People's Democracy

UNFORTUNATELY, too many people --- many of them academics and well known intellectuals --- are today falling prey to the RSS propaganda that for several decades academic institutions and education policies and content of education in India were dominated by Left-leaning "academic-politicians," out of tune with Indian reality and Indian ethos. We are further told that this was achieved through connivance with and patronage from the ruling Congress government of the post-independence years. The Sangh Parivar-controlled, BJP-led NDA government is, therefore, simply restoring the balance. Put bluntly, if the boot is now on the other leg, what right have the erstwhile-in-power academic-politicians to crib about it?

Third rate RSS ideologues like Shourie have made it their business to equip his RSS colleagues with such ammunition to fill their columns and speeches with, as they are doing these days, and to allow their fascist propaganda a façade of ‘meticulous research.’ Shourie’s shoddy work Eminent Historians has become the Bible for RSS cadres. It is not a matter of small significance that the book was not touched by any reputed publishers. Shourie has himself published the book.

Fascists have always fed on and depended on middle class discontents to create a generalised cynicism with the legitimate institutions of democracy and accountability, particularly with those that reflect ideological opinions. In other words, everyone else has made a mess of everything and is tarnished with the uniform brush of opportunism and failure, and it is time now for those who are "different" to take charge --- no matter that they adopt, with a vengeance, the very same measures and methods they hold others guilty of.

The success of this enterprise is in no small measure due to the collaboration of self-proclaimed "objective" and "disinterested" groups, mainly the right wing socialists of Indian brand who have always felt uncomfortable with secular ideology, and whose self-justification for not coming forward against a right wing alternative is expressed through presenting every ideological battle as a tussle over spoils and patronage. Without this factor entering into play, no one even remotely connected with the world of social sciences would buy their "theory." Audiences are carefully chosen, and bridges made across the anti-secular ideological spectrum through holier-than-thou gestures that in actual fact contribute to weakening secular initiatives in the country. A veil is thrown over the real issues involved. It is not secularism and democracy that are at stake, but particular people’s positions. It is an explanation the cynicised middle class is ready to buy.

This entire construction needs to be blasted, and shown for what it is --- a fraud on the Indian people to justify their campaign of hatred and divisive politics.

When were research institutions dominated by Left-leaning academics through the connivance of the Congress? The much-celebrated Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), now filled with RSS-linked persons, was never the Left bastion it is made out to be. The fact sheet on the ICHR is sufficient to demolish the RSS contention that the council has always been filled with historians of the Left, or that only their books have been selected for translations.

Of the former chairpersons of the ICHR, only two --- Irfan Habib and R S Sharma --- are Marxists. A R Kulkarni, Nihar Ranjan Ray, Lokesh Chandra, Ravindra Kumar, S Sattar, B R Grover (the recent chairperson who had been in the same post before), T R Sareen can by no stretch of definition be termed so. Among the members of the ICHR council have been K A Nizami, Amales Tripathi, H D Sankalia, B Sheikh Ali, S Sattar, K V Ramesh, A R Kulkarni, Y S Subbarayalu, B N Mukherji, S C Misra, A Q Rafiqi, J S Grewal, M G S Narayanan, B N Goswami, Sushil Chowdhary, Rajat Ray, Lallanji Gopal, G C Pande, Amales Tripathi, and others who certainly are no Marxists. So, how does the contention of Marxist hegemony of the ICHR and patronage by Leftists of Leftists, or the Congress of Leftists, in the ICHR hold true? More than 81 books have been translated by the ICHR in 12 languages, only five of them being those of Marxists.

If it appears that secular-Left historians are all over the place, then surely the reasons are to be sought in the excellence of their historiography rather than in the manipulations that the Sangh Parivar alleges with regard to research institutions and academic bodies. In any case, a point that needs to be emphasised again and again is that their presence did not derive from a Leftist government in place at the centre while the sole factor for the presence of RSS-linked persons in the ICHR and other academic bodies today is the BJP government and the state control of these bodies by the Sangh Parivar. Why else was the 84-year-old K S Lal, who cannot attend office due to health reasons, made the chairman of ICHR? The man was on the RSS panel in the Ram temple debate.

