Home

Follow Countercurrents on Twitter 

Google+ 

Support Us

Popularise CC

Join News Letter

CounterSolutions

CounterImages

CounterVideos

Editor's Picks

Press Releases

Action Alert

Feed Burner

Read CC In Your
Own Language

Bradley Manning

India Burning

Mumbai Terror

Financial Crisis

Iraq

AfPak War

Peak Oil

Globalisation

Localism

Alternative Energy

Climate Change

US Imperialism

US Elections

Palestine

Latin America

Communalism

Gender/Feminism

Dalit

Humanrights

Economy

India-pakistan

Kashmir

Environment

Book Review

Gujarat Pogrom

Kandhamal Violence

Arts/Culture

India Elections

Archives

Links

Submission Policy

About Us

Disclaimer

Fair Use Notice

Contact Us

Search Our Archive

 



Our Site

Web

Subscribe To Our
News Letter

Name: E-mail:

 

Printer Friendly Version

Sanitizing Education

By Shalini Sharma

26 April, 2013
Countercurrents.org

Even as the debate on Delhi University's plans for a complete overhaul in the name of “modernization” is ongoing, another alarming situation is emerging in the name of “radicalization” albeit with little attention paid from media or civil society. The main educational body of India, University Grants Commission (UGC), is currently considering measures to stop radicalization of youth. Intended measures aim to sanitize human rights education and values among students and make this education mandatory for all in the name of national integration.

The original copy of the letter issued January 2013 taken from the UGC's own website can be read here. It seems they have no qualms about publicizing this agenda.
http://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/0540941_redicalization.pdf

Back Story: These measures are being undertaken on instructions from the National Integration Council (NIC) formed in 1962 to design measures for national integration. The commission was reconstituted in April 2010 with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its chairman. This occurred at a time when the anti corruption protests were at their peak in India. The fifteenth meeting of NIC discussed ways in which the state and police should handle civil disturbances and measures necessary to curb radicalization of youth. Followed soon by a well tested strategy of Manmohan Govt: in October 2010, the government established a standing committee of the National Integration Council with Home Minister P. Chidambaram as chairman, and four Union Ministers and nine Chief Ministers as its members. This committee is to decide on future agenda items. It is this newly constituted committee that came up with this, seemingly banal, yet an out of box thinking. Now the question is why?

This is a question that Indian media did not deem fit for an inquiry. In fact the story largely went unnoticed. Firstpost did a story on this in March'13 focusing on how effective the government would be in its aim of sanitizing technical education. See: http://www.firstpost.com/india/ugc-wants-science-students-deradicalized-experts-term-move-idiotic-645465.html . An unfortunate condition where a probe into state's mentality is usually done on the basis of its expected efficiency while bypassing state's intent in bringing such a proposal at the first place.

Question is not whether this instruction from NIC (not a proposal) will succeed in doing anything about radicalization, rather it is the state connivance to alter the aims for NIC to suit its current neoliberal pro-US agenda. Manmohan government has found a formula in reconstituting an old body with new membership and alter its aims. The shift in the aims gets obscured because of too much focus on its claims of new measures to deal with old problems. Coincidentally, Chidambaram is appointed to provide leadership to most of these new or reconstituted bodies e.g. GoM Media – formed in 2010 to deal with the old problem of PM's silence. Everyone becomes happy that PM will finally speak. But to whom? Hand picked selected senior journalists and editors. Remember Bhopal? GoM Bhopal was reconstituted – an old recommendation from cabinet to bring respite to Carbide's current owner Dow Chemical and break the legal bottleneck – strategically after public outrage on the 7th June 2010 verdict. GoM formed. Media happy. Result: Criminal curative petition dismissed, GoM Chairperson announces that Govt has no intention to extradite Anderson or to present correct figures on disaster related casualties in the civil curative case pending before the Supreme Court. In both the cases newly constituted GoM proved to be a media exercise in entirety. And now, this NIC. Some measure of Chidambaram's success rate in carrying out the unstated agenda which in turn inspires confidence in the Prime Minister whose allegiance to U.S. has been noticed with such alacrity in the not so distant past that we can blame our memory. Does this sound like a conspiracy theory with little evidence?

Some will argue that the state might be interpreting "radicalization" differently, to mean to curb right wing politics, from the concern that inspires this long note (radicalization as awareness/political action). Yes, point taken. There can be different interpretations to the end Indian state seeks to achieve. However, there are no different interpretations to the means state wants to reach this end i.e. human rights education or, when read more critically, human rights consciousness. There is no guarantee as to how this plan will pan out in future. When the state guides its institutions to deploy specific means to reach an ambivalent aim – in terms of interpretation as well as its expected success rate – what should we as public do? Wait till we know for sure what steps have been legally imposed on us, what their outcome is and whether there is any space left to remedy the situation? Then dig into the history for evidence to pin responsibility? Can we take a chance when this policy concerns public education? Or should we resist now when such polices with "ambivalent" aims are in the process of being institutionalized? Not to mention, that the ambivalence around state's intention due to multiple interpretations become state's tool to justify the means it used if challenged/exposed.

What inspires the Indian state to, so cleverly and strategically, alter the aims for NIC to suit the current regime's neoliberal agenda? The fact that there is a growing public opinion and support against Indian state's pro- US, pro- corporate led developmental goals- an aim that found middle class support so far, has started to worry the state. There is also another subtle but extremely critical political agenda. As one friend pointed out, “When people are radicalising elsewhere by reading inappropriate (for the government) literature, it is indeed a great idea to introduce humanities in all curricula to control the texts being read under the title of human values, such as the functioning of the ministries of love and peace.” That they find utility in inclusion of human rights education into the national curriculum as a means to stop radicalization is another point that should be enough to disturb us.

Some others, while quoting Carl Sagan, would argue that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Indeed. They also require extraordinary effort to not dismiss the ordinary beliefs, fears, hunches, speculations. These remain ordinary only till an evidence is produced. Again, Bhopal is an excellent example of this – extraordinary claims proved through decades of persistent activism in gathering extraordinary proofs. Here, as Veena Das says, “The suspicion of the ordinary seems to be rooted in the fact that relations require a repeated attention to the most ordinary of objects and events, but our theoretical impulse is often to think of agency in terms of escaping the ordinary rather than a descent into it."

Now, if you have actually gone and read the letter you will find that it says “sensitize” (not sanitize) human rights issues and values. But when state says sensitize, I read it as “sanitize” because that is the unstated agenda. When they say Remember Bhopal, they mean turn Bhopal on its head and introduce SEZs and Petrocomplex hubs, when they say lets talk to people, it means brainwash them, when they say lets standardise history, it means leave no scope for revisiting it, when they say Koodankulum is safe, it means run for your life.

It is high time that we start to chronicle the several different seemingly banal and not so banal ways in which Indian state is expanding its control over our hearts, minds and freedoms. May be it is the time to descend into the ordinary.

Shalini Sharma is a Research Scholar at SOAS, London

 

 

 

 




 

 


Comments are moderated