#dnaEdit: New education policy

For much of the hour-long Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, Human Resources Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar fielded persistent questions on whether the education system is being saffronised, whether minority-run institutions were being discriminated against, and whether the Centre is imposing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government’s agenda on the states because education falls in the Concurrent List in the Constitution. It is not the case that the newly appointed minister has succeeded in convincing the critics. But he did not allow the debate to become polarised or acerbic. By not letting the debate turn acrimonious he showed himself to be quite different from his predecessor, the feisty Smriti Irani. Of course, he acknowledged that the consultations with regard to the new policy were happening when she was holding the portfolio. 

He said that the last time there was a new initiative in the education policy was in 1985, which was implemented in 1992. He said that after a quarter century there is need for a new policy, and he said the policy was still in progress. He asked for suggestions from all quarters, which should reach him early next month so that they could be incorporated in the draft policy before it is discussed and finalised. All that he would say is that the government wants to make education accessible to all and that the emphasis on quality education.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Until the policy is announced, it will be difficult to accuse the BJP of having saffronised the educational system. For example, on the issue of introducing Sanskrit in schools, he said that it was a suggestion and that it was for the state governments to decide. The objection to Sanskrit did not come from the secular parties but from the ones in Tamil Nadu because they suspect that the attempt to bring in Sanskrit will be at the expense of Tamil. It is a politically sensitive issue, and the BJP is well aware that it cannot carry its cultural nationalism too far in many parts of the country. As a matter of fact, the BJP is not a great enthusiast of Sanskritic high culture despite its pretension to be its torchbearer. It is the true conservatives — the few there are in the country — and the high-minded liberals who care much more for Sanskrit and its riches than the BJP’s Hindutva brigade.

The challenge for the new education policy is to be as updated and relevant to the changing needs of the people as possible. Some of the ideologues in the BJP and its mentor, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), would want to insert cultural values which they would consider to be Indian and Hindu in the same way that conservatives in the United States would want Christian values to be part of the curriculum. But the BJP/RSS and the American conservatives cannot do much with the science and technology syllabi, or even with that of the social sciences and their empirical methods. They may speak of Vedic science and Vedic mathematics, but it is the latest developments in the sciences and mathematics that would have to find a place in the syllabus in the schools and colleges in the country. They may pretend that the new things were already embedded in ancient wisdom, but they have to learn the new information any way. It would appear that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Javadekar are likely to walk the fine line that demarcates the needs of a new era and the cherished fetishes of the past.