Whither Indian Education?
By KN Panikkar
Originally presented as the inaugural address to the 'National Convention
Against Communalisation of Education in India’ organised by SAHMAT (August
4-6, 2001, New Delhi, India).
The education in India is at a crossroads. Its liberal and secular
character and content, carefully nourished during the last fifty years,
despite several vicissitudes, is now undergoing fundamental transformation.
That this change rather hurriedly pushed through by the government and
its agencies is not in consonance with the guiding principles of our
republic and would adversely affect the well being of our plural society
is a widely shared concern. For, the change is being engineered by a
government committed more by its ideological needs and the entrepreneurial
interests of the ruling classes rather than the requirements of the
society.
Admittedly, in class societies education is an ideological apparatus
of the state and is designed and used for the perpetuation and furtherance
of its interests. The ideological apparatuses by their very nature function
with considerable finesse, obscuring and universalising partisan interests
or imputing cultural or national explanations for their initiatives.
All these strategies appear to be at work in foregrounding a new system
of education that uncritically privileges the indigenous and celebrates
the religious. It seeks to displace whatever secular and universal content
and outlook the existing system, although with obvious limitations,
has managed to incorporate and preserve.
Character of education in Post-independence India
The system of education evolved during the post ˆindependence period
is essentially liberal and secular in character. It draws upon the historical
experience, both colonial and pre-colonial, and the social, cultural
and intellectual legacy inherited there from. Although an enclavised
system, mainly serving the interests of the elite, it respected the
social plurality and cultural diversity of the country. While attempting
to construct the nation and unify the people, differences were accommodated,
even if the class and caste biases were apparent in policy formulation
and implementation. That education is a concurrent and not a central
subject reflects the respect for diversity.
The influence of colonial rule and western ideas, which filtered through
it, over the modern system of education in India, is well known. The
reconstruction of the system of education in post-independent India
was undertaken in the context of the legacy of colonialism, both in
policy and infrastructure. Yet, the system that came into being, as
a result of the deliberations in several education commissions, chaired
by eminent educationists like Dr.S.Radhakrishnan and Dr.D.S. Kothari,
was neither a continuation of the colonial nor a blind adoption of the
western. The main concern was the formulation of a reformed system that
would address the developmental needs of the nation and create a healthy
social consciousness. The national policy on education laid down this
perspective as follows: "a radical reconstruction of education"
is essential for economic and cultural development of the country, for
national integration and for realizing the ideal of a socialistic pattern
of society. This will involve a transformation of a system to relate
to more closely to the life of the people; a continuous effort to expand
educational opportunity; a sustained and intensive effort to raise the
quality of education at all stages; an emphasis on the development of
science and technology; and the cultivation of moral and social values.
The educational system should produce young men and women of character
and ability committed to national service and development. Only then
will education be able to play its vital role in promoting national
progress, creating a sense of common citizenship and culture, and strengthening
national integration. This is necessary if the country is to attain
its rightful place in the comity of nations in conformity with its cultural
heritage and its unique potentialities.
The search for an alternate system had a long history, dating back to
the early colonial times. The nostalgia about the indigenous, as evident
from the writings of many, including Gandhi who described the pre-colonial
system as a beautiful tree, is a natural response to conditions of subjection.
Yet, there was no attempt to resurrect the pre-colonial or to adopt
the traditional as the ideal. Instead the concern of all those involved
with educational reform was to marry the traditional with the modern.
A national system of education which the colonial intellectuals and
nationalist leaders tried to evolve was based on a possible synthesis
of all that is advanced in the West with all that was abiding in the
traditional. In other words the national policy was not lodged in a
dichotomy between the indigenous and the western. The impact of such
a policy was the internalization of a universal outlook and the location
of the indigenous in the wider matrix of human history. The educational
policy adumbrated by independent India, even if it faltered on many
a count, was informed by an open-ended view.
Recent Departures
The post-colonial system, in the assessment of the present government,
has an entirely different character. In its view it continues to be
colonial and western, producing an intellectually and culturally alienated
intelligentsia, derisively called the "children of Macaulay".
