Education: Saffronisation and Nefarious Agenda of RSS

The Union Government’s rhetoric on ‘Make in India” and ‘Skill India’, will remain on paper unless the government doesn’t accord enough importance to the education sector. While, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is busy working on these slogans, the budgetary allocation for primary and higher education by its government has been cut massively.

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is directing the central educational boards to make structural changes in the higher education. Students’ and teachers’ community alleges that this move was a planned agenda in line with the WTO guidelines and saffronisation push by the RSS. To discuss these issues, Newsclick interviewed Lalita Ramdas, one of the founding members of Greenpeace India. 

Mrs Ramdas said, India is already at the lower rank in terms of expenditure in education sector in the world. “Students are the future citizens. Making them creative and allowing them to critically analyze is very essential. The idea of discussions and debates has to be extended from the universities like JNU and HCU to the schools. But the government is not in favour as the rightwing forces are against critical thinking. She criticised the mainstream media’s failure in spreading real information and proper knowledge.

Rough Transcript:

Pranjal: Hello and welcome to Newsclick. Since NDA-2 has come to power, there has been a continuous attack on education, change in course structure, scrapping of different courses in different states. To discuss the issue we have with us Lalita Ramdas, a leading activist and also founding member of Greenpeace in India. Hello Ma'am welcome to Newsclick. Since the Modi government has come to power and recently the budget that has come yesterday has been a cut on in terms of the sprimary education that has provided around 2000 crore rupees, so how do you see that, how do you perceive the agenda of this government?

Lalita Ramdas (LR): Now it is a much wider question than actually this agenda than this government and I think for many of us who have been working in the broad social sector area which is education, which is health, which is women, basic fundamental. I think we would say that we have been fighting this battle of adequate allocation of resources for a very long time. I don't have the figures on my finger tips but I think we probably India as a country comes very very low even amongst even the developing countries in terms of what we actually spend on education. Till now, I don't think we have ever reached anywhere near the 6% of GDP which was what was the actual recommendation. So I think one has to look at it in that kind of context and certainly, I think the kind of cuts imposed by this government on all social sector spending is just one more mail in the coffin in a way. It's also in keeping with the push towards privatization in probably every fear we can look at including in education and health and I think there is a very very major cause to be worried, we are concerned about it because I want to actually look at it in terms of what it is going to be doing to generations of young people, the children in our schools who we are providing completely substandard educational opportunities to we have had a number of this so called whether it is non-formal education in the adult education and various schemes which one way or the other are in various hierarchies of less than the ideal quality education we are talking about.

Pranjal: Actually when you talk about this thing, the double speak on part of the government on the one hand they claim to build a skilled India allotting funds for them and on the other hand similarly if you look at the higher education IITs, IIMs and the UGC, they have cut funds by almost 50% so there is a double speak also that exists in part of this government. The other important point which you raised is the conduct and the quality of education that is being provided. I think that is a major thing to look at because if you look around the states where the BJP is in power they are cutting down the courses and importing mythology into it instead of concrete theoretical subject. Can you throw some light on that?

LR: Oh, this should probably take me a few hours it's one of my favourites about in the 80s when a group of us actually a small non-governmental organisations and I am aware that today the NGO is a word that is not in favour but ws a group called Ankur, society for alternatives in education. I think my efforts have been systematically engaged looking at both equality of opportunity, looking at how we are going to get more girls to the schooling system but much more importantly looking at the content of education because unless we are clear that starting from the Kindergarten we need to be breeding generations of young people who are encouraged to question, who are encouraged to think, who are encouraged to rebel. Who are encouraged to be innovative. I believe that the skilling India which we are talking about India is actually going to be difficult to achieve and it is a great pity that we have never learnt the right lessons from China, who spent their early decades basically investing in health and education. So today, no matter what has been actual changes are happening. They are able to re-skill a work force or a population or people who already had fundamental skills. So your starting levels were that much higher and I think that is actually one of the biggest challenges to us. How do we build all around citizens in our schools and colleges who will today not have to be educated, made to understand what do you mean by nationalism.

Pranjal: So that is an important point that you have raised what do you understand by nationalism. So when you look at this primary education the entire debate is going out, people and coming and delivering lectures on what the idea of nationalism is, the universities. While the school, the government is giving diktats that central school should have Indian flags. Do you think that will lead to skill generation or nationalism?

