A short [and incomplete] history of Kashmir

[This is an attempt to quickly summarize the history of Kashmir without personal opinions or judgment.]

Provincial map of Kashmir

Disputed Area map of Kashmir

Pre 1947

• Kashmir was one of the largest princely states in British India, with a spread out thin population.
• It primarily composed of five regions -- (a) the Hindu dominated Jammu in the south, bordering Punjab with large arable land; (b) Valley of Kashmir, to the north of Jammu, largely Muslim in demographics; (c) Ladakh, to the east of the Valley, bordering Tibet, largely Buddhist; (d) Gilgit and (e) Baltistan, both west and north of the Valley, mostly Muslim but Shia and Ismaili rather than the Sunni dominated Valley.
• Many historical texts credit the Mauryan king Ashoka as the founder of the city of Srinagar. Kashmir was definitely under the Mauryan rule in 3^rd century B.C. and later the Kushanas.
• The Gonandiyas ruled Kashmir for many centuries, with a break in the 5^th century A.D. when Kashmir was ruled by the invading Huns (Toramana and Mihirakula).
• After the Gonandiyas, there were the Karkota, Utpala, Kutumbi, Divira, and Lohara, ‎[14] until Muslim rule came into Kashmir in 1349.
• Then followed 4 centuries of Muslim rule under Durrani (from Afghanistan), the Mughals, and the Afghans.
• All these Kashmir territories were brought under one kingdom (state) in the mid 1800s by the Dogra Rajputs.
• Following the two Anglo-Sikh wars ‎[18] and the subsequent cash payment deals with the East India Company, part of Kashmir remains with the Sikhs and part is ceded to the East India Company.
  

1947-1948

• The importance of Kashmir in the whole story of independence of India and Pakistan is primarily because of its geographically strategic location.
• Sharing borders with Afghanistan, China, Tibet, separated by a small piece of land from USSR, and of course wedged between India and Pakistan, Kashmir was of everyone's interest.

• The story of Kashmir is the story of Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah ‎[10].
• Lowly born Abdullah received his Master of Science degree from Aligarh Muslim University, and led the revolt against Raja Hari Singh's rule in Kashmir.
• He founded the National Conference (earlier known as All Jammu Kashmir Muslim Conference) which included Hindus and Sikhs, and fought against the princedom asking for a representative government based on universal suffrage.
• National Conference closely aligned with Indian National Congress, following close friendship between Abdullah and Nehru

• In 1946, Hari Singh imprisons Abdullah and plans on keeping Kashmir independent from India and Pakistan
• 1947, Lord Mountbatten visits Kashmir and tries to convince Hari Singh to accede to one or the other nation, but fails
• Gandhi visits Kashmir after that, but only meets workers and students who want Abdullah released
• Come Aug 15, 1947, Kashmir offers a "standstill agreement" to allow free movement of people and trade through the state; Pakistan signs it, India still waiting and watching.
• Prime Minister Nehru (himself an ethnic Kashmiri) wants Kashmir to accede to India; Home Minister Patel although initially inclined to let Kashmir accede to Pakistan, changes his mind in Sep 1947 when Jinnah accepts the accession of Hindu-majority Junagadh. That instrument of accession was violated, and finally Junagadh reversed its decision. More details on Junagadh in an article by A.G. Noorani at this link ‎[19].
• End of Sep 1947, Abdullah is released, and he immediately demands a government of the people in Kashmir, in his words, "A popular government, not of any one community; a joint government of the Muslims, the Hindus, and the Sikhs. That is what I am fighting for."
• Pakistan expects a Muslim-majority Kashmir to naturally join them, while India with its religion-is-irrelevant-secular ideals expects Kashmir to join India due to the closeness between Indian National Congress and the non-sectarian National Conference.
• In Oct 1947, Hari Singh still wants an independent Kashmir, and the deputy PM of Kashmir is quoted to say "The only thing that will change our mind is if one side or the other decides to use force against us".

• In two weeks, end of Oct 1947, Pathans from the North Western Province (now part of Pakistan) invade Kashmir from the North.
• Even today, there is no clear answer to why-they-came, or who-supported-them.
• Its just called the "tribal invasion of Kashmir" and no historians or anthropologists are able to answer this question.
• However, at the time, India believed Pakistan had supported this invasion. Pakistan disclaimed all responsibility and said this might be a spontaneous support of the Pathans for fellow Muslims being persecuted in a Hari Singh led Hindu kingdom.
• In two days the invasion had pushed its way through to the Valley.
• In Baramula they lost sight of the larger goal, and decided to loot and rape [and lost their standing claim for fighting a holy war]
• Even strategically that cost the invaders since it delayed their access to Srinagar [capital of maharaja Hari Singh]
• Hari Singh, in 2 days, asked the Indian government for military assistance.
• Sheikh Abdullah also urged that the Indian government send troops immediately to push back the invaders.
• Lord Mountbatten suggested that India should get Kashmir's accession before committing any forces to its defense.
• This was acted upon and the Instrument of Accession was signed ‎[15].
• Indian troops [and Air Force] managed to push back the invaders. A more detailed version with step-by-step map of force movements is well documented in a Wikipedia article ‎[17].

1948-1951

• Upon Nehru and Gandhi's endorsement and insistence, Hari Singh appoints Sheikh Abdullah the Prime Minister of Kashmir.
• For both Nehru and Gandhi, Abdullah is the face and symbol of secularism and interfaith harmony; not so much for Pakistan and Liaqat Ali Khan who openly denounce Abdullah as a pawn of the Indian government.
• In 1948 Nehru takes the Kashmir issue to the United Nations.
• Sir Zafrullah Khan presents a great case for Pakistan and Kashmir is cast as unfinished business of the Partition now
• The Security Council alters the "Jammu-Kashmir Question" agenda to "India-Pakistan Question" -- a symbolic defeat for India
• Pakistan demands withdrawal of all armed forces and a plebiscite
• India agrees to that under National Conference's agenda; only after withdrawal of all armed forces from all parties and the resolution is signed ‎[16].
• Abdullah's government formalizes the accession to India in 1951.
• No plebiscite for the people to decide formally if they want to join India, Pakistan, or be independent
• In all fairness, full withdrawal of armed forces has not occurred either

• Ramachandra Guha in "India After Gandhi" ‎[1] says this about Abdullah --
• Whether or not Abdullah was India's man, he certainly was not Pakistan's. In April 1948 he described that country as 'an unscrupulous and savage enemy.' He dismissed Pakistan as a theocratic state and the Muslim League as 'pro-prince' rather than 'pro-people.' In his view, 'Indian and not Pakistani leaders. . . had all along stood for the rights of the States' people.' When a diplomat in Delhi asked Abdullah what he thought of the option of independence, he answered that it would never work, as Kashmir was too small and too poor. (91-92)

• Although Abdullah accepted the accession to India, he always thought of Kashmir as a Nation. The full text of his speech to the J&K Constituent Assembly ‎[12] (always read Nation as Kashmir here) after his election in 1951 makes a very interesting read and gives an insight into Abdullah's ideas for the Nation of Kashmir.
• He continues to call for the plebiscite even after 1951.
• Later in life, when asked what he thought of the option of Independence, Abdullah answered that it would never work, as Kashmir was too small and too poor. Besides, said Abdullah, "Pakistan would swallow us up. They have tried it once. They would do it again." [in Y.D. Gundevia, The testament of Sheikh Abdullah ‎[13]]

• Abdullah deliberated enough, and even worked with the ambassador from United States on whether the US would support an independent Kashmir.
• By then, the US had allied itself with Pakistan, given its critical geographical proximity to the USSR, and any openly anti-Pakistan move would not be supported by them.
• Finally, Abdullah rejected the option of independence as impractical.
• The option of joining Pakistan as immoral (he called it a "landlord ridden feudal theocracy").
• But, Kashmir would join India on its own terms -- including retaining its state flag, and the designation of its head as Prime Minister.
  

