The Nation: Education: Failing the Test

Joshi's Hindutva agenda on education backfires on the Government. In the process, serious measures to reform the sector also fall by the wayside.

He showed saffron and they saw red. Make Sanskrit compulsory, Minister for Human Resource Development Murli Manohar Joshi proposed. No way, the non-BJP ministers disposed. Make school children imbibe the Vedas and Upanishads, Joshi pleaded. No chance, the Opposition retorted.

The two-day conference of state education ministers snowballed into a political controversy even before it could begin on October 22. In a blatant move at what even the BJP's allies termed an attempt at foisting the "Hindutva agenda", the ministry clubbed the conference agenda and a set of annexures which they said were recommendations of an unnamed "group of experts".

That's where the controversy took root. The recommendations were no more than a set of proposals conceived by stalwarts of the Vidya Bharati, an educational arm of the RSS. In yet another instance of the Sangh parivar trying to influence government policy, Joshi even went to the extent of inviting a Calcutta-based industrialist and BJP supporter, P.D. Chitlangia, to make a presentation on low-cost education. "He is the only person in the country who is running 1,300 schools in tribal areas," said Joshi trying to brush away the criticism that Chitlangia was the only participant who was not an education minister.

CONTENTIOUS PLANS

Establish an autonomous mission for educational reforms and council for elementary education at Central, state and district levels

Decentralise planning. Autonomy for school boards.

Curricula be "Indianised and spiritualised". Teach Indian philosophy, including Vedas and Upanishads in higher education. Sanskrit be made compulsory from Class III to X.

Accountability at all levels. Decennial evaluation of teachers by National Academy of Teachers.

Selective access to higher education; make it more vocational. Set up national education service.

Extend provision of Article 30 giving special minority rights in education to all citizens.

Replace marking in examinations with grading system.

Joshi tried to take the sting out of the controversy by starting the conference with the national anthem and then moving on to the Saraswati Vandana -- an invocation to the goddess of learning. Similarly, Chitlangia who was initially described as representing Vidya Bharati was, through a modified programme itinerary, introduced as being from the Friends of Tribal Society. "I have nothing to do with Vidya Bharati and RSS. I have friends in all political parties," he said.

No one heard him. Vigyan Bhawan, the venue of the conference, witnessed scenes reminiscent of Parliament. The proceedings were disrupted by indignant state education ministers. They even staged a walk-out before Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee could begin his inaugural speech.

The stormy conference, in fact, only added to the list of embarrassing controversies that have dogged the Government. Vajpayee tried to settle the issue by asking Joshi to publicly recommit himself to the National Agenda for Governance, but state ministers drawn even from the coalition partners like the Akali Dal walked out. Said Manjit Singh Calcutta, the Punjab education minister, "We are not here to discuss the RSS agenda. We will never accept Sanskrit. Punjabi has not been made the second language either in Delhi or Haryana."

The agenda was visible through the proposals in the annexure. Under curriculum, for instance, there was a proposal that education from the primary classes should be "Indianised, nationalised and spiritualised". Taking serious objection to this, Congress President Sonia Gandhi wrote a three-page letter to Vajpayee pointing out that the word "secularism" had not even been considered worthy of mention. "What does this mean? Is it implied that curricula hitherto have been un-Indian or anti-Indian, that curricula have been colonial or foreign, not related to the past or present realities of India?" she asked.

Like the Governor's report from Bihar recommending President's rule -- where the BJP state unit's charge-sheet was garnished with legalese and submitted to Rashtrapati Bhavan -- the annexures presented at the conference were said to bear an uncanny resemblance to a Vidya Bharati report. Again, the Government was caught on the wrong foot and pitted against an opposition where the Congress and the Left spoke in the same voice. And again, it was the Government which was forced to retrace its steps. The conference resumed only after Joshi announced that the annexures were being withdrawn and Chitlangia's presentation cancelled.

In a sense, Joshi had no alternative since the protestors were unwilling to go ahead with proposals that also included a change in Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution relating to special minority rights. The suggestion was to extend the right to establish and administer educational institutes to "every section of citizens", not just minorities. It was a demand that had its origins in the Ramakrishna Mission's battles against the Left Front Government in West Bengal. With the BJP in power at the Centre, it is high on the Vidya Bharati agenda. Says its General Secretary Dina Nath Batra: "If the minorities have the right to administer schools, why can't we? We Hindus are a majority." A demand that raised the hackles of the Opposition. West Bengal Minister for Higher Education S.S. Chakraborty added to the controversy saying, "Religion should not be mixed with education."

In the political and religious overtones that finally marked the conference, some of the sensible proposals took a beating. For example, the establishment of a National Academy of Teachers to assess teachers every 10 years. Likewise, the suggestion to make education autonomous from the Government was perceived as a cover for a quiet takeover. In trying to smuggle through some of the pet concerns of the RSS, Joshi ended up putting his whole ministry under political scrutiny. For six months, he had unobtrusively effected substantial changes in the management of educational institutions run by the Centre, replacing Leftists and Congress groupies with their saffron counterparts. Now he will find his unfinished agenda a trifle more difficult to accomplish. Having abandoned caution for ideological bravado, Joshi has not merely lost a battle. He has converted a skirmish into a war.