope for himself. Its military importance was not lost on him and


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Galileo offered it to the government. Venice being a port and constantlythreatened by pirates and invading fleets, the state immediately recog-nized the importance of this "spy glass" (that was what Galileo himselfcalled it then, see the picture above) and honoured him with "Professor-ship for life time" with huge increments in salary. That was a reprievefor Galileo in another sense. He was held in suspicion for his anti Aris-totelian views but now his loyalty to the state was beyond doubt.

From land to sky: But this relationship did not last long. Galileo turnedthe telescope to the sky and went on improving his instruments formore accurate observations. By January 1610, he had a telescope thatcould give 30 times magnification and confirmed by March 1610, whathe had first seen few months ago, that Jupiter had four satellites. Hesaw that the surface of the moon had mountains and valleys, just as theearth has. He also noticed, to his great delight that with the telescopeone could see more stars than naked eye allowed. Galileo then turnedthe telescope towards the Milky way. He saw the amazing sight," uponwhatever part you direct your telescope straightaway a vast crowd ofstars presents itself to view; many of them are tolerably large and ex-tremely bright, but the number of small ones is quite beyond determina-tion." What he found led him to believe that the heaven can be explored,or in the words of Bertolt Brecht again, " June ten, sixteen ten, GalileoGalilei abolishes heaven!"

The most amazing spectacle was with the Saturn. The rings of theSaturn were not known. In July 1610, Galileo merely saw them as ob-jects arranged along a line. But after a few days they grew dimmer andin two years they simply vanished! "Have they vanished or suddenlyfled? Has Saturn devoured its own children?" that was what Galileowrote. And later they reappeared again! It took forty years of patientobservations by various astronomers to prove that the mysterious phe-nomena that Galileo saw with the Saturn was because of the rings ofSaturn and the peculiar dynamics thereof.

Attack and defence: Galileo faced attacks from the Aristotelians eversince he published his new findings in March 1610. He was called aheretic. Galileo asked his critics to see through his telescopes. Theyrefused. But Galileo was receiving support form other quarters. Johannes

Kepler (1571-1630) upheld Galileo's observation about Jupiter's moons.In 1611 Galileo had also discovered the sun-spots (his priority is, how-ever, challenged) and found that they move on the surface of the sun.As his discoveries, one after another, shook the foundations of the Ar-istotelian philosophy, Galileo's clash with the church became inevitable.In 1616, he was officially ordered not to teach the Copernican views.

Galileo could not compromise with his findings and continued to propa-gate Copernican ideas but much of it went unnoticed by the authorities.In 1632, his book " The dialogue about the two systems of the universe"appeared. It was presented as a dialogue between the proponents ofthe two schools, in the form of conversation between Salviati (Galileo, aCopernican), Sagredo (a common man) and Simplicius (an Aristote-lian). The two sides answer the questions from the common man andSalviati with great brilliance defends Copernicus from the attacks bythe Aristotelian. Galileo was immediately sent to the inquisition (specialcourt, run by the church, a travesty of justice) and was held guilty forhaving defied the orders, passed in 1616.

Recantation (or retreat?): Galileo recanted. He knew, what couldhappen to him if he did not withdraw from the Copernican views. In1600, Giordano Bruno was burnt alive for defying the church. Oursaffronites have shown that they can plan and execute it on a moremassive scale. When the state machinery gags justice and persecutesthe victim rather than the offender, even the victim decides to makepeace with the perpetrator, as we have seen in Gujarat. Perhaps Gali-leo knew that the same fate awaited him, to be burnt alive like Brunoand so withdrew his defence of Copernicus. Galileo's life was sparedbut he was sentenced to live in virtual isolation. He died in 1642 butunnoticed by the surveillance, he completed a manuscript, "The dia-logue of the new science", which was smuggled out and published inLeyden in 1638. This formed the basis of the analytical methods of thenew mechanics and without this the age of reason could not follow.