1952-1963

• April 10^th 1952, Abdullah in a public speech says his party would accept the Indian constitution "in its entirety once we are satisfied that the grave of communalism has been finally dug. Of that we are not sure yet." He also says that the Kashmiris "fear what will happen to them and their position if, for instance, something happens to Pandit Nehru."
• The Praja Parishad Party [consisting largely of Hindus from Jammu] opposes the two-flags, two-constitutions, and two-prime-ministers system and vociferously protest.
• Abdullah saw the Praja Parishad movement as way to force a solution of the entire Kashmir issue on communal lines.
• Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee leads the Praja Parishad and campaigns heavily for Kashmir to be wholly part of India.
• In a subsequent arrest, Mookerjee falls ill, and later dies of a heart attack while in jail.
• This triggers a much larger protest and the Jan Sangh in India heavily oppose the Nehru government's support to Sheikh Abdullah.
• It is purported that Sheikh Abdullah is seeking independence for Kashmir (not clear which part of Kashmir since Jammu was clearly controlled by the Praja Parishad, and the Northern Areas were already part of Pakistan) and in a move supported by the Indian government, the head of state Karan Singh (son of Maharaja Hari Singh) dismisses Sheikh Abdullah from his Prime Minister's position.
• He is also arrested within two hours of that, and jailed, while his deputy Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed moves into power. Later biographers explain this as a way by which Abdullah was kept "quiet and safe" in prison, because as a free man he would easily mobilize popular sentiment in his favor. Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed starts his role of Prime Minister in a populist style, holding darbars to hear the grievances of the public. Among things he did, he raised the procurement price of paddy; made school education free; approved new state sponsored engineering and medical colleges; and abolished customs barriers between J&K and rest of India.
• More development in the works, as Rajendra Prasad (then president of India) visits Srinagar to inaugurate a hydroelectric project on the Jhelum river.
• The State's own Constitution comes into force on January 26, 1957 under which the elections to the State Legislative Assembly are held for the first time on the basis of adult franchise the same year. This Constitution further reiterates the ratification of the State's accession to Union of India.
• The Sheikh is suddenly released in January 1958, after no charges were brought against him since his arrest in August 1953.

• He makes his way back to the Kashmir Valley, where he is met with a stunning reception.
• Within 3 months, in April 1958, he is arrested once more; and this time on the charge of plotting with Pakistan to break up India, create communal ill-feeling and disharmony, and receive secret aid from Pakistan in the form of money and bombs.
• Although the Sheikh may have contemplated independence for Kashmir, it is clear to all that the charges are easily exaggerated.
• In his trial, the Sheikh says that he stands for a single objective: the right of self-determination for the people of J&K. Also repeats his commitment to secularism, admiration to Gandhi, and once strong friendship with Nehru, who even now "would not deny the right of the people as the final arbiters of their fate".
• While the Sheikh is in prison, Nehru personally (financially) takes care of educating the Sheikh's son Farooq Abdullah in Jaipur.

1964

• Post China war, Nehru's position in the political sphere of India is heavily undermined. Many signs that the man is failing in health as well.
• In April 1964 Nehru decides to put an end to the matter of the Sheikh, and after obtaining the consent of the Chief Minister of J&K orders the release of Sheikh Abdullah from a decade in the prisons.
• Sheikh Abdullah in his first speech on the day after his release, says the two pressing problems of communal strife and Kashmir should be solved during Prime Minister Nehru's lifetime; and that after him a solution of these problems would become difficult.
• Abdullah travels through out the Kashmir valley and is cheered heavily; before traveling to New Delhi to meet with Nehru.
• The Congress party as well as the Left party (and of course the Jan Sangh) are very concerned about the prospects of talks between Nehru and Abdullah, as they all see Abdullah as one with a design to detach Kashmir from India.
• Nehru receives support from two unexpected sources – the radical socialist and Sarvodaya movement leader Jayaprakash Narayan; and Nehru's former political opponent and one-time close associate C. Rajagopalachari.
• Rajaji openly says that the freeing of Abdullah should act as a prelude to allowing the people of Kashmir to exercise their human right to rule themselves as well as they can.
• Meanwhile in Kashmir, the open corruption of the Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed's government had turned popular sentiments against India.
• April 29, 1964, Abdullah meets with Nehru for a week and discusses many details of a solution for Kashmir with Nehru and his deputy (officially he was a minister in the Cabinet without any portfolio) Lal Bahadur Shastri (also a fellow Kashmiri).
• Rajaji writes to Shastri urging that Kashmir be given some kind of autonomous status. Rajaji described the self-determinatino of Kashmir seems to be a lesser issue than reducing Indo-Pak jealousy.
• Abdullah visits Rajaji on May 5^th and after a long meeting and are purported to have come up with an ideal solution for the Kashmir issue. The Hindustan Times carries the headline: "Abdulla, CR, evolve Kashmir formula: Proposal to be discussed with PM".
• May 6^th, Abdullah returns to Delhi and has long discussions with Nehru. It is not clear what exactly this plan was, although there were hints at a possible condominium over Kashmir by both India and Pakistan (along the lines of autonomous Andorra, whose security was guaranteed by both France and Spain).
• Abdullah openly says he wants to visit Pakistan with more than one alternative.
• Rajaji in an article writes that asking Field Marshal Ayub Khan to cede Azad Kashmir will scuttle the entire plan; and probably the Sheikh should focus all his attention on Kashmir valley, leaving Jammu as a counterpoise to Azad Kashmir, to be presumed to be integrated to India without question.
• On May 11, Abdullah openly asserts that despite his weakness (in health), Nehru is the symbol of India, and that after Nehru he did not see anyone else tackling these problems with the same breadth of vision.
• May 16^th, Nehru talks about these alternatives, and says that unless we succeed, India will carry the burden of conflict with Pakistan with all that this [these alternatives] implies.
• May 22^nd, Nehru declines to disclose the details of all the alternatives saying he does not want to prejudice the Sheikh's mission to Pakistan. Just says that his government is prepared to have an agreement with Pakistan on the basis of their holding on to that part of Kashmir occupied by them.
• May 25^th, Sheikh Abdullah meets with Ayub Khan in Rawalpindi for over 3 hours and end of it says he found in Rawalpindi, the same encouraging response as in Delhi; and that there is an equal keenness on both sides to come to a real understanding.
• May 26^th, another long meeting between the Sheikh and Ayub Khan, and the Sheikh is seen coming out beaming. He informs the crowd, that on the basis of these talks, the Pakistani president has agreed to a meeting with the Prime Minister Nehru in the mid-June.
• Dawn, Pakistan's written forum for its intelligentsia, complains that Abdullah had taken up a role of an apostle of peace and friendship between Pakistan and India, rather than that of the leader of Kashmir, whose prime objective should have been to seek their freedom from India.
• May 27^th, Nehru dies, and with him, these campaigns for peace.
• Hindustan Times quotes a Pakistani newspaper as, "The death of Nehru meant the end of a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue. Whoever succeeded Nehru would not have the stature, courage and political support necessary to go against the highly emotional tide of public opinion in India favouring a status quo in Kashmir."
  