Given their education and training and access to power, it is argued
that they were able to exercise an overriding influence in almost all
spheres of society- political, social and intellectual. The nature of
political institutions and developmental strategies of independent India
were attributed to their influence. The modern system of education,
which they tried to perpetuate, is anathema to the Sangh Parivar, as
it is not sufficiently "national" in content. The alternative
proposed by the Parivar and now being implemented by the government
is an indigenous system, which M.S. Golwalkar had earlier conceived
as religious in character, with emphasis on tradition, discipline and
military training. Romanticisation of traditional knowledge, celebration
of religious beliefs and emphasis on conformism are its chief characteristics.
One of the major compulsions for changing the content of education is
the realization of the communal objective of creating a Hindu national
identity and national pride. An essay on value education published by
the National Council for Educational Research and Training ( NCERT)
suggests as follows: A sense of belongingness must be developed in every
individual learner by focusing on India‚s contribution to world civilization.
It is high time that India‚s contribution in areas like mathematics,
sciences, maritime, medicine, trade, architecture, sculpture, establishment
of institutions of learning is emphasized and made known to the learners
to develop a sense of belonging to the nation with respect and an attachment
to the past.
In respect of both school and university education the government agencies
like the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the NCERT are currently
engaged in revising the curriculum and bringing about a qualitative
change in content. A discussion document produced by the NCERT for curriculum
development spells out the main thrust of the contemplated change. The
document dismisses the existing system as colonial and western and in
its place proposes an indigenous curriculum, which would "celebrate
the ideas of native thinkers\" and "privilege the innovative
experiments and experiences emanated from its own context". The
Document elaborates the point as follows:
… it may also be pointed out that there is a need to bring to notice
the contribution of India to the world wisdom. Paradoxical as it may
sound, while our children know about Newton, they do know a computer
they do not know the concept of zero. Mention may also have to be made
for instance of Yoga and Yogic practices as well as Indian systems of
medicine like Ayurvedic and Unani forms which are being recognized and
practiced all over the world. The curriculum will have to correct such
imbalances.
The contrast between the western and the indigenous and privileging
the latter is a powerful political slogan capable of arousing nationalist
sentiments, but it hardly has any academic worth. Not because indigenous
system of knowledge need not be integrated into the curriculum- in fact
it is necessary to do so more than what exists today- but the contrast
between the two systems as the NCERT document purports to do is likely
to be counterproductive. It would only create a false sense of pride,
bordering on chauvinism, which is detrimental to the pursuit of knowledge.
What is required is not information gathering which the NCERT is obsessed
with, but a creative integration of knowledge from different sources.
The system of school education that would emerge out of the suggestions
in this document is likely to have serious long-term social implications.
It would foster a generation incapable of critically interrogating the
problems of society or rationally approach matters of social existence.
Instead they will be more inclined to accept the received wisdom and
in the process miss the significance of the revolution in knowledge
currently taking place in the world. The most undesirable consequence,
however, would be the creation of an intellectual and cultural situation
conducive for the onset of a conformist society.
Value Education
Considerable importance is attached in the new scheme to value education,
an issue that had attracted the attention of educational planners from
the very beginning. The value education was generally perceived as a major
input in the process of character building of students as well as a means
for the inculcation of healthy social attitudes. In fact, there can hardly
be any system of education without the inculcation of values. What should
constitute the content of value education is however not easy to determine.
The different commissions had seriously deliberated upon this and had
suggested how moral, spiritual and religious ideas could be incorporated
in the curriculum. The Education Commission of 1964 took a clear view
by underlining the importance of education about religion and not religious
education and significantly about the need for the study of comparative
religion. The Commission also emphasized a universal outlook as the source
of value education so that the students become capable of comprehending
the problems of modern world. In 1970 the NCERT following a national conference
spelt out the content of value education. The values enunciated were primarily
secular in character: honesty, kindness, charity, tolerance, courtesy,
compassion and sympathy. The present policy seems to draw upon this tradition,
but in actual practice marginalizing the universal and comparative perspective
so integral to the Indian experience. In fact, the secular values the
NCERT itself had earlier enunciated do not get adequate attention in recent
policy statements. Therefore there is considerable apprehension that the
much touted value education would be restricted in due course to religious
instruction, and perhaps to Hindu religious instruction. The Director
of NCERT, though negatively, has foregrounded the religious dimension:
"The hesitation in delineating strategies for value inculcation from
religions through its various sources needs to be given up". In fact,
the textbooks prescribed in several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) had long given up any such hesitation and has prepared ample
material not only to inculcate a religious but a communal view of the
world.
