Mahesh Rathi
The three years of Modi Rule represent three years of unprecedented disaster in education sector. The multi dimensional attack has roots in the nexus of communal nationalism and corporate, and victims are entire student community, especially the dalits and deprived sections, teachers, sovereignty of educational institutions and scientific rational education system itself. The target is clearly the democratic, secular structure that has been evolved through decades in the country and the fundamental rights of people provided in the Constitution.
Cut in the Education Budget
There is obvious cut in the education budget since NDA has come to power. In the very first budget of 2014-15 itself, there was a reduction of Rs 1134 crore, compared to the amount in the pre NDA rule of Rs 45722. Soon after in the next budget, the government declared to spend Rs 42187 crore which was brought down to Rs 3535. The government has cut down by Rs 3302 on school education and literacy projects.
There is continued decline in the budget in last three years.
Hike in Fees
The step has directly hurt the Dalit and deprived sections. The cut in budget has influenced the rate of fees as well and to compensate, there is unprecedented rise in the fees. The other aspect of the fee hike is seen in fellowships for the students. Various fellowship programmes have been cancelled, like Rajiv Gandhi National fellowship scheme, Maulana Azad National fellowship scheme, CSIR-JRF and UGC have also delayed the sanction for more than eight to ten months. It has influenced thousands of students who have been forced to stop their studies. Rohit Vemula in Hyderabad central university was an example with his fellowship amounting to one lakh seventy thousand rupees getting stopped. As it became impossible to sustain, he was forced to end his life. The UGC had stopped the non-net fellowship policy and it was the result of a cut of Rs 3900 crore in the budget for higher education.
All these steps reflect that there are attempts to corporatise the education system here at the behest of International finance capital..
RSS Dominance in Education
After the massive victory in 2014 elections, the RSS-BJP rule had taken up to appoint the Sangh members in important positions in various central educational institutions. They had also initiated the campaign to distort the syllabus and the text books. By appointing its own people, the Sangh was keen to implement reforms to suit its own ideology. Hyderabad Central University, Jadavpur University, JNU, Gujarat Uuniversity, FTII, and IIT Madras are to name a few who had been victimized in this regard.
Immediately after coming to power, the Modi government showered attacks on the student community in the country. The first attack came in October, 2015 when UGC started stopping the non-net fellowship and continues till now. Led by former JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, student had launched agitation and continued for months, gheraoing the UGC office.
It was followed by the ultimate step taken by Rohit Vemula that shook the entire country. He was victimized by the AVBP, the student wing of the Sangh, BJP leaders in Andhra Pradesh, central leader Dattatreya Bangaru and then HRD minister Smriti Irani. In response, large number of progressive students came down to streets. Rohit Vemula was a member of Ambedkar Students Association, and was active in the struggles launched for the democratic rights of the students. As a result, the fellowships of Rohit and his comrades was stopped.
In the same year, then JNUSU president and AISF leader Kanhaiya Kumar was put in prison accusing him of sedition based on false allegations. The entire episode was the result of a conspiracy against the left forces. They started destroying the reservation policy for the Dalit, backward students, extremely low education fees and better research facilities, and finally it was the admission policy that was attacked. The movement launched for the cause of the deprived students was crushed and their demands remained unattended. Even Delhi high court had commented that something must be wrong in the campus, against which the JNU students are struggling for so long.
Almost similar plight was faced by IIT (Madras) students when the administration banned the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle group which shows the casteist attitude of the RSS-BJP government. Now it was the turn of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). The director of the institute, appointed by the government, was not up to the mark and students refused to accept him. The struggle continued for months and academic work was affected. Despite the uncompromising stance of the government, entire country came out in support of the students.
Same was true about Jadavpur university also. The turmoil started in October, 2015, and continued till after February, 2016, when students took to streets in support of democratic rights, freedom of expression and against victimization of Kanhaiya Kumar.
Rightist Reforms in Syllabus
The entire struggle started with the changes in the syllabus, and led to changes in the entire system of education. The communal agenda implemented with divisive policies was aimed at distorting and rewriting the history in the country. They wanted to establish Hindutva as the leading light and the Modi government after coming to power took steps in this direction. They had started introducing Veda, Upanishads in the syllabus, ignoring the other communities. An alternative history was also prepared with complete distortion of our past. It was a direct attack on our composite culture. They have even omitted the name of Jawaharlal Nehru from the modern history and his participation in the freedom struggle. Such experiments were made especially in the BJP ruled states like Rajasthan and Gujarat among others. In the text books of Gujarat, Hitler has been greatly eulogized. He was praised for his brutalities against the Zews and his capacity to butcher the entire community was set as an example. He was credited for reorganizing Germany and establishing fascism there. The lesson was removed only after the visit of an Israeli statesman, who opposed the chapter since Hitler was infamous for his pogroms. In his fascist regime, Zews were made victims of holocaust among whom many saved themselves by making an exodus to Israel.
In May, 2016, an attempt was made to write the biography of Narendra Modi and Gujarat education department was keen to incorporate it in the syllabus. Same was declared by the BJP ruled Chhattisgarh, MP and other states.
In fact, communal nationalism, and its fascist agenda always strives for a combining Hindutva Fascism with corporatisation and communalization of education is one of its prime instrument. Sangh is applying this instrument in a multidimensional way to crush the students movements and saffronise education, its system and management. n