1964 – 1982

• After Nehru's death, the Sheikh is interned from 1965 to 1968 and exiled from Kashmir in 1971 for 18 months. The Plebiscite Front is also banned. This was allegedly done to prevent him and the Plebiscite Front which was supported by him from taking part in Elections in Kashmir.
• 1965, the Indo-Pak war ends in a stalemate, and following a UN-negotiated ceasefire, the Line of Control is still maintained.
• 1971, another Indo-Pak war, this time for the freedom of East Pakistan – Bangladesh is formed.
• Sheikh Abdullah watching the alarming turn of events in the subcontinent realizes that "for the survival of this region there was an urgent need to stop pursuing confrontational politics and promoting solution of issues by a process of reconciliation and dialogue rather than confrontation".
• Abdullah starts a dialogue with the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, being keenly aware of [as he put it] imminent danger of the breakup and balkanisation of both India and Pakistan with disastrous consequences.
• In 1974, the Sheikh-Indira accord ‎[20] is signed, whereby the Sheikh gives up the demand for a plebiscite in lieu of the people being given the right to self rule by a democratically elected Government rather than the puppet government which till then ruled the State. Following this Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah becomes the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
• Congress Party withdraws its support and mid-term elections are called again in J&K.
• Abdullah's National Conference again wins with overwhelming majority, and Sheikh Abdullah becomes the Chief Minister again, and remains the CM until his death in 1982.

Post 1982

• Dr. Farooq Abdullah, son of the Sheikh, is elected CM after his father's death, and remained CM until 1984.
• Ghulam Mohammad Shah succeeds Farooq Abdullah as the CM between 1984 and in less than a year, President's rule imposed on J&K.
• Farooq Abdullah returns as CM in 1986 and remains CM until 1990, when another term of President's rule is imposed, this time for 6 years.
• Again between 1996 and 2002, Farooq Abdullah returns as CM, after President's rule is lifted for 6 more years.
• Following the instability after the Kargil conflict of 1999, President's rule returns to Kashmir in 2002, and continues to be in place even as of today.
• During this post-82 period, much infiltration by jihadis and a lot of atrocities by the army of the Indian Union are documented all over the valley and along the Line of Control.

An extended reading list: [that this document heavily draws upon]

[1] Ramachandra Guha. India after Gandhi – The history of the world's largest democracy. [http://www.amazon.com/India-After-Gandhi-History-Democracy/dp/0060198818]

[2] Romila Thapar, A history of India. [http://www.amazon.com/History-India-Penguin/dp/0140138358]

[3] Romila Thapar, Harbans Mukhia, Bipin Chandra. Communalism and the Writing of Indian History.

[4] A. L. Basham. A cultural history of India.[http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-History-India-L-Basham/dp/0195639219]

[5] Wikipedia article on Kashmir. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir]

[6] BBC News In-Depth – The future of Kashmir. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/south_asia/03/kashmir_future/html/default.stm]

[7] Kashmir Information Network. [http://www.kashmir-information.com/]

[8] Maps of Kashmir. [http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/kashmir.html]

[9] Conflict in Kashmir – selected Internet resources. UC Berkeley Libraries. [http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/SouthAsia/kashmir.html]

[10] Wikipedia article on Sheikh Abdullah. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Abdullah]

[11] A comprehensive note on Jammu & Kashmir – the Indian government's stance. From the web pages of the Indian Embassy in Washington D.C. [http://www.indianembassy.org/policy/Kashmir/Kashmir_MEA/introduction.html]

[12] Full text of Sheikh Abdullah's speech to the J&K Constituent Assembly, 1952. [http://www.kashmir-information.com/LegalDocs/122.html]

[13] Y. D. Gundevia. The testament of Sheikh Abdullah. [http://www.amazon.com/Testament-Sheikh-Abdullah-Y-D-Gundevia/dp/8170174686/]

[14] Kalhana. Rajatarangini – Early history of Kashmir. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajatarangini]

[15] Instrument of Accession executed by Maharajah Hari Singh on October 26, 1947. [http://www.jammu-kashmir.com/documents/instrument_of_accession.html]

[16] Resolution adopted by the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan on 13 August 1948.
(Doc No.1100, Para. 75, dated 9th Nov, 1948). [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/uncom1.htm]

[17] Wikipedia article on the First Kashmir war. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Kashmir_War]

[18] Wikipedia article on the Anglo-Sikh wars. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Sikh_wars]

[19] A.G.Noorani. Of Jinnah and Junagadh. In the Quaid-e-Azam Papers, Volume 5. [Chronicled in two parts in the Frontline reviews. Part1: http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1820/18200780.htm; Part2: http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1821/18210760.htm]

[20] Wikipedia stub on Sheikh-Indira accord. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_Indira-Sheikh_accord]

Links from Austin's Thursday Open Mike discussion list:

[21] Arundhati Roy. Land and Freedom. [http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/18528]

[22] Yogi Sikand. Rethinking Kashmir politics. In The South Asian. [http://www.thesouthasian.org/archives/2008/rethinking_kashmir_politics.html]

[23] BBC News In-Depth – Kashmir Flashpoint. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/south_asia/2002/kashmir_flashpoint/default.stm]

[24] Yogi Sikand. Dangerous portents in Jammu & Kashmir: A view from Doda. In The South Asian. [http://www.thesouthasian.org/archives/2008/dangerous_portents_in_jammu_an.html]

[25] Yogi Sikand. Dreams of Harmony once dreamt. In The South Asian. [http://www.thesouthasian.org/archives/2008/dreams_of_harmony_once_dreamt.html]

United and democratic after 61 years! How?

No one gave us a chance. No one thought we will preserve democracy all these 61 years, barring a 2-year aberration during the emergency years. Statistically, India's democracy is a major outlier. Given its low levels of income and literacy, and its high levels of social conflict, India was "predicted as [a] dictatorship during the entire period" of a study conducted recently on analyzing the relationship between democracy and development in 135 countries. Statistically countries go through dictatorship and authoritarian regimes through their poverty eras, before becoming democratic, and it was found that "the odds against democracy in India were extremely high". The forces that divide India are many, caste, religion, language, class, to name a few -- with gender a uniform discriminative axis across each divisive force. Enough has been written about these divisive elements. What are the forces that keep India together? What are these elements that have helped us transcend or contain the cleaving forces of caste and culture?

In the general elections of 2004, 400 million voters exercised their right. Back in 1952, in the first general elections 46% of India turned out to vote in what was world-wide termed as the "biggest gamble in history". Over the years this has increased and since the late 1960s, three in five eligible Indians have voted come election day. The corresponding percentages in local assembly elections have been even higher. India is probably the only democracy where the voter turn out of the marginalized classes are higher than that of the privileged groups. So, is the right to choose, freely and fairly, a uniting factor for all Indians? You only have to take a gentle look behind this process, and the picture is less than rosy. Most political parties are family firms. Most politicians are corrupt, and many come from a criminal background. Many institutions central to the functioning of a democracy, including a justiciable code of laws and their fair enforcement, have declined precipitously since their days of inception. The percentage of truly independent minded civil-servants has declined, as has the percentage of completely fair-minded judges.

Typically most nationalist movements (in the western world and otherwise) have been glued by a common language or a common religion. By contrast, the Indian nation does not privilege a single language or faith. There are sufficient examples to see the success of minorities in India through the system. It may not be far fetched to say that the unity of the Indian nation and pluralism of language and religion are inseparable. Yet, once again, the contradictions are not hard to see. From the original Jan Sangh slogans of "Hindi, Hindu, Hindustani", to Delhi in 1984, to Godhra and Gujarat of 2002, the minorities have suffered grievous loss of life and property. And in further keeping with the contradictions, for the most part, the minorities appear to retain faith in the democratic and secular ideals of the Indian constitution.

Was the fact that English survived as a language in India a uniting factor? It is easily arguable that large parts of India dont speak or understand English. Yet, it was English that was chosen as the language of governance at various levels, and is easily the language of the pan-Indian elite. The percentage of folks bound by English is not trivial, and as the historian Sarvepalli Gopal writes, "the knowledge of English is the passport for employment at higher levels in all fields". Javed Akhtar, a noted Hindi and Urdu poet once remarked with great insight -- "Apart from all the geographical states, there is one more state in this country, and that is Hindi cinema". Bollywood has undoubtedly been an enormous contributer to the national unity as well.