The scheme of value education is inextricably linked with the communal
cultural and political project. By its very nature it would promote religiosity
and religious consciousness in society and help in redefining the nation
in religious terms. The Hindu religion oriented courses sponsored by the
government agencies and the religious interpretation of history serve
the same purpose. More so because they create a wedge in social consciousness.
Redefinition of the Nation
The restructuring of the education system undertaken by the present government
and the agencies under its control is primarily oriented towards the redefinition
of the nation in religious terms. Using the logic of majoritarianism the
nation is being conceptualized as Hindu and a system of education to legitimize
this notion is being put in place. In this attempt the interpretation
of the past and the social consciousness emerging out of it are of crucial
importance, which explains the promotion of a hinduised history by the
Sangh Parivar. The soul of hinduisation, however, is not the distortion
of facts, which at any rate are aplenty, but a religious interpretation
of the past, which establishes the right of the nation to the Hindus.
Reminiscent of the colonial view of the past, the communal history, which
is now being propagated by government institutions like the Indian Council
for Historical Research and increasingly finding place in school textbooks,
depicts Indian history as a record of continuous strife between religious
communities. In this interpretation all communities other than the Hindus
are identified as foreigners and therefore the enemies of the nation.
What is implied thereby is that Hindus alone has a right to the nation.
The recent attempts to prove the indigenous origins of the Aryans and
their vegetarianism are a part of establishing historical legitimacy for
Hindu nationhood. This however is only the tip of the iceberg. A very
concerted and well-planned attempt is being made to create an alternate
historical consciousness. The channels of dissemination of this consciousness
are not the textbooks or the research projects sponsored by the ICHR alone,
but more so the vernacular pamphlets extensively distributed through religious
and social networks. They do not make any distinction between myth and
history; in fact they parade myth as history, which in a way makes their
reception easier. The history of Ramjanmabhoomi circulated during the
temple campaign is a good example.
The emphasis on the religious interpretation of history is a reflection
of a general shift from a secular perspective to a religious orientation
in education. The recent initiatives taken by the Ministry of Human Resource
Development, implemented through the NCERT and the UGC, seek to impart
a Hindu religious character to the education system by incorporating in
the curricula areas of interest traditionally associated with religious
practices. The most glaring example of this tendency is the promotion
of a course in Karmakanda that would produce certified priests for conducting
rituals. Along with that attempts are afoot to open new areas of study
where, according to the NCERT, "scientific evidence is not so far
available to sustain some popular faith and which have been rejected outright
because of impatient and motivated criticism". In pursuit of this
Jyotir Vigyan, Jyotish in popular parlance, is being introduced in Universities
with generous financial assistance from the UGC. The best of Indian scientists
have decried the wisdom behind this move, as the promotion of such an
unscientific field of study will only contribute to obscurantism and superstition.
This initiative of the government raises an important academic issue regarding
the teaching of the traditional systems of knowledge. That India like
many other countries have an accumulated wealth of knowledge needs no
reiteration. In several fields like medicine, plastic surgery, rhenoplasty,
astronomy, town planning, alchemy and so on Indians had attained a high
level of excellence at different points of time. They deserve to be studied
and is being studied as a part of the historical evolution of knowledge
in the field. But privileging them over the others, particularly those
without proper scientific foundation like Jyotish and Karmakanda, is unaccademic
and undesirable and is likely to encourage inward looking and closed minds,
particularly because the government documents while emphasizing the contribution
of Indian civilization to other societies do not take notice of the impact
of other civilisations on India. Studying the state of knowledge in the
past is one thing; uncritically adopting it in the present curriculum
is another. The knowledge in each field has advanced so much, a return
to the past, however glorious it had been, is unrealistic and only would
drag the society into intellectual backwardness.
