ATTACK ON DEMOCRATIC EDUCATION
By Ritabrata Banerjee
THE principal of a college was
physically assaulted and dragged around the whole campus. He was greeted with
abusive words and was beaten up amidst roars of “Vande mataram”. This horrible action was seen by entire Bengal
as television channels presented “live and exclusive” coverage of Trinamool
Chatra Parishad supporters bashing up the principal inside the college campus.
With flags of ‘Advancement of
Learning, Unified Life and Patriotism’ (the motto of Trinamool Chhatra
Parishad) the attackers were seen ransacking the college. After beating up the
principal and destroying the property of the college, they left the campus
shouting slogans praising their supreme leader.
Even as the entire state was
shocked at this terrible incident, more shocks came their way. The chief
minister dismissed the incident as of ‘little’ significance. She even went on
to the extent of defending the attackers by terming them as ‘kids’ who must be
given a chance of rectification. The victim principal, who was attacked, insulted
and humiliated, was branded as a partial administrator by the CM. The incident
of beating up teachers in the campuses was thus justified by the administrative
head of the state herself.
It was impossible to recognise
the goons who beat up the principal as ‘kids’. At best some of them can easily
be termed as ‘guardians’. A 58 year old ‘kid’ Tilak Chowdhury, who happened to
be the district president of Trinamool Congress, led this assault. He was
assisted by Priyabrata Dubey, district president of the Trinamool Chhatra
Parishad. None of the others involved in the incident were from the campus. In
reality these anti-social elements had no right to enter the campuses in the
last three and a half decades. The Left Front governments under Comrade Jyoti
Basu and Comrade Buddhadeb Bhattacharya had created an environment in the state
where the campus belonged to people associated with academics. The situation
has changed entirely with the change of political guard in the state. The campuses are now easily accessible to the
people who do not have a direct connection with teaching and learning.
The entire incident took place
in front of the police who preferred to play the role of a silent
spectator. But it is difficult to put
the entire blame on them. Particularly after the incident in Bhowanipur police
station where the CM herself barged in to get her party goons released. Raigunj
and many other places in the stand are examples of the ‘change’ that has occurred in the state.
The incidents at Raigunj, Ashoknagar, Guma, Jadavpur, and Rampurhat are
bringing back to mind the horrific days of the seventies in the education
sector. In all these places, TMC miscreants attacked the heads of schools and
colleges.
The chief minister is not alone
defending the miscreants. She is assisted by her ‘dramatist’ education minister
and other ministers. They have come out with their versions of defending the
attackers. The education minister, who is also a teacher of a college, mocked
at the victims saying they were acting
like television stars in order to get attention! Perhaps it is not wise to
expect more from a person who is known for his dramatic skills.
CURBING DEMOCRACY
Before the Bengal assembly
elections, a section of the media had floated a term ‘dalatantra’
(party-favouritism) in order to assist Mamata Banerjee’s campaign against the
Left Front government. The eight months of TMC-led governance has shown what the actual meaning of this
word is. Mamata Banerjee has not given up her old habits. As union rail
minister she had created a record of sorts by constituting numerous committees
headed by people who were publicly supporting her. The practise continues now
with her as chief minister. Sixty odd committees, a number of them for the
education sector, have already been formed. A new dictionary is being written:
where being elected is termed as ‘dalatantra’ whereas getting nominated is
termed as ‘ganatantra’ (democracy).
Within a very short span of time all efforts to crush the democratic
structure of the education system have been organised.
There is a multi-pronged attack
by the government with the intention of crushing democracy in educational
institutions. On one side it has issued an ordinance curtailing democracy in
the colleges and the universities and on the other hand elected student unions
are being brazenly attacked and captured. The democratic rights of the student
community are not ensured in most of the states. Student unions elections are
organised only in a few state and central universities. The states where the
Left has been in power have always been at the forefront in ensuring the
democratic rights of the students’ community. The 34 years of Left Front rule
in West Bengal was a period where not only the democratic rights of the
student’s community was established but the democratic rights of all people
associated with academics were guaranteed.
There was a fixed calendar for
the polls to the student unions of colleges and universities and as soon as the
scheduled dates appeared on the calendar, the students of the Bengal campuses
exercised their democratic rights to elect their representatives.
There is a