The question then to ask is, is India a proper or a sham democracy? Can electoral rights, pluralism of language and religion, a foreign language (English), and Bollywood keep India together? Building democracy in a poor society was always going to be hard. Nurturing and rearing secularism in a just-divided country was even harder. And in these 61 years we have come a long way in fulfilling these dreams. There are many holes that need to be plugged. Holes so large, that they threaten to flood the boat. And yet, India stands afloat today, mostly proud.

Today, outside of the political and economic sphere of India, there are many discussing the true meaning of individual freedoms. Many who are pointing out the chinks in our armour. For a liberal democracy, India treats individual freedoms of its citizens with great disdain. But a new generation of young India is discussing this. In small groups, in small pockets, and making little changes.

For those who wish to see it, the pattern is obvious. A hundred years ago, the idea of political freedom in India was a matter of debate in the parlors of the educated elite. In small groups, in small pockets, and making little changes.

Happy 61!

Statistics and Rural India

Statistics are to be interpreted with the right eyes to make some meaningful sense. We earlier saw the story of two India's -- the India shining and the tottering India; the India of credit cards and the India of farmer suicides; the thriving business India and the collapsing agrarian India. To really understand the problems of India from a statistical viewpoint, particularly of rural India, one needs to look beyond narrow definitions, and look at holistic pictures.

Human Development is measured by the eponymous index Human Development Index (HDI) and is annually reported by UNDP's Human Development Report. HDI goes beyond GDP and calculates human development as a measure of three chief charactersitics (the last of which is the GDP per capita).

• living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy),
  
• being educated (measured by adult literacy and enrollment at the primary, secondary and tertiary level), and
  
• having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income).

According to the UNDP website,

The index is not in any sense a comprehensive measure of human development. It does not, for example, include important indicators such as gender or income inequality and more difficult to measure indicators like respect for human rights and political freedoms. What it does provide is a broadened prism for viewing human progress and the complex relationship between income and well-being.

Under this (slightly more) comprehensive measurement (than just GDP), where does India rank?

1. India ranks 128 (out of 177) countries in overall HDI, just below Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. Sierra Leone is bottom at 177.
   
2. Life expectancy at birth: India ranks 125, just below Pakistan and Comoros.
   
3. Adult literacy rate (ages 15+): India ranks 114, just below Rwanda and Malawi.
   
4. Combined primary/secondary/tertiary education enrollment: India ranks 122, just below Namibia and Vietnam.
5. GDP per capita (PPP US$): India ranks 114, just below Syria and Nicaragua.

In all these categories, India seems to be ranked well below sub-Saharan Africa. (This is not to generalize a stereotype of sub-Saharan Africa. India deserves to be ranked at what she has been. And, many sub-Saharan African countries have really been improving over the years. However, due to governmental policies, and gains for the elite of powerful countries, India, in all forms of press, is portrayed as an emerging super-power, whereas, the other countries ranked around us are treated with much disdain on their development curves in the same media.) The much talked about 9% growth rate of GDP is just that, a growth rate, indicating the growth of the elite in India. By absolute numbers per capita, even by GDP count India ranks in the bottom third of all countries in the world, even below war ravaged Nicaragua. None of these countries that are around our rank are "potential super powers", or "software power houses", or "next-gen nuclear power". So who in India is benefited by this 9% growth?

1. India is 4th in the list of most US$ billionaires in the country (behind US, Germany, Russia).
   
2. 50 countries on either side (together) of us on the HDI rating put together have lesser US$ billionaires than us.
3. According to Times of India, in a period of 3 months between July and Oct in 2007, the collective wealth of the top 10 billionaires of India increased by 27% -- which translates to collectively Rs.2 crores per minute.

Now, think about rural india and the farmer. The farmer has not had a Rs 20 increase in wage in that whole period, forget about per minute.

That portrays a rather grim and bleak picture of rural India. Where then is the hope? At this crucial juncture in our political history when every elected people's representative is wondering about what will happen to the Indo-US Nuclear deal, Asha for Education and Work an Hour 2008 have chosen to run a campaign focusing on rural India and are showcasing 15 such hopes. These projects are all over India, and each in their own way are addressing the problems leading to the appalling statistics we just recounted. Do read about them, donate, and discuss means and methods to mitigate these problems here on this post and in the comments section.

P.Sainath said it right after this March's Union Budget:

"As Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel laureate, said, 'Faster growth rate is essential for faster reduction in poverty. There is no other trick to it'." So said P. Chidambaram in his budget speech. Drawing on his words must have seemed a politically correct thing to do. Mr. Chidambaram might want to add another quote to his cupboard. This one from the late Edward Abbey, environmental activist and writer. "Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell."

Few things grow as relentlessly as a cancer cell. Its up to us to demand for change; to demand for justice, equality and fraternity, promised by the preamble of the constitution; and to demand that we stop marginalizing our rural brethren and to stop making self-indulgent and thoroughly meaningless attempts grown out of a guilty conscience to ameliorate the lot of the under-privileged, and instead build an egalitarian future where dignity of the individual is honored above his/her net economic worth.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed." -- MLK.

References:
[1] UNDP's HDR report on Human Development Index, India Fact Sheet. http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_IND.html
[2] Sainath's article in India Together after P.Chidambaram's Union Budget of March 2008. "Growth Idealogy of the Cancer Cell". http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/mar/psa-cancer.htm
[3] Sainath's article based on the HDI fact sheet for India. "India 2007: High growth, low development". http://www.indiatogether.org/2007/dec/psa-i2007.htm
[4] UNDP's Human Development Report's Statistics page. http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/
[5] Asha for Education
[6] Work an Hour 2008

Murder by the government: slow and meticulous

Where then the clean water, air, and earth;
That the government promised to stand for.
Where then the liberty, the equality, the justice;
That the constitution promised to stand for.

What price, the words of a leader,
In today's Nano-Nuclear market!
What price, the lives of a people,
In today's Poor-Toxic Bhopal!

Cry, My Beloved Country!
http://bhopal.net

Education culminating in Employment -- an analysis by Dr. Vinod Raina

An extremely well-researched analysis on the National Curriculum Framework proposition to integrating work and education, by Dr. Vinod Raina. Dr. Raina runs the Bharatiya Gyan Vigyan Samiti and is very involved in the national CABE committee as well as in efforts to bring about changes in legislation to ensure Right to Education. This article analyzes the history of liberal and vocational education with a critical eye. Read the whole thing, its well worth many a dekko.

As an after read, check out this essay by Amartya Sen on Tagore, titled Tagore and his India, contrasting and bringing out the philosophical differences in Tagore's and Gandhi's thinking.

Integrating Work and Education

Interest in linking and integrating work with education appears to have been rekindled by the National Curriculum Framework 2005 since it not only contains a whole section devoted to it, but also had a focus group that prepared a separate report on the subject (called FGR hereafter).

One says rekindled because active interest in this area has dwindled over the years, but for stray references to Gandhi’s views on the subject and his nai talim. There could be various reasons for that, but the major one seems to be the misplaced but growing fascination of curriculum framers in the past decade or two to address the question of ‘knowledge explosion’, demanding an increasing addition of fairly meaningless and disjointed facts from ‘thrust areas’ in the curriculum, mostly tested through memory-based examination systems. Though never clearly stated, such mindless approach to curriculum framing has operated with an inherent bias as to what constitutes legitimate knowledge. What is ignored in curriculum frameworks and resulting syllabi must therefore not be worth teaching, would be the obvious conclusion of persons who finally get down to writing textbooks. Work related knowledge of the majority of Indian population has therefore been continuously delegitimised, notwithstanding Gandhian exhortations to the contrary.

