Draw Inspiration From Socialism
The socialist world calls out to us as a bird calls
out to the world at dawn-by its rich experience of
developing an education worthy of the people. In
China, in the USSR, in North Korea, in Vietnam,
in Cuba and every other socialist country, educa-
tion is considered a battlefront. Nowhere has the
battle to wipe out illiteracy and ignorance been
more vigorously carried to success than in these
countries where the picture before liberation re-
sembled or was even worse than, the picture in
India today. Nowhere else has the content of edu-
cation been refashioned according to social real-
ity. Nowhere else, has real success been achieved
in linking theoretical study with production
work. Nowhere has the practice of indulging in
abstractions and vulgarisms in the name of aca-
demic study been more decisively combated. No-
where else has education truly concentrated, not
merely on developing precise and useful scien-
tific knowledge, but on the social, political and
moral formation of a new generation ready to
shoulder new tasks. Nowhere else have students,
teachers, and parents been so happily involved in
developing among the youth a new attitude to-
wards work, made of courage, creative spirit, and
love of work and the working people. Nowhere
else have the doors of education from the low-
est to the highest level been thrown wide open in
practice to the children of workers and peasants,
to the children of the toiling people.Priorities in our CountyEducation, like culture, is not and can never be
apolitical or neutral, because it is conditioned by
the needs of social classes and their movements.
It can only reflect class interests in a class society.
To assert otherwise, to maintain an air of impar-
tiality, is a trap, a lie.
Education in India reflects the fact that the capi-
talists and landlords are the ruling classes in this
society, that political power is in their hands.
India is poor in providing a need-based mini-
mum wage and a decent life to its workers and
employees. It is extremely rich in the matter of
providing profits and super profits to the for-
eign, and the big Indian concerns, or in allowing
crores of rupees to accumulate in the hands of
the big exploiters as black money. India is poor in
providing land and livelihood to the millions of
toilers who live below subsistence in the villages.
It is extremely rich when you consider the land
and wealth accumulated in the hands of land-
lords and big traders and money-lenders.
India is a beggar when it comes to wiping out the
curse of illiteracy or providing free and univer-
sal school education to all its children or offering
scholarships and facilities to study to poor stu-
dents and boys and girls coming from Scheduled
Castes and Tribes. It is a reckless spendthrift in
the amount spent on non-development expendi-
ture, on the bureaucracy, on Ministers and the
apparatus on repression.Education, an Instrument of StruggleAre students and youth taking this situation lying
down? During the last three years, democratic
student struggles have burst out in different parts
of India, spontaneously and in an organized way,Student Struggle | June - July 2019 31