Dr. Joshi's mofussil mindset
img:143:Rajiv Desai One of the biggest problems I have with liberal criticism of the BJP government is its alleged ‘hidden agenda’. Everyone seems to believe that the saffronistas are working to a plan. It seems to me this is another myth the saffron hordes are propagating.
Examine, if you will, their five years of ‘governance’. In the economy and in society at large, there is a big mess that they have sought to cover up through Fascist-style propaganda. Just look at telecom, computers, power and cable and satellite television. These are sectors that were opened up to competition by previous governments. Under the saffron dispensation, they are increasingly being controlled by a handful of large companies. In the social sector, primary education, primary healthcare, social security and law and order are in a shambles.
For this piece, I would like to focus on demonstrating that the BJP agenda is crudely sinister. But more important, this government’s record is one of ineptitude and corruption.
On corruption, we have Bangaru Laxman and Dilip Singh Judeo captured on camera accepting, and in the case of Judeo, worshipping bribes. Then there’s the sordid story of Tehelka and its totalitarian aftermath. Add to this Narendra Modi’s pogroms in Gujarat.
That each accused brazened it out with the support of the Vajpayee government is an adverse comment on this regime’s constitu-tional propriety, and its propensity to condone corruption and communalism.
Worse than its tolerance of odious behaviour, this govern-ment’s ineptitude will go down in history. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) controversy is a case in point. One of the major criticisms of India’s education policy is that government has subsidised higher education while neglecting primary education. The most extreme case of the ills of government subsidy is the bankrolling of the IIMs, most of whose graduates bag lucrative corporate jobs in the West, with subsidies benefiting multinational companies.
As previous governments began to see the folly of their ways, subsidies were progressively reduced and at these institutions fees began to rise to reflect the quality of their academic programmes which is comparable to the best in the world. But even so, these schools ensured that no one was denied admission because they couldn’t afford them.
Things were going as they should when Murli Manohar Joshi took a break from his overt hindutva agenda in education policy and let loose his crusade against globalisation. Thus, after having established supreme control over the primary, secondary and university education systems, Joshi went after India’s only global education institutions — the IITs and IIMs.
Joshi likes to project himself as a member of the academy when in fact he was just a physics teacher in Allahabad University, which is not generally regarded as the hotbed of avant-garde physics. And to the best of my knowledge, the Nobel Committee has never considered Joshi for the physics prize. He did what moffusil teachers do best: joined politics and clawed his way into the upper echelons of the ultimate moffusil party, the BJP, with support from the RSS, the divinity of India’s moffusil culture.
Curiously, India’s moffusil culture is a legacy of the British Raj. It’s essentially a regime in which the bureaucracy holds sway. And its manifestation is a retinue of subservient clerks and arrogant officials, who form a sort of permanent government. This vast, amorphous segment was controlled in the Nehru era, politicised by Indira Gandhi, ridiculed by Rajiv Gandhi and reasserted itself under the BJP, largely because the saffronistas are at once disdainful and in awe of bureaucrats.
Under Joshi, the education bureaucracy has become politicised to an extreme. Through government agencies like the University Grants Commission (UGC) and national as well as the state councils of education research and training (NCERT and SCERTs), Joshi seeks to control the education agenda in schools and universities. We all know about the textbook issues in which Joshi sought to propagate the RSS’s moffusil hindutva agenda and the induction of numerous saffron followers into the university system.
To the winner, according to the old saying, go the spoils. I have no issue with Joshi stacking universities and research institutions with his hindutva hordes. After all, leftists have dominated most of India’s universities and schools for decades and have destroyed their academic integrity. I have no problem with the saffronistas wanting to control the ruins. The Indian academy is decrepit and compromised. Whether it is red or saffron makes no difference to the national interest.
On the IIM issue, however, I have strong feelings. It is pathetic that Indian taxpayers have to subsidise these elite islands. Over the years, it has become clear they need no financial support from the government — they can raise millions of dollars from past students. Therefore, it was imperative they raise their fees.
What Joshi has done, in his unique moffusil style, is to reverse the growing sentiment among policymakers that the IIMs should raise their own resources and not burden the taxpayer. Joshi’s crusade against the IIMs is difficult to understand. The battle between his populism versus the institutions’ elitism is not worth centre-stage attention. The worthy minister may believe the IIMs are elite, effete institutions but that’s no reason Indian taxpayers should subsidise them.
Joshi’s proposal to cut IIM tuition fees is of a piece with the finance ministry’s cavalier use of taxpayer funds to finance the ‘feel good’ advertising campaign ahead of the election. It is unfair that Indian taxpayers must bear the financial brunt of this government’s hype and moffusil populism.
(Rajiv Desai is the Delhi-based president of IPAN)