Though the attempt of the NCF2005 to regenerate interest in this critical area needs to be welcomed, it would appear that the subject has not been analysed in the kind of depth and range that would be necessary if the objective was to ensure implementation, rather than one more academic essay for future researchers to comment upon. The FGR and its summary in the main part of NCF2005 rightly attempts to distinguish between vocational education and work-centered education but in my opinion, one needs to examine the issue in a much more multi-dimensional manner in order to arrive at strategies that may facilitate implementation. These other dimensions would include, in addition to the pedagogic issue, the historical debate between liberal and work based education, links between labour and education, locating within dominant political ideologies, and the human and institutional requirements to implement a work-based mass education system.

Liberal and Vocational education

The familiar conflict between liberal and vocational education stems from the concept of streaming, whereby liberal education is seen as a vehicle for mobility into ‘high culture’ and prestige, and vocational education as a means that assigns working class, dalit and minority youth to a narrowly “practical school experience, limiting their educational access to mobility, and stigmatizing them as incapable of learning anything worthwhile, ‘academic’ subjects and skills”[1]. Many educationists and philosophers have, in recent times, however questioned the apparent dichotomy between liberal and vocational education[2]. Richard Pring, for example has argued for a broadening and reformulating of the liberal ideal so as to embrace the idea of vocational relevance, along with practical intelligence, personal development and social and community relevance[3]. Similarly, Christopher Winch has developed a detailed and rich conception of vocational education, embracing concerns about ‘moral and spiritual well-being’ alongside notions of economic and political goods[4].

Pring’s approach could be called more pedagogic since he disbelieves the perceived diametrical opposition between liberal and vocational education. In particular, he questions that:

“the vocational, properly taught, cannot itself be liberating –a way into those forms of knowledge through which a person is freed from ignorance, and opened to new imaginings, new possibilities: the craftsman who finds aesthetic delight in the objects of his craft, the technician who sees the science behind the artifact, the reflective teacher making theoretical sense of practice”. (Pring, 1995)

The concern to reconcile vocation with education is however old, and runs across various ideological streams, though for differing reasons, as we shall presently discuss. Going with Proudhon that “the work a man did was something to be proud of, it was what gave interest, value and dignity to his life’, Smith extended the idea thus:

“An education that was divorced from the world of work, that is, an education that was bookish and grammar-schoolish in conception, was valueless from the point of view of ordinary working class children. Of course, an education that went too far in the other direction, which brought up children merely to be the fodder for factories, was equally unacceptable. What was required was an education which could equip a child for the work-place but would also give him a degree of independence in the labour market.”[5]

It is customary, and rightly so, to invoke Gandhi when vocation and work are prefixed to education in India. Henry Fagg [6] in his slim volume has tried to locate Gandhi’s ideas of nai talim within the politics and issues that prevailed in 1937 when Gandhi, at the ripe age of 67, made his radical proposals for mass education that he thought were appropriate for India. It has remained a matter of debate whether Gandhi advocated work-based education as a means of self-support in order to circumvent his disappointment regarding the inability of the state to fund universal education, or as a pedagogic necessity, or both. His plea for adequate finances for universal education was met with a response that if at all, the way out was to utilize revenues from liquor sales. That meant he had to either give up his stand on prohibition, or his plea for universal education with state support, which he expressed quite plainly: “the cruellest irony of the new reforms lies in the fact that we are left with nothing but liquor revenue to fall back upon, in order to give our children education”[7].This seems to have led Gandhi to propose a national system of education that would be self-sufficient, rather than solely dependent on state funding thus:

“but as a nation we are so backward in education that we cannot hope to fulfill our obligations to the nation in this respect in a given time during this generation, if the programme is to depend on money. I have therefore made bold, even at the risk of losing all reputation for constructive ability, to suggest that education should be self-supporting …. I would therefore begin the child’s education by teaching it a useful handicraft and enabling it to produce from the moment it begins training. Thus every school can be made self-supporting, the condition being that the State take over the manufacture of these schools”[8].

His enthusiasm for self-support was expressed more forcefully after Narhari Parikh, a teacher at the Harijan Ashram at Sabarmati provided figures in defense of self-supported education from his school. This led Gandhi to assert that:

“Public schools must be frauds and teachers idiots, if they cannot become self-supporting” and, “corporate labour should be, say after the first year of the course, worth one anna per hour. Thus for twenty-six working days of four hours per day, each child will have earned Rs. 6-8 per month….We should be intellectual bankrupts, if we cannot direct the energy of our children so as to get from them, after a year’s training, one anna worth of marketable labour per hour”.

That he clearly saw links between education and vocation in terms of alleviating unemployment is clear from his answer to a questioner: “you impart education and simultaneously cut at the roots of unemployment”[9].

The self-sufficiency argument of Gandhi strongly suggests that he was professing an income generating vocational education. It is well known that one of his dissenters to this approach was none other than Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore considered the emphasis on vocation and training in Gandhi’s formulations deeply reductionist, asserting that the purpose of education was liberative rather than merely vocational. He in particular took exception to Gandhi’s emphasis on weaving education around the Charkha. The two engaged in a fascinating public debate on these issues.[10]

Gandhi of course did stress on the pedagogic importance of linking work to education, pleading for a system that considered work as a starting point to delve into history, geography, technology and science, exemplified by his famous passage about the use of takli to learn not only about spinning, but the history and geography of cotton, history and technology of the spinning wheel and so on, thus anticipating the ideas of Pring, Winch etc. many years earlier. He also stressed on the nurturing of the ‘cooperative’ and ‘peaceful’ values in children, when work was the basis of learning, rather than mindless rote learning. Above all, he pleaded for an education that would integrate the head, heart and the hand.

In an article written in May 1937 entitled ‘Intellectual Development or Dissipation?’, Gandhi developed the central premise that ‘Man is neither mere intellect nor the gross animal body, nor the heart and soul alone. A proper and harmonious combination of all the three is required for the making of the whole man and constitutes the true economics of education’. He then gave the outline of his vision of an alternative pedagogy:

“As against this, take the case of a child in whom the education of the heart is attended from the very beginning. Supposing he is set to some useful occupation like spinning, carpentry, agriculture etc., for his education and in that connection is given a thorough and comprehensive knowledge relating to the theory of the various operations that he is to perform and the use and construction of tools that he would be wielding. He would not only develop a fine, healthy body but also a sound, vigorous intellect that is not merely academic but is firmly rooted in and is tested from day to day by experience. His intellectual education would include knowledge of mathematics and the various sciences that are useful for an intelligent and efficient exercise of his avocation. If to this is added literature by way of recreation, it would give him a perfect well-balanced, all round education in which the intellect, the body and the spirit have all full play and develop together into a natural, harmonious whole”[11].

It would appear that Gandhi was trying to do many things through his radical suggestions linking work with education. Along with deeply philosophical perceptions regarding the purpose of education, he seems to have been trying to solve practical problems like funding for education and unemployment. It does become somewhat difficult to separate the philosophical and the instrumentalist in his formulations. The Tagore-Gandhi exchange aptly highlights the contested nature of the subject (missing in the NCF2005 and the FGR), since it provides insights to the resistance to the concept of work-based education even at the time of an emotionally charged atmosphere, conducive to do something new, during India’s independence. The intellectual and practical resistance to his views must have been considerable that in spite of his unquestionable stature, nai talim did not find favour for incorporation into mainstream education and was experimented as a non-state alternative. Identifying such resistances would seem to be vitally important in forging an implementational strategy sixty years later, in an India that is radically less conducive to Gandhi’s thinking. It is important to point out that the repeated reference in the FGR to the ‘Brahamanical mindset’ as the single most dominant resistance to Gandhian ideas may in fact be quite wrong. Because it would imply as if the dalits and low-castes saw merit in Gandhian ideas, and were opposed by the ruling high-castes. The situation in fact is quite the opposite.