LR: Each one of this question is so deep so complex. I always like to go back to may be a more personalized experiential the way in which to address these questions. For nearly 23 years now, we have lived in a very small village across the harbor from Mumbai. This is the Konkan region of Maharasthra, in Alibaug. There is a small group of us who have been working systematically fifteen our of those years in looking on what's going on in village schools, in the Zila Parishad Schools. Why are there large numbers of kids who simply can not make it beyond standard 6 and I think it is is been one of probably the great learnings for me to see what actually goes in the classroom today. First of all we took away your basic examination. So teachers for most part find it easier not to worry about teaching because they don't have to worry about their passing their exams. They are also overburdened by syllabus. They have themselves never been taught to teach outside of their framework of that particular textbook or the syllabus. So there is a kind of a taken for granted understanding of the importance of flag, the importance of kind of a prayer to Saraswati and which has not been negative but what it has done overtime combined with the influence of TV serials which are preaching only particular a particular kind of thing image of patriotism and nationalism. So today, when something of what like in JNU is brought forth by every TV channel in the most negative kind of way including what happened in HCU in Hyderabad before this, the average response for the non-average public children, young people in colleges 'arey aisa to hona nahin chahiyen tha', 'yeh to desh drohi hain' without even applying a little bit of thought, reflection and criticism to actually what happened. Have they really been wanting to preach disintegration and fragmentation of the country or like all of them who are at some point or the other busy shouting slogans that's not anti-national but where JNU and HCU or few of the big universities have been exposed to great privilege of good minds, good teachers talking about what is nationalism, the rest of the country gets their lessons from TV channels, films, serials and their schools. So I think and this is what I spoke about at JNU two days ago we need to move out our temples of higher learning, we have to take these lectures, the content, the ideas, their debates but in a non-confrontation manner out into our village schools all those kinds come every part of this country. Go back there, take time in your holidays 'Bus jaakey logon ke saath baith ke gappe lagaon' then talk a little bit about nationalism kya hoti hain, what is patriotism? Are you a patriot? How do you know. I am a patriot or not a patriot. How do we define that. I think it will push people to start thinking and we through away civic studies in our schools without even thinking about the facts that the building bricks of citizenship and understanding constitution, Desh vagairah have to begin there.

Pranjal: How do you see this entire attack I should say the higher education at present now because you raised two important universities one being the JNU and the other being the HCU. These are not merely the universities, the Burdwan University, the Jadhavpur University and the list goes on. So how do you see that?

LR: I see that as to being part of a much wider deeper I don't like to use the word conspiracy but I think it is a part longer older plan by which you sort of destabilize and weaken the processes of thought and reflection and I said as interrogation of idea particularly the liberal arts and humanities subject courses and curricula in universities are actually meant to provide. That is being part of the right wing agenda. You know it goes back all the way to pre-independence. But, I think there is another factor and we tend to overlook that because let's face it in all these years after liberalization there has been a kind of a technical higher education which has been sort of preferred and which has been given all the resources, all the high profile publicity that you require because we have gone along with the belief that it is technology and science also as a technology not so much as scientific understanding and I think this has been one of the most dangerous things as actually happened to our education system per se because when you have a purely technological approach in all these thousand of institutes of it's computer science, it's technology and all of that, you tend not to understand what is the more humanistic vision that I think a country, it's constitution is based on. So if you today are faced with a Savarkar, Golvalkar interpretation of what is nationalism, rather than we exposed to a Tagore who also wrote and thought and expressed himself on nationalism, then you can imagine what is going to happen. I think we have to stop thinking these are accidental developments. I think citizens whatever walk we are in we need to actually get into this debate no matter where we are. Interrogate policy, question it and ultimately start kids to start thinking, into argue, to debate and I just like to give you one little example again cricket is the thing we all go mad about it in this country. 'Kuch saal pahle hamare gaon main school main main gayi thi' I was just having a chat with a whole bunch of kids and we were talking about some Indo-Pakistan cricket match it was happening. So I just said so who are your favorite cricketers. So one little boy who could not have been more than 10 years old inquitively, impulsively he said Shoaib and then he put his hands over his mouth and he looked around his friends. I said 'ruk kyon gayen'. Nahin voh Pakistani hain naa'. Voh hamarey dushman hain. 'To shayad mujhe yeh bolna nahin chahiyen tha'. So then we went to another half an hour discussion about sport, about cricket about why should you worry after all they may be temporarily told they are dushmans but they are people like you and eye. They play cricket. So you should feel happy that you understand that Shoaib Akhtar is a great cricketer. But this is all where it all begins. I think that are dangerous signals which we have to pay attention to.

Pranjal: That is a very positive note I think to leave on that interrogation of ideas is the important step ahead. Thanks a lot for giving us your time and we will be coming back to you on such issues.

LR: Thank you for asking me to come.