Student Struggle – July 23, 2019

committee report of 2016 which strangely never
saw the light of day barring a summary of its rec-
ommendations. There were of course other tenta-
tive moves and suggestions floated by the MHRD
to abolish or restructure the UGC in particular.
The overall climate of resistance to centralization
and corporatization as well as the tempestuous
political climate of the time held the government
back. Now with a more decisive electoral man-
date, they feel on a surer footing so as to release
the draft immediately after the election results.
Before any detailed analysis of the policy could
be undertaken, temperatures were raised by the
proposed Three Language Formula- learning of
a regional language along with Hindi and Eng-
lish for those in the North, while an implicit sug-
gestion of Hindi for non-Hindi speaking states.
Before long, the contentious issue mobilized
opinion in the south as well as creating a so-
cial media storm. The government immediately
backtracked stating that it was only a draft and
the formula would be more flexible. Two things
have to be borne in mind. Firstly, already in the
existing three language formula followed mainly
between classes 5-8, while a lot of students in
non-Hindi speaking states study Hindi, the re-
verse is not true. Instead of teaching Kannada
or Tamil to prepare children for their impending
migratory careers in IT hubs of the south (where
they often complain about language issues and
an ‘alien’ culture), Sanskrit is taught in a ritual-
istic way just to appease a reactionary tendency
which neither inculcates the knowledge of San-
skrit and does not of course foster inter-regional
cohesion. Secondly, again Hindi imposition is an
expression of a political tendency of chauvinism
rather than based on any real desire tro teach the
language. A government that is following sylla-
ble to syllable, the diktats of international finance
capital in its economic policy can hardly be ex-
pected to make Hindi economically viable. In
2005, journalist Sucheta Dalal found out that a
massive 400% difference exist between similarly
skilled people in terms of wages if one of them

knows English and the other does not. The lat-

est move was thus cle3arly designed to test the

waters. Hindi promotion has been a slogan of

the BJP since its earlier avatar Jana Sangh in the

1960s. But the BJP knows full well the serious op-

position that exists to any concrete step of impo-

sition. This was hence also a move to divert atten-

tion and camouflage the substantive issues from

greater scrutiny in this area of clickbait.

The Policy in itself is pretty high on rhetoric. In

theory, it seems to recognise all what is wrong

with the current education system- rote learn-

ing, inaccessibility for the underprivileged and

all else. However, while certain remedial meas-

ures are ominous signs of what is to come from a

dispensation guided by the twin logic of promot-

ing religion laced nationalism and profits for the

burgeoning private sector.

In terms of primary education, the approach is

best summed up as one of ad-hoc application

and a desire to increasingly centralise. The policy

aims to take over the functioning of the Angan-

wadis from the Ministry of Women and Child

Development and transfer it to the MHRD. Os-

tensibly, this will create more opportunities for

comprehensive and useful teaching and learning

in pre-school. Such a transfer will involve mas-

sive restructuring of apart from other things fi-

20

The draft policy

is essentially a

means to integrate

government provisions

with the private,

for-profit institutions

as well as the RSS

sponsored

Ekal Vidyalayas.

Student Struggle | June - July 2019