Ideology and work-based education

Where as pedagogical considerations constitute issues internal to the educational discourse, mass education never is independent of external factors; political ideology being the most prominent. The NCF2005 states up front that it has deliberately side-stepped such issues in order not to indulge in ‘blame game’. Where as the merit of such a stance has been debated in relation to the history textbooks controversy, the absence of such an engagement in relation to work and education is very surprising, since work and labour are deeply political categories, and an absence of such engagement can lead to fairly erroneous conclusions.

There seems to be an implicit assumption in the FGR that the deprived, marginalized, dalit and toiling masses have a common enemy that is resisting vocationalised education, namely the Brahaminical elites. This evades the issue that one of the strongest opposition to vocational/ised education has in fact come from the dalits. This has to do with the very notion of the ‘worker’, and the historical social formations around work. Without reference to that, statements regarding the political left can also become misleading, as they have in the FGR, when it universlises Gandhi’s approach by stating that ‘similar experiments have been done in erstwhile U.S.S.R and other socialist countries’.

Let us consider vocationalisation in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries first. Gandhi’s vision of education was intrinsically located in the realities of rural India, as was his system of governance and essential production. At the forefront therefore to him was the carpenter, the blacksmith, the potter, the artisan, the handicraft maker, the agricultural labourer and so on. When he talked of vocationalising, he clearly had work related to such professions in mind. For the emerging Soviet Union of the 1920’s, education was intrinsically related to the creation of a massive industrial workforce. The rural artisan and peasant, very dear to Tolstoy (who greatly influenced Gandhi’s views in many ways)), was seen as a transitory phenomenon by the end of 1920’s (Anatoli Lunacharsky, who was charged by Lenin to put into place the Soviet education system stated around 1925 that Tolstoy’s artisan-based education might be allowed to continue for sometime, till it was replaced by industrial worker-based education). The development paradigm was rooted in massive industrialisation and collective farming, to replace household production and feudal agriculture. Work-based education, either through labour schools or polytechnics was therefore not related to handicraft but big industry. More importantly, the motivation was not merely pedagogic, it was deeply political. Class struggle being intrinsic to the Marxist thesis, creating class consciousness amongst the workers was integral to the Soviet education, and was simply called propaganda education. Treating such work-based education in the same manner as nai-talim can therefore be quite misleading, the political visions and developmental outcomes being very different.

It might be pertinent to refer to the US around the beginning of the 20th century here. Philanthropists worried about the problems of poor youth started small vocational programs outside the public schools around 1880’s. Between 1890 and 1910, vocational education in the narrow sense of job preparation attracted the support of a diverse range of social and economic interests. The National Association of Manufacturers was a strong advocate, pushing for schooling that would prepare workers for factories and workshops. After initial hesitation, labour unions supported and participated in these efforts. As is evident, the nature of vocational/ised education is deeply entrenched within the political ideology that promotes it, in particular the development paradigm under which it operates. For a class struggle-based industrial workforce of the erstwhile Soviet Union, work-based education is deeply ideological; for the capitalist US industry of the early 20th century, it is mostly vocational education to prepare a disciplined workforce; and for Gandhi it was deeply linked to his ideal of India that would live mostly in villages, and produce locally in a manner that was harmonious with nature.

To put it simply, the nation was clearly divided, rightly or wrongly, regarding such a future at the time of independence. As protagonists of the modern industrial India, the Governments that came in right after independence embarked on an industrial paradigm to which Gandhi’s nai talim seemed irrelevant. Rightly or wrongly again, it has to be conceded that that was the dominant political consensus of the times. Amongst the major dissenters of the Gandhian paradigm, then and now, are people for whom, perhaps, Gandhi was most concerned about, the dalits. Not only did they have his term for them, harijans, removed from the political lexicon, they have been vociferous in opposing any dilution of the liberating nature of Enlightenment values, in particular in the area of education. Spearheaded by the Columbia and London School of Economics trained economist, and barrister of law, Grey’s Inn, London decorated lawyer, the ‘untouchable’ Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the dalit vision of development, education and human rights are firmly entrenched in the modernization paradigm, far removed from that of Gandhi.

The dalit aversion to anything based on traditional vocation should hardly be surprising. Given that the caste system is entrenched in the hierarchy of vocations, most of the artisanal castes being at the bottom of the hierarchy, relating them to education is viewed as a means of maintaining caste distinctions rather than obliterating them through liberal education. Vocation based education is tantamount to caste based education from this viewpoint.

I firmly believe that the major challenge to bring in work-based education in India would not be so much pedagogic, or formulation of policies. It is a political challenge; a negotiation with the liberal, left and the dalit points of view, in order to establish that work-based education can be progressive and emancipatory, both in a class and caste sense. The strong reaction of a section of left intellectuals and academics to the inclusion of local knowledge (artisanal or agricultural work would by definition derive from local knowledge systems) in the teaching-learning process, as proposed by the NCF2005 clearly indicates that the sites of resistance to work-based education are deeply ideological, and are not confined merely to the self-interests of the middle-class that views the dominant liberal system of education as conducive to their vocations.

The case for work-based education: Labour and Education

Sixty years onwards from the time of independence, we have the advantage of looking back how the system of education has proceeded, which formulations have been validated, and which have turned out to be flawed. To do so we could pose the question sharply: Has the predominantly liberal mode of education that the state opted for at the time of independence acted favourably to reduce inequalities amongst class, caste, gender and minorities; and has it transformed a majority of country’s population to creative, productive and secure citizens? The answer has to be a resounding no[12].

A few figures should help to support the answer. Even though the literacy rate has increased from around 21% at the time of independence, from a total population of around three hundred millions, to around 68% in 2001, out of a total population of around a billion, the absolute number of illiterates is greater than the population at the time of independence. This is of course related to the gross inadequacy of the school system. Where as it was constitutionally mandated that all children up to fourteen years of age should have received eight years of education by 1960, the situation in 2004 was that out of 21 crore children in the age-group 6-14, more than half, around 12 crore were never enrolled or dropped off by class eight, making a mockery of the constitutional mandates, which now includes the Right to Education for the 6-14 year olds guaranteed by the 86th amendment of 2002.

The progression beyond class 8 has been dismal. Only around 2.2 crore children are in classes 10 and 12, which reduces to half, 1.1 crores, in classes 11 and 12. Those in higher education number around a crore, most of them pursuing an utterly aimless undergraduate ‘liberal’ education degree in colleges that have been reduced to mediocre haunts. The degree of exclusion by class eight is staggering, particularly the drop off rate of 52%. Where as the non-enrolment of over three crore children could be attributable to lack of access, the non-retention of around nine crore children, and the lack of adequate achievement of those who do remain in schools must surely have to do with the education that is transacted. Two attributes suggest themselves, that the education is uninteresting for children and it is irrelevant to their lives.

Creating interest is clearly a question of pedagogy; how to make teaching-learning more fun and less drudgery. Relevance is deeply developmental; requiring weaving education around the social, cultural and productive realities of a child, while empowering her to ‘liberate’ herself from the exigencies of her birth, experiences and social/economic constraints. Quite clearly, livelihood considerations are related to education. An ‘educated’ unemployed is a serious problem, in as much it underscores the fact that the nation has invested in a person, without making him/her a productive citizen. The normal undergraduate and even post-graduate program would seem to be producing a large number of such unemployable youth. But the question could be asked: is that because jobs are not available or ‘suitably’ educated persons are not available for specific jobs?

