Bid to control higher education

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Narendra Modi government has come up with a measure which seeks to strengthen the Centre’s control over institutions of higher education in the name of regulation.

Currently regulatory functions in respect of universities are vested in the University Grants Commission, which has academic and financial powers. It lays down standards of teaching, examination and research, provides for their needs and ensures maintenance of standards.

A draft bill the government has put in the public domain provides for abolition of UGC and creation of a new body called Higher Education Commission of India in its place. The HECI’s powers will be limited to academic matters. It will have no financial powers. The stakeholders, including the academic community, have been given just 10 days to convey their views on the draft bill.

In the remote past there were institutions of higher learning in the subcontinent at Takshashila (near Rawalpindi in Pakistan) and Nalanda and Vikramshila (both in Bihar) which reputedly attracted scholars from far and near.

The first modern universities were established by the British at Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai) in 1858.  More universities came up later, some, like the Aligarh Muslim University and the Banaras Hindu University, due to private initiative, and some under patronage of rulers of princely states.        

The UGC was created by an Act of Parliament by Jawaharlal Nehru’s government in the 1950s on the lines of the recommendations of a commission headed by John Sergeant, who was Educational Adviser to the Government in the closing stages of colonial rule.

Nehru believed science and technology can help better the lot of the poor.  Outside the university system, his government fostered the Indian Institute of Sciences, a brain-child of industry pioneer JN Tata which was brought to fruition by the colonial government in 1909. 

It also established a number of institutions of higher learning like the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Management and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The IISc and a couple of older IITs are the only Indian institutions that have found their way into any global or Asian rankings. The great measure of autonomy these institutions enjoy in academic matters has enabled them to function without undue governmental interference and maintain high standards. The regular universities have seen a decline in standards under political control. 

The Bharatiya Janata Party and its ideological parent, the Rashtreeya Swayamsevak Sangh, have not been well-disposed towards the new-generation institutions of higher learning which they view as centres of liberal thought.

Reform of higher education was mentioned in the BJP’s 2014 election manifesto. Although it is only now that the Modi government has come up with a legislative measure in this regard, efforts to control institutions of higher learning have been on from the very beginning.

The RSS set the stage for the assault on these institutions with its journal, Organiser, launching an attack on the IITs and the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, dubbing them centres of “anti-India, anti-Hindu” activities.

The RSS’s student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, fomented trouble in several campuses, including those of JNU in New Delhi, IIT in Chennai and Central University in Hyderabad. It specifically targeted Muslim, Dalit and left-wing student leaders.

Rohit Vemula, a Dalit scholar of the Central University, was driven to suicide.  Sedition charges were slapped on several JNU students. Two students reported missing from the JNU campus still remain untraced.

RSS-affiliated groups were fighting liberal thought at various levels even before the BJP came to power. Five years ago a leading publisher, Penguin Books, bought peace with one group by agreeing to pulp all copies of US Indologist Wendy Doniger’s “The Hindus: An Alternative History”.

More recently another group proposed to the Centre the removal of all foreign languages from the curriculum of institutions of higher education in the national interest. It also wanted stoppage of UGC funding for all research not connected with national requirements.

The move to replace the UGC with the HECI can be seen as the first step in that direction. The Centre’s decision to keep the power to allot grants in its own hands is undesirable for more than one reason.

In the first place, it will leave the HECI with no means to enforce its directives with regard to academic matters other than the extreme step of ordering closure of the institution. More importantly, as the one who pays the piper, the Centre will be in a position to call the tune even in academic matters. --Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 3, 2018,

JNU bid to silence Forum against War on People

A proctorial inquiry is going on in the Jawaharlal Nehru University against the JNU Forum against War on People.

The university administration has also prohibited the Forum from holding any public meetings or other events on the campus till the inquiry is over.

It has also instructed the JNU printing shops not to photocopy any written material issued by the Forum.

The JNU Forum against War on People was formed two years ago in opposition to the initiation of Operation Green Hunt. The proctorial inquiry was issued following the distribution of a campaign document containing “objectionable material”.

The material is a pictorial description of the Indian State smashing the people under its jackboot, which is widely available in the public domain. According to the university administration it violates sections 3 and 7 of State Emblem Act, 2005.

The Forum used it in the campaign for a public meeting organized on 5 March 2011 opposing Operation Green Hunt and state’s onslaught on the people. The meeting was addressed by noted writer Arundhati Roy and well known economist Prof. Amit Bhaduri, who is also the Emeritus Professor of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU. The meeting saw attended by more than 600 students.