The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), in the news these days for the petty and inter-factional fights of the RSS-filled nominees in the council, has similarly had an eclectic composition of officials as well as researchers associated with it. Social science institutes funded by it all over the country have in the past been headed by eminent people, not necessarily of Marxist persuasion. These institutes have carried out research programmes on various themes.

In the past, the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS) at Shimla has been headed by people like J S Grewal and Mrinal Miri who would hate to be characterised as Marxists. The IIAS has always had fellows and researchers working on varied themes, and seminars on topics ranging from education, Indian philosophy, religion, environment, epigraphy, culture, linguistics, urbanisation, foreign policies, forest rights, peasant movements, tribals, anthropology, literature and the arts on a scale that would outnumber the number of Marxists in the entire country in that particular field! If one remembers well, the institution was increasingly being starved of funds, to the extent that a few years ago academics across the board carried a signature campaign addressed to the president to save the institution from being converted into a heritage tourist hotel. Where was the question, then, of great government patronage to Leftists in this institution?

The Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) can, by no standards, be seen as a Left bastion. In fact, its concerns and perspectives on culture are far removed from the concerns of the Left.

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is today trying to impose the RSS-inspired National Curricular Framework on the country and to change the history texts. Contrary to all the RSS propaganda, the NCERT never had Romila Thapar, R S Sharma or Bipan Chandra on their advisory committees, although their books have been part of the curriculum for over two decades, and have been revised a number of times following feedback and suggestions from NCERT members.

The BJP has managed to pack its men into all relevant educational institutions. It is trying to expand its network of Vidya Bharati schools, to infiltrate into the non-formal stream of education through the NGOs it has sponsored, change the national curriculum while holding just a minority of state governments, in a context when education is on the concurrent list.

Today there are about ten state governments controlled by the Congress, two by the Left, one by the National Conference, one by the Akali Dal, and one by the TDP, and all of them are opposed to communalisation of education. Thus, in fact, over 15 to 16 state governments are functioning in a system where education is a concurrent list subject. And yet the BJP is able to push through its agenda, and this is the real cause of concern for the secular people. Dr Murli Manohar Joshi refuses to call the mandatory meeting of the states’ education ministers, or to take sanction from the Central Advisory Board of Education. Yet the BJP has framed and declared a curriculum as "national" curriculum. The fact is that it is these state governments and not the BJP in power that reflect the country’s real views on education.

If anything, the previous governments can be held guilty of gross neglect of education and educational institutions. It is a reflection of their disinterest in education, and its under-valuation, that, in the last two decades, apart from a brief span, the government never had as minister a person really interested in education. These governments took neither the task of universalisation of elementary education nor the goal of secularisation of education seriously.

No measures were taken to prevent the slow and insidious RSS infiltration RSS into education that continued unabated even when the RSS was banned. The network for RSS take-over of institutions was already in place when the BJP government came to power.

More mundanely, there were 12 vacancies in the governing body of the ICSSR academic council, which the United Front government left unfilled. Similarly, the post of chairperson and several vacancies in the ICHR council lay unfilled. The post of director of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library could, similarly, have been filled had previous government been interested enough. More than 20 posts in the NIEPA and NCERT remained vacant, waiting for the likes of the infamous Rastogi to man the selection committees in NCERT. The IIAS was starved of funds until the BJP found funds to fulfil its agenda. The list could go on.

These facts need to be marshaled not just for taking stock of the dirty RSS campaign of slander, but equally for counting the wages of default and neglect of education by secular political parties --- for seizing the initiative before it is too late. Leave alone the state education system, even the largest private enterprise in education --- the Vidya Bharati network --- must not be left unchallenged in the days of globalisation and the euphoria over privatisation.