That requires a scan of the labour profile of the country. In spite of the emphasis on industrialization in the initial five-year plans after independence, that could have created a large industrial proletariat, the labour force in the formal sector in India has remained abysmally low. In the decade and a half since the liberalization and privatization phase of the Indian economy, beginning 1991, where as the growth rate might is touching 8% per anum, it is accompanied by a decrease in formal employment, from 282.45 million in 1997 to 269.83 in 2003[13]. The decrease is most prominent in the public sector, from 195.59 millions to 184.49 millions, but evident too in the much hyped private sector, from 86.86millions to 85.34 millions in the said period. Unorganized labour however increased from 354 million to 390 million in the corresponding period, demonstrating clearly where the employment growth potential has been.

There is however a significant factor crucially linked to education within this employment scenario, which is the phenomenal growth of the service sector. The net decrease in formal employment is largely due to the decline in employment in the manufacturing/industrial sector, compensated by the increase in the service sector. This is also reflected in the disaggregated economic growth rates in the 10th plan period (2002-2006): the total growth rate was 7%, agriculture increased by a dismal 1.8%, industry by 8% and services by 8.9%.

The skewed nature of such development is evident from the fact that the sector that employs the largest labour namely agriculture is least productive economically, and the one that employs the least number of people, namely services, is the most productive.

What are the implications of this for vocational/ised education? It should remain undisputed that as far as integrating knowledge from non-organised areas of production, be that agriculture, artisanship, medicinal plants, forestry, construction, local water systems etc., are concerned, teaching-learning materials up to class 8 or 10 ought to be prepared in such a manner that they relate to the social, economic and cultural lives of the children, a majority of whom come from families of such backgrounds. The consequent relevance and identity of the school to the lives of the children, along with pedagogic methods that are interesting to the child might go a long way in arresting the massive drop-out rates, 52%, up to class 8.

The major question would be about purposeful streaming after class 10 and 12. It is evident that the existing undergraduate degree, in terms of quality, is neither a tonic for the mind, nor suitable for learning productive skills. The question is, if the vocational stream is to be enlarged at the 10+ and 12+ stages, along with improving the quality of the under and post graduate degrees, which directions should it take? The decline in the agricultural and industrial sectors and an increase in the service sector requires that we address this issue, in educational terms, with a fresh mind. The growth of the IT related service sector – call centers, outsourcing; and management related service sector require vocational programmes quite different from those pursued at existing ITI’s. Unfortunately, most of the educational needs in these areas are met today through the mushrooming of unregulated commercial fly-by-night shops, masquerading as private educational institutions; even as ‘universities’ as happened in Chattisgarh, where 52 such set-ups were granted university status, till the Supreme Court intervened. That is because the state has not responded to such vocational needs.

This of course doesn’t imply that vocational courses related to artisanship and agriculture are not required. One might in fact argue that if school education reflected the knowledge base of these sectors, that might provide an additional input to make these areas of production, where maximum labour is involved, more robust and active. However, one can also not overlook the over all constraints imposed by the developmental path the country unfortunately seems to be pursuing, which is higher growth rates with less employment.

Two things seem to be clear from these arguments. One that the hope that a very large part of the rural population would be proletarised as industrial workforce has remained a myth sixty years after independence, confirming Gandhi’s prophecy that India is essentially a nation of rural dwellers. Second, that instead of strengthening the rural economy, or creating manufacturing potential, hence employment, close to rural areas (as township manufacture in China has), India has stumbled on to the service sector, including IT related, as a major source of economy. Educational planning has however remained mute to such changes, and continues to blunder on with drop outs at lower stages and redundant degrees at higher stages, in a completely haphazard manner, benefiting dubious commercial education by default.

It has also to be recognized that the expansion of the service sector has given rise to aspirations, imposing educational demands that can be at complete variance with pedagogic principles. Take for example language. Crucial to the national system of education, as envisioned by Gandhi, elaborated by the Kothari Commission, and substantiated by researches all over the World, the use of local languages, if not mother tongue, in the formative years of formal education is critical to the creative growth of a child. Aspirations of parents and society at large for children, particularly in order to get a foothold in the IT related service sector is however pushing for increasing use of English as medium of instruction from the pre-primary level. Dalit organisations too favour learning in English as emancipatory, leading to dignity within the society. Can vocational/ised education remain immune to such demands? Learning English would in fact appear to be a major form of vocational education today!

Implementing work-based education

It is not as if NCF2005 is the first policy document favouring vocational/ised education. The Kothari Commission report and the National Policy on Education 1986, and its revised version of 1992 have already stated much of what NCF2005 contains. The question one may ask is: what have been the constraints on implementation?

Firstly, it is perhaps conceptual. Work-based education has mostly been interpreted as vocational education; a policy to create a separate vocational stream. Accordingly, we have seen the opening up of vocational education schools, or the addition of vocational education facilities in existing higher secondary schools. An overarching National Council for Vocational Education has also been set up, at Bhopal. Open schooling has also embraced the vocational stream, with the National Institute for Open Schooling (NIOS) and some state open schools offering a variety of courses.

It would appear that the National Knowledge Commission set up by the current UPA government in June 2005 has also been examining the question of production and work related knowledge in some detail. At a recent consultation on school education and literacy organized by the Commission, the Vice-Chairman of the Commission informed that their survey revealed that existing vocational institutions all together provide courses related to 80 vocations, most of them related to the formal sector. However, the Commission was reported to have compiled an exhaustive list of vocations covering both the formal and informal sectors, identifying 3000 vocations! So even at the level of streamed vocational education, a massive task awaits, in preparing courses in areas encompassing handicrafts, artisanship and other rural work.

This is quite different from integrating knowledge from areas of production, particularly from unorganized areas, into the mainstream liberal education. Evidently, such a task remains unattended. Will the publication of NCF2005 spur it on? Not unless attention is paid to the constraining factors. School books are made by the NCERT and state bodies like the SCERT’s/SIE’s/Boards. The faculties at these institutions and other textbook writers have mostly subject backgrounds, including from the Education discipline. It is obvious that they normally have no background, experience, knowledge, ability and hence inclination, to look beyond their subject areas (most of them also have no experience of having worked with school children, particularly rural). So in spite of what the policies might say, there are no matching institutional and human capacities to translate them into action; this has happened in the past and is likely to happen after the NCF2005.

In the first year after the NCF2005 when the NCERT has begun to write fresh books, I have formally participated in the effort as a member of a committee that is monitoring the new drafts. As a consequence, one gets an opportunity to read all the book drafts and interact with the writing groups. However one sees a great deal of resistance and throwing up of hands when it is pointed out to the writer groups how ‘knowledge from below’ could be incorporated, or generated from the children and teachers. The common responses are: ‘we don’t know how to do so; it is dangerous since the information is not validated; it will dilute the subject matter; that is not science/mathematics/history, or whatever’!

A mindset that considers codified liberal education as the only valid knowledge is unlikely to create teaching-learning material that incorporates knowledge from work. In contrast, while we were making textbooks in Eklavya for use in the government schools of Madhya Pradesh, not only were the rural school teachers (most of them also being farmers and artisans) participating in the process, but we would involve a carpenter, mason, farmer or other artisans wherever required. That is how chapters on leather tanning, bidi making, folk forms of mathematics, panchayat functioning, land, soil, and crops and so forth were written. Unless a similar process is initiated within the state owned textbook writing institutions, or people with such experience and understanding are involved in large numbers, rather than only cut and dry subject experts, implementation will not take place. The most evident example from the recent NCERT books is the class 3 mathematics book that has attempted to incorporate algorithms of folk mathematics, made possible because people behind it had worked in that area before, and believe in such integration. The class 6 mathematics book is however devoid of any such effort, possibly because its writers do not believe in the policy, no matter whether it is the NCF2005 or the Kothari Commission, or do not have the capacity to do so. The resulting approach, across the classes is therefore very uneven. But if that can be ironed out over the years, particularly in state level textbooks covering nearly 97% children is schools, it would be stupendous. That however would require a massive overhaul of the institutions responsible for textbook writing, teacher trainings and examinations. That, and not just writing policy, is the major challenge!