The JNU Forum against War on People has been mobilizing public opinion against the mounting onslaught on the Adivasis and other oppressed and deprived sections of the people in the name of Development by the State, it is imperative that the students and all other sensitised sections discuss the manifold dimensions of Operation Green Hunt.

The gagging of the Forum is a part of the ongoing attempts to clamp down on voices of dissent. The incarceration of Dr. Binayak Sen and scores of civil and political rights activists have been going on unabated in urban centres while the resisting Adivasis and other people are repressed by the state in mineral-rich forest areas.

The JNU administration’s interpretation of the Forum’s use of a publicly and widely available image as a supposed violation of legal provisions is uncalled for and unacceptable. A university as acclaimed as JNU must have spaces to discuss, debate and deliberate on all important issues of socio-economic and political significance. The JNU is setting dangerous precedents through the proctorial inquiry and the objectionable circulars.

An online petition has been created for those who oppose the JNU administration’s action to register their protest and demand withdrawal of the circulars issued by the Chief Proctor’s office on 19 May 2011.

It can be accessed at http://www.petitiononline.com/jnufawp0/petition.html

JNU fact-finding team’s preliminary report on Lalgarh

Picture above (Courtesy: MSN) shows security forces arriving at Lalgarh, a tribal village in West Bengal, on June 18 to put down a people's movement against atrocities by the police and CPI-M cadres.

The following is a preliminary statement on the Lalgarh developments prepared and circulated by a fact-finding team of students from Jawaharlal Nehru University which visited the tribal village from June 7 to 10:

A nine-member fact-finding team comprising students from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and journalists recently visited Lalgarh to probe into the reality of the ongoing movement of the people in the area. Here is a preliminary account of our observations. We would like to appeal to your daily/news channel to highlight certain issues of the movement, which have so far been overlooked and neglected by the media.

We heard through various media and other sources that massive state repression had been underway in Lalgarh and adjacent areas since November 2008, after the attempted mine blast on the convoy of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. We had learnt of the incidents of rampant police atrocities after this land mine blast, especially on women and school children in the area. Following this the people there had formed the Pulishi Santrash Birodhi Janasadharoner Committee (PSBJC or the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities) and have blockaded Lalgarh and adjoining areas from police and other administration. With these preliminary facts in hand, we visited Lalgarh from June 7 to 10.

The team visited the villages of Chhotapelia, Katapahari, Bohardanga, Sijua, Dain Tikri, Sindurpur, Madhupur,Babui Basha, Shaluka, Moltola Kadoshol, Basban, Papuria, Komladanga,pukhria, Korengapara, Gopalnagar, Khash jongol, Shaalboni, Shaaldanga, Andharmari, Darigera, Bhuladanga, Chitaram Dahi, Teshabandh, Bhuladanga and talked extensively to people. We attended a big meeting called by the People’s Committee at Lodhashuli on June 7 and witnessed other small meetings which were held inside the villages. A firing and frontal battle between the people on the one hand and the state and armed gangs of the CPM on the other, in Dharampura and Madhupur/Shijua had started during our stay in Lalgarh.

The visit to Lalgarh and interaction with the people broke many of the myths which we still held before going there. After listening to the chronological narrative of the history of police atrocities in the area, we realized that the *November incidents were not unique*. It was merely the continuation of extreme state terror and police atrocities that the people of the region have been subjected to since 2000. What is unique this time is the resistance, which has taken an organized and sustained shape this time around. The people in all the villages we visited conclusively verified police torture. They described how the police entered houses very late at night, and in the name of ‘raids’ and ‘checks’ vandalized their houses and mercilessly beat them up, how any movement of the villagers at night even to look for their cattle was banned. Almost every family had one or more members who had been booked for being a ‘Maoist’.

We were told about the 90-year-old Maiku Murmu of Teshabandh who was beaten to death by the police way back in 2006. Young school girls were regularly molested by the police on the pretext of ‘body check’. Women were forced to show their genitals at night during ‘raids’ to confirm their gender. Before every election 30-40 people from every village were picked up as ‘Maoists’ in order to weaken the opposition to the ruling CPI (M). The incident of police brutality in Chhotopelia, where a number of women were ruthlessly beaten up and one of them Chhitamoni lost her eye, acted as the last straw. The arrest of three students on the baseless charge of ‘waging war against the state’ further enraged the people.