The Context
The change in the character of education from the secular to the communal
is taking place at a historical juncture when transnational capital is
tightening its stranglehold over the Indian economy and society. The impact
of this new phase of imperialism, euphemistically called globalisation,
thereby masking its real nature and intent, is well pronounced. That the
privatization of education, particularly the withdrawal of the state from
higher education, occurring at a brisk pace in recent times is at the
instance of the World Bank is now well known. Not only steps are afoot
to set up private universities, but also several foreign universities
are vying with each other to set up their "extension counters"
in India. Given that the best of Indian universities are starved of funds
these institutions are likely to have a field day. As for Indian universities
they function today without even the basic minimum facilities and with
teachers who have no access to the latest advances in their disciplines.
These institutions churn out students who complete their education as
outcastes even in their own chosen area of knowledge. What these institutions
offer is unacceptable to the fast growing affluent Indian middle class.
The situation is likely to aggravate in coming days with the UGC reportedly
being deprived of its funding functions and the introduction of an accreditation
system which would stamp many an institution as academic slums without
ever the possibility of a honourable redemption. Understandably education
is a fertile land for investment, particularly if it comes with a foreign
tag.
The response of the ruling classes and the present government to this
crisis is encoded in a report prepared by industrialists, Mukesh Ambani
and Kumaramangalam Birla, entitled A Policy Framework for Reforms in Education,
and submitted to the Prime Minister‚s council on trade and industry. The
brief of this young team of industrialists is to formulate a policy framework
for private investment in education, health and rural development, which
they appear to have done with alacrity and enthusiasm. The proposals,
which they claim would usher in a revolution in education, in fact, provide
a blue print for the unconditional surrender to the interests of advanced
capitalist countries and for the preservation of the existing privileges
of the ruling classes. The revolution proposed is the creation of a "competitive,
yet co-operative, knowledge based society". The prescription is as
follows:
As the world moves on to forging an information society founded on education,
India cannot remain behind as a non-competitive knowledge economy. India
has to create an environment that does not produce industrial workers
and labourers but fosters knowledge workers. Such people must be at the
cutting edge of knowledge workers and, in turn, placing India in the vanguard
in the information age.
This grand design is to be implemented through direct foreign investment
and privatization. It advocates "a full cost recovery in higher education
and encouraging the emergence of a largely self-financing private sector".
The rest, be it the primary and secondary education or the liberal and
performing arts or "disciplines whose scholars do not command a market",
may be left to the patronage of the state. The unstated implication of
the scheme is that it would generate two streams: one for the poor and
the other for the elite. The education of the former would be limited
to literacy while the latter would be the receivers of knowledge. But
then the nature of the information society of countries like India, as
subordinate partners of advanced capitalist countries, would be nothing
better than that of a service sector. Far from being competitive and innovative
they are likely to be destined to perform innumerable labour saving works
for the benefit of transnational capital. The most glaring example is
the medical transcription in which a large number of Indians, some of
them with high technical qualifications, are currently engaged in performing
the clerical work for American hospitals. Several other labour saving
"opportunities" are on the way. This is not to argue that the
opportunities opened up by information technology are to be shunned, but
to suggest its creative incorporation in the system of education. At the
same time it is necessary to recognize the fact that the educational conditions
created by information technology are pregnant with the possibilities
of intellectual colonization. The breaking of the geographical barriers
and communication restrictions are indeed healthy attributes of knowledge
dissemination, but it cannot be divorced from the economic and political
contexts of knowledge production. The Ambani report, trapped in platitudes
and rhetoric, appears to be insensitive to these larger issues inherent
in the new information regime.
The over emphasis on information technology raises yet another issue vital
to the well being of society. The report not only privileges technology
education but also isolates and marginalizes other areas. This is likely
to affect adversely the holistic character of education, so necessary
for the creation of a healthy society. An important attribute of knowledge
production is specialisation, but the absence of a liberal content in
it devalues education into mere training. The early educational planners
were quite conscious of this danger and therefore took care to integrate
liberal and social science education with science and technology. The
humanity and social science faculties of the Indian Institutes of Technology
emerged out of this perspective. It is for the same reason that universities
devoted to the pursuit of science and technology took care to nurture
social science faculties. Interestingly a vice-chancellor who made major
contribution to the planning and development of a university for science
and technology in Kerala was a social scientist.