[1] Allen Graubard; Could Vocational Education be Progressive, Radical Teacher, Spring 2004, Center for Critical Education Inc.
[2] Judith Suissa; Vocational Education: a social anarchist perspective, Policy Futures in Education, Vol 2, No. 1, 2004
[3] Richad Pring; Closing the Gap: liberal education and vocational preparation, Hodder and Stoughton, 1995, (in Judith Suissa, ibid)
[4] C. Winch; Education, Work and Social Capital; Towards a new conception of vocational education, Routledge, London, 2000
[5] M.Smith: The Libertarians and Education, George Allen and Unwin, 1983
[6] Henry Fagg; A Study of Gandhi’s Basic Education, National Book Trust, 2002
[7] Harijan 5:222, in Fagg, ibid
[8] Harijan 5:197, in Fagg, ibid
[9] Harijan 5:261, in Fagg, ibid
[10] Sabysachi Bhattacharya; The Poet and the Mahatma, National Book Trust
[11] Harijan; 5:104, in Fagg ibid
[12] Vinod Raina; Where do children go after class eight?, Seminar, July 2006
[13] Vinod Raina, ibid

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme is one of the few well-intentioned schemes to come out of the current UPA government. The NREGS guarantees 100days of unskilled work per family for every family that is below the poverty line. Now, lets not even go into how BPL classifications are calculated or the absurdity and lack of context to the BPL surveys. There are many points about this scheme which are at a macro level wrong --

1. As one of the recipients of this scheme famously said "Are our tummies on vacation the remaining 265 days?" What is the rationale behind 100 days per one member of family?
2. Providing work that required unskilled labor is essentially a welfare scheme. It is not promoting the skill sets of that targeted population. Its the classic case of "give them fish, rather than teach them to fish". Potentially the same money can be spent at every Panchayat level to provide training in skills that will lead the population towards economic independence and dignity.
3. As many social audits across the districts where the scheme is being implemented show, the muster rolls are largely fudged, corruption accounts for a huge drain on this money, and a very small percentage of the money actually trickles down to the intended recipient. In fact, Rajiv Gandhi, when he was the Prime Minister, famously admitted that only 15% of government spending manages to reach the recipient. The rest is wastage. A similar Employment Guarantee Scheme tried out in Maharashtra in 1976 had already fallen victim to this atrocious Public Distribution System. In fact, the Indian government does not have any evidence of being capable of properly implementing any social welfare scheme.

Given all these obvious issues, the question then is if not NREGS, then what? The problem is not restricted to unskilled work, and then neither is the solution. Clearly the solution needs to be autonomous, small, and needs to come from the bottom, from the folks who need the money. The government needs to stop dictating lives and stop interfering. The policies that restrict our manufacturing sector from matching the growth in the services sector need to go. Agriculture has to be supported, or the farmers transitioning from agriculture into manufacturing or services need to be provided the skills to do that (again, allow private enterprise, and it will come about organically, instead of some governmental masterminding). National budgets need to spend less on defence and instead pour some funds into Education (at all levels). And in the middle of all this, the right folks will get the right skills and will be able to get their right to livelihood.

A possible counter-argument of course is that while all this is happening, people are starving. Maybe a combination of some scheme with a larger solution in tow is probably what is recommended. However, the government seems intent on earning hearsay goodwill (read votes, and support of left-parties) by implementing only the welfare schemes, and the bureaucracy is happy to implement the scheme with its 85% drain on many crores of rupees!

The Agrarian Crisis of India Shining

India is rapidly developing. Services sector is booming. Our GDP is increasing at 9%. We are cutting nuclear deals with USA. Our youth have the credit to buy German and Japanese cars and motorcycles. Our farmers do not have the credit to buy seeds. We are cutting deals with Monsanto and undercutting our farmers. Over 60% of our economy is reliant on agriculture. Agriculture sector is in a serious crisis. India is ready for a massive collapse.

Thats the story of two different Indias. If you really think about it, everything about India is pluralistic. Agriculture is fundamentally unsustainable. Like education, the country needs to subsidize and support its agrarian sector. Particularly a country who's excess of 50% economy is agrarian and excess of 70% of the population are farmers. However, as the policies of the past decade unfold, we are seeing a continued spread of farmer suicides across the country.

P. Sainath has written extensively on this crisis. Click here to follow the link to indiatogether.org and scroll down along the right column to read Sainath's reports on the crisis in

• Andhra Pradesh (Anantpur and other nearby areas)
• Kerala (Wyanad)
• Maharashtra (Vidarbha)

I'll add more details to this post when I have more time.

Right to Education

Education as a fundamental right cannot be denied in any democratic society. It is the duty of the Government to provide for and guarantee this fundamental right. The Right to Education Bill (RTE) provides a unified framework for enacting the 86th amendment of the Indian constitution, which guarantees this right to all it’s citizens. In 2006, the Indian Government decided to drop the long pending RTE Bill and pass it on to the State Governments as a model bill.

Many NGOs and people's movements are actively working towards pushing the government to table the bill once more in the parliament. Here are a few links and a reading list:

• A detailed site chronicling all the activities
  
• The Right to Education Bill (PDF link)
  
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Note on the Common School System (PDF link)
  
• Further details and more documents available here
  

Bhopal Gas Disaster Survivors Struggle

Shortly after midnight poison gas leaked from a factory in Bhopal, India, owned by Union Carbide Corporation. There was no warning, none of the plant's safety systems were working. In the city people were sleeping. They woke in darkness to the sound of screams with the gases burning their eyes, noses and mouths. They began retching and coughing up froth streaked with blood. Whole neighbourhoods fled in panic, some were trampled, others convulsed and fell dead. People lost control of their bowels and bladders as they ran. Within hours thousands of dead bodies lay in the streets. Read a survivor's account of "that night". More background here.

All that was back in 1984. The government let the miscreants get away, and also made a deal with Union Carbide as compensation for those who died that night. The survivors today have a fight of a different nature altogether, as they fight the contamination, the water borne handicapping diseases, physical malformations, societal stigma, hunger, poverty -- it never ends. I visited Bhopal in January of 2007 and met with the survivors and visited the contaminated factory site. It was a surreal experience. Folks are obviously in a bad state for resources. The ground water is badly contaminated and there is no other water available except once a week. The governmental promises about pipelines from nearby Kolar river have not been kept. The factory site is dilapidated and lot of chemicals still lie around, and with every rainy season, further deeply get entrenched into the water table of the area.

• Click here for a full picture story of that visit.
• A lot of background details and up-to-date information is available from bhopal.net
  

Despite all this, the Bhopalis will first smile, and then offer you a cup of chai and then ask you "Ab boliyen, kaise aana hua?" I'll add more details and links and stories here when I get more time.

Mehdiganj Water Struggle

Mehdiganj is a village in Uttar Pradesh, around 20 Km from Varanasi. The communities in this village and in the surrounding areas have been facing a server water crisis and are fighting against the unjust practices of the local Coca Cola plant, which is the chief offender in their current water scenario. A few key points which are at the root of this issue are:

1. The ground water level in the area has gone down due to the excessive mining of water by the local Coca Cola plant.

2. The chemical waste let out by the plant into the nearby farms resulted large scale destruction of crops and soil has been damaged as well.

3. The plant has also occupied the local panchayat land and has been found guilty of tax theft.

A detailed website cataloging this struggle is available here.
More links:
Frequently Asked Questions (provides a lot of details and background)
Some documents (legal) relevant to the struggle
Demands of the local community in Mehdiganj