Lalgarh has now risen up in arms against this long-drawn atrocities and organized oppression of the CPI (M). For the villagers, police terror was accompanied by the terror unleashed by CPI (M). In fact, *the police and CPI (M) are not just in alliance with each other, they meant one and the same thing for the villagers. Our team was taken to Madhupur, where the local panchayat office had been turned into a camp of the ’Harmad Vahini’ (armed gangs of the CPM). They told us how the ‘motor cycle army’ of the Harmads roamed around the villages, terrorizing people, breaking their houses brutally, firing in the air, and beating people up, exactly in the same way they did in
Nandigram. The police not only stood as mute spectators whenever the Harmads went on a rampage, it supported them in all possible ways. The Harmads even used police jeeps to move around. To return these ‘favours’, the local CPI (M) cadres acted as informers for the police.

We met one villager whose house was demolished by the Harmad, during which he kept calling the police for help, but they never came. Similarly, they narrated the incident of Khash Jongol where the Harmads opened fire on a village meeting and killed three people and injured three others. It was only after an armed resistance was put up by the villagers that the Harmads were forced to retreat to Memul and then to Shijua.

The Committee was formed against police atrocities but it has also been carrying out alternative developmental work inside Lalgarh in the past seven months. These areas are marked by extreme poverty and backwardness. Agriculture is dependent on rainfall which is scanty. We saw the dysfunctional government canal, which is lying dry. They showed us the pathetic condition of roads which become completely inaccessible during the monsoons. The Committee on its own has made 20 km of roads with redstone chips (‘morrum’), with villagers volunteering their labour. They have repaired several tube-wells, and have installed new ones at half the cost incurred by the panchayat. They have also started constructing a check dam in Bohardanga to fight the water crisis.

Two major works undertaken by the Committee are the process of land distribution and running a health centre in Katapahari. The government was supposed to distribute wasteland among the landless, but never did so. Now the Committee is taking initiative in Banshberi and other villages to distribute the wasteland adjacent to the forests to the landless people. We witnessed the distribution of the patta in one village.

The Committee has also turned a dysfunctional building in Katapahari into a health centre, which attends to more than 150 patients every day. Doctors from Kolkata and other regions visit there thrice a week. We also attended a huge meeting called by the Committee in Lodhashuli against a sponge iron factory located in the region. We visited the factory site and saw the adverse effect of pollution on the trees, water bodies and land. The people informed us that even the paddy grown in the region have turned black, so much so even the panchayats refused to accept the paddy. The meeting was attended by around 12,000 people from many villages of the district, despite a bus strike called by CPM. It was a vibrant meeting where the Committee resolved, among other things, to boycott the factory and bring about its closure.

The presence of the Maoists within Lalgarh was one of the most contended issues during our visit. Our team observed the presence of Maoists and found that they had mass support of the people in this area. Their posters could be seen everywhere. We were informed by the villagers that Maoists have held meetings attended by thousands of people. The people seemed pretty clear about the need for an armed resistance in the face of the regular joint attacks by the CPM and the state. The restriction on carrying traditional arms by them is a clear signal by the state to debilitate this movement.

This team was witness to the genuine anger and suffering of the people. We do not agree with sections of the media which brand the resistance there as ‘anarchy’. We also believe that the police, administration and CPM are solely responsible for the current situation in Lalgarh. By the time we left Lalgarh, the struggle had intensified. By then, the people had been successful in making their immediate enemy CPM to escape along with the police. The people were exuberant. For the first time they are being part of not some vote-minting political party but a committee which is their own organization. They are living a life free of state terror and building their own developmental projects. In different villages many residents held one opinion in common: ‘we have got independence for the first time’. Their fight is against age-old exploitation, deprivation, torture and terror. In this way, it is a historic fight. We urge the media to revisit Lalgarh. The movement has its roots in extremely impoverished socioeconomic conditions increased by the inaction of the state. The state is bound to strike back at this fight of the people. The CRPF and other central forces will soon come with orders to open fire on the masses. The state government is also shamelessly asking the notorious and infamous Grey hounds and Cobra to come and crush the people’s movement. That will be the most unfortunate and condemnable thing. The anger of the masses against massive state terror, underdevelopment and corruption is valid. And so is the fight against it.

This team will publish a detailed report based on our visit about this movement in Lalgarh. We remember the progressive role played by some sections of the media, especially the regional media in Bengal, during the Nandigram movement and would appeal to you to also stand by the people of Lalgarh and their genuine fight before the state carries out yet another genocide.

Thanking you,
Priya Ranjan,
Banojyotsna,
Sumati,
Anirban,
Gogol,
Kusum,
Reyaz,
Yadvinder,
Veer Singh.
Contact: 09711826861