Dialogue with the common man: Why was Galileo punished andwhy did the church feel the threat from an astronomer or a mechanist?The church, since the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire hadpresented itself as the repository of all knowledge about the divine or-


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der, to be followed on earth as it is in heaven. Galileo's discoveriesshowed that the holy order, as ordained by the papal authority, was notfollowed in heaven! The threat was: Could it then be overthrown onearth too? The threat became more potent when Galileo, breaking awayfrom tradition, began to write his findings in Italian, the language of thecommon man, rather than in Latin, the language of the nobility. It wasalso now possible to give these "heretic" ideas mass circulation. Thenew method of printing, developed by Gutenberg was already over hun-dred years old. The first book to be printed was of course the bible, butnow even heretic thoughts could be given mass coverage, if the lan-guage could be in the language of the common man. And Galileo wasjust doing that. That could create a threat to the established order ofstatecraft and had to be nipped in the bud. The threat was even moreserious since what the heretics taught could be "seen" with your owneyes, through the telescope. Copernicus (a monk himself, wrote hisworks secretly and did not publish them) did not have that chance. Theage of reason was perhaps delayed but could not be stopped.

Emergence of modern science:Galileo is considered to be the father of modern science. This is be-cause his works laid the foundations of the new analytical methods.Human experience had, by then, reached a certain maturity and theunifying laws of nature were crying to be discovered. Galileo's maincontributions appear in two distinct forms: (a) in understanding nature,the thought process has to be supported by repeatable, verifiable ex-periments (b) the laws of nature are independent of the observer. Theirimpact on human thought opened the floodgates, as never before. ThePtolemic model of the universe, which ruled for 1500 years was to go.It is not my intention to give an exhaustive list. The short sample, givenbelow will illustrate how these basic ideas led to expansion of our knowl-edge of nature and open initiatives to experiment and understand; ex-periment, observation, inference would soon become indispensable tonatural philosophy. Had that been limited to only astronomy, we wouldnot have called it as a revolution. The change was all encompassingand science became the source of a world view.

Let us see the events that followed immediately. Most important andimmediate was the discovery by Johannes Kepler of the laws of plan-

etary motion. He had inherited from his master Tycho Brahe (Danishastronomer, 1546-1601: saw the supernova explosion in 1572 whichhelped to disprove the myth that no changes could occur in the heavensbeyond the orbit of the moon but refused to believe the Copernicansystem), the most accurate data on planetary motion, as could be seenin the pre-telescope days. Galileo's observations had influenced him tolook in the Copernican way and he tried to fit these orbits with circularones, with the sun as the centre. He found that such a scheme was notpossible. But he now tried to fit them with ellipses and the ellipses werefound to fit perfectly. That was a great blow to the Aristotelians, notonly the earth was not in the centre, nor were the orbits perfectcircles. The Aristotelian view that nature prefers harmony and per-fect shapes, received a mortal blow. Kepler proceeded further todiscover laws, which could relate the orbital velocities of planets andtheir time period of revolution to the planet's distance from the sun.Explaining these laws from generalized laws of motion, Newton (1642-1727) discovered the laws of universal gravitation, which fitted Kepler'slaws, perfectly. Irrefutable support to these Newtonian ideas camefrom his close friend, Edmond Halley's(1656-1742) calculations thatthe paths of certain comets, seen in 1531 and 1607 were identical withthe path of a comet found in 1682. They were the same comets, Halleyasserted and would reappear in 1758, he predicted. It did. Halley's comethas made three more appearances since then, once in every 77 years.Science thus acquired the power of both explanation and verifiable pre-diction. Newton's greatest contribution to science in fact came in theformulations of the laws of motion and the universal gravitation. ButNewton was also a great experimentalist and instrument builder, truly inthe Galilean tradition. Newton was the inventor of the reflecting tel-escope, and all future telescopes are based on his basic design. Newtonalso discovered that the sun's rays could be split by a prism into sevencolours. This method became an indispensable tool for future science,astronomy in particular. Newton showed that a whole host of otherwiseunconnected phenomena could be understood from a few laws (ReneDescartes' vision of understanding nature as a limitless machine) andintroduced the concept of universality in science for the first time. WilliamHerschel (1738-1822) discovered the Uranus, a planet, whose orbit toowas found to follow the Keplerian laws. He also found that even out-side the solar system, double stars go round each other, in exactly the


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same way as the Kepler's laws suggest. The laws on earth also work inheaven!