In recent times two tendencies counter to this liberal spirit has been
gaining ground in the organization of higher education. The first is the
establishment of single subject oriented universities and second, the
marginalisation, if not the elimination, of liberal subjects from the
curriculum. The former leads to an extremely lopsided university system
in which the possibilities of academic enrichment through interdisciplinary
teaching and research become minimal. Such universities do not rise above
the level of institutes. The latter is more unfortunate. With the onset
of cyber age education and privatization social sciences and such other
"unproductive disciplines" appears to be on their way out. In
some states like Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu liberal education is at
a discount and the time and money allotted for social science subjects
are being diverted for training in information technology. The NCERT,
it is reported, is in the process of eliminating history from the school
curriculum as a distinct subject of study. The Ambani report locates this
shift in the context of globalisation and the imperatives of a market-led,
knowledge- based economy. The report puts forward the logic as follows:
"It is important that skills, as a result of education, have economic
value beyond their intrinsic merit. Equally it is important that there
is diversity in order to avoid abundance in any one skill and consequent
poor rewards. To illustrate, although computer skills are valuable, if
too many computer specialists are produced, rewards for them will be weak".
Lacking a philosophy of education the Report is not able to see beyond
this pragmatic problem and recognize that the system it is advocating
will not only widen the educational disparities in society but also would
undermine the basic quality of education. If Ambani‚s scheme is implemented
the fundamental purpose of education, namely, the refinement of mind is
going to be the main casualty.
Yet another dimension of liberal education is its ability to sensitise
the social and political rights. This was understood and recognized even
by the Education Commission set up by the British government under the
chairmanship of W.W.Hunter in 1882. The Commission had then advocated
the desirability of a shift in policy in favour of technical education,
interestingly, at a time when there was hardly any industry in India.
The rationale for the change was that the liberal education was making
the Indians conscious of their political rights leading to their participation
in public movement. The Commission foretold the oppositional role the
educated intelligentsia would play even before the storm broke out. Similarly
the educational thinking and planning of the ruling classes today is to
undermine the liberal education in order to rule out any possible dissent
and protest. This is an interest equally shared by the forces of fundamentalism
and globalisation.
The Ambani Report reflects this interest in ample measure. Apparently
it aims to create "a new information society, resplendent with knowledge,
research, creativity and innovation". But in reality it is concerned
with the creation of necessary conditions for the operation of the national
and trans-national capital. The Indian social scene has been rather turbulent
during the last two decades when protest movements from different social
groups have become quite pronounced. The educational campuses have been
particularly vulnerable. The Report therefore suggests steps to ensure
peaceful campuses without agitations and protests. Towards that end all
educational institutions are to be made apolitical by preventing the "advertent
or inadvertent creeping in of various isms" and by banning through
legislation "any form of political activity on the campuses of universities
and educational institutions". The aim of such a move is to usher
in a conformist society in which alone fundamentalism can thrive and transnational
capital can operate successfully. Thus in the new educational initiatives
of the government there is a convergence of interests of both communalism
and globalisation.
Except in certain pockets like Kerala and West Bengal there is hardly
any awareness, let alone initiatives, for organising resistance against
the onslaught of these two forces in the field of education. Most of the
struggles for democratic rights in educational institutions are not sensitive
to the imminent threat to the liberal and secular education. Given the
rather dismal democratic climate in our institutions, they are more concerned
with collective bargaining for improved conditions of work and better
career opportunities. A search for an alternative has not yet begun in
our society. A large section of the Indian intelligentsia are either lost
in the ideological delusion of globalisation or scared by the aggressive
posturing of communalism. The solution perhaps lies in the organization
of a counter cultural movement- counter both to communalism and globalisation-
since the cultural domain as a whole is under siege. The movement has
to posit an alternative as well as counter the initiatives. Education
is an area in which both these can be creatively attempted, drawing upon
the earlier efforts to formulate a national and modern system of education.
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