The impact was not limited to astronomy alone. The lesson was thatthe world could not be understood by "thought alone" and experimentswere indispensable. William Gilbert( 1540-1603) gave the first empiri-cal ideas about electricity and magnetism. Physiology, very remote fromastronomy, was also not untouched. William Harvey (1578-1657), throughlong and pain staking experiments proved that the heart was a me-chanical pump that circulated blood throughout the body. New mechan-ics influenced the intellectual activities in several disciplines and theworld was now treated as knowable.

Till the beginning of the nineteenth century astronomy followed the pathlaid by mechanics. The industrial revolution introduced new disciplinesin science, notably atomic science, chemistry, spectroscopy, electricityand magnetism. The course of science was no longer one-dimensionalnor would be that of astronomy. The account of this multi-brancheddevelopment will be dealt with in a new interactive CD that the IndianInstitute of Astrophysics (www.iiap.res.in) plans to bring out in the In-ternational Year of Astronomy. Many of our ideas have changed in thelast hundred years. Length scales of galaxies have been redefined, re-cession of galaxies form each other tell us about the origin of the uni-verse, gravitation deflects the path of light and even the space betweenthe stars is not empty. Matter and radiation are everywhere and inmotion. It requires to be mentioned that in this multi branched journeythe works of Indian scientists, like Megh Nad Saha and S. Chandrasekharwill remain as immortal contributions. It is also important to remindourselves of the numerous statements by them in support of rationality,peace and progress and writings by Saha on science and society inter-actions. All these have direct relevance to the IYA 2009 and should betreated as important resource material. Indian astronomers have alsotaken up challenges in many emerging areas and new facilities will bebuilt, both ground based as in space, in the years to come. Astronomyis a profession for the students to consider seriously. Let us now look atthe IYA 2009 again.

IYA 2009: the goals and the cornerstone activities: student par-ticipation:The International Astronomical Union, in 2003, unanimously decided tocelebrate the year 2009 as the International Year of Astronomy, a de-mand that was also unanimously accepted by the United Nations Gen-eral Assembly, on 20th December, 2007. As its goal it aims to make theknowledge of the universe accessible to everyone and promote theexcitement in astronomy through mass participation in sky watchingactivities and discussions, cutting across nationality, religion, caste, creedand gender. This is an activity, in which the student participation willplay a great social role and give it a cutting edge. The idea is to:Universalize the universe. The universe is our common heritage, thesky is our universal laboratory, which belongs to the whole of mankind.This was the recurrent theme of a seminar, entitled, "Universalizingthe Universe"(UU, from now on) which the Indian Institute ofAstrophysics (IIA), Bangalore organized on 4th April 2008 as a part ofthe institute's preparation to the IYA 2009. This seminar combined, in asingle platform, scientists, science popularizers, science writers, teach-ers, students, social activists, artistes, theatre personalities and demon-strated as to how each of them could contribute to the IYA 2009. In hisinaugural talk, the Director of the institute, Professor S.S. Hasan askedthe audience to consider the IYA 2009 also as a programme for thedefence of rationality against obscurantism and urged them to involvelarge number of people in this activity, since "larger the number, largerwould be the impact". It is thus truly a democratic platform for massparticipation. The IIA has made elaborate plans in public outreach andfor the IYA 2009, you are requested to visit the website :www.iiap.res.in.

This question of mass participation against obscurantism is an issue,which has overriding significance to India. It is the duty of every Indianto promote scientific temper, as is enshrined in the Indian constitution(article 51A). The IYA 2009, gives a wonderful opportunity to all of usto build the platform for scientific rationality, encompassing the issues innature as also in human society. The question of astrology is a matterof serious concern to us all as also religious intolerance, backed bypolitical forces. In scant respect to our public opinion, the previousunion government had introduced astrology and karmakanda as disci-plines of study in our universities. This act legalized irrationality, in com-

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The 2.3 metre Vainu Bappu Telescope, at Kavalur. (Built indigenously by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.Note the expansion in scale, compared to what Galileo used)

plete violation of our constitution. The same forces preach hatred to-wards the religious minorities and towards the economically marginalized.The IYA 2009 provides a platform for all democratic minded people, indefence of scientific rationality: rationality in the realm of nature and ofthe society. The student bodies must find their place in IYA, prepare forit and protect the edifice of a rational educational system and a secularsocial structure.

Another cornerstone activity, Hundred hours of astronomy has animportant significance to our scientific education system. In discussingastronomy, it is often forgotten that the sun is our closest star and it canbe a very interesting daytime activity for schools. The Nav Nirmiti,Mumbai (www.navnirmiti.org: 0-9822614682) has made extensive workin this area and has demonstrated how "terra labs" can be set up for"sunderstanding". The word sunderstanding, as can be guessed, is anactivity to understand the sun and earth system. In absence of laborato-ries, from where can we perform our experiments? The answer is: usethe terrace of the school to build terra (means earth) labs. The experi-

ments are rather simple and can be performed with inexpensive mate-rial, a mirror, a string, geometry box, earthen "matka, filled with sand"etc. Let the children perform these experiments. Even if they break afew of them, not much financial damage will be involved and can berebuilt easily. Idea to work with our hands, an integral part of scientificmethodology is totally missing from our educational system. This is alegacy of the caste system and the Macaulay prescription, which servedthe colonial interest of the British ruling class. Sunderstanding from theterra labs can be an important way to fill the gap, with public and com-munity participation. The students and the youth of the country ought tobe the backbone of this activity.

In terms of mass participation activity, the Galileoscope aims to bringmillions to view the beauty of the night sky. The Galileoscope is a namegiven to a small and inexpensive 2"- 3'' telescope with which one caninitiate the uninitiated to the night sky, being preceded or combined withnaked eye observations. The Peoples' Science Movement, and otherorganizations, have in the past brought lakhs of people for viewing thetotal solar eclipse. The demand this time is different. Galileoscopy wouldbe a year-long activity and needs a different organizational frameworkfor mass participation.

While writing this article, I was required to consult the IAU's IYA 2009bulletin a number of times. Perhaps the most inspiring words come inthe last page, under the title," The IYA 2009 and the UN millenniumdevelopment goals". It lists in them, items like (a) help to achieve uni-versal primary education (b) help to eradicate extreme poverty andhunger (c) promote gender equality and empower women (d) developglobal partnership for development. In the last few months while beinginvolved with the IYA 2009 preparations at various levels, I found thatthe item (c), most expressively described as a cornerstone activity, as "She is an astronomer", the most sensitive and provocative. That latentforces work against women and marginalize them from productive ac-tivity, scientific activity included, is universally accepted as one of seri-ous concern. The UU and the subsequent meetings deliberated thisissue in considerable length and participation in this debate appears tobe expanding. Those of us committed to the passage of the Women'sReservation Bill have now another issue to fight for. But what is most

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encouraging is that, such issues throw up unexpected issues too, whoseimportance though we are aware, we often miss to bring to a commonplatform. I will end with one such example. A new contact of mine, acommitted amateur astronomer (banker by profession) came forwardwith one such suggestion. " She is an astronomer makes me feel wecan use this cornerstone activity to reach out to all the marginalizedsections, " he said, " let us go to all the Madrasas and Government Urduschools, in Bangalore and also approach the Ambedkar Yuva Samitis".I am grateful to him for this suggestion, for I had not thought about it. Ithrow it to my readers, the student and youth to consider and act on thisand forward your experiences to me. The international programmesshould have their Indian characteristics too, this is one such.

To end, "Larger the number, larger would be the impact", is a messagethat can hardly be overlooked. And to draw them in larger numbers to auniversal goal, I would like to combine the cornerstone activities withanother universal aspiration of all people of the world, "starwatch andnot starwars". I am sure this will find resonance from people all overthe globe. Can we, in India, show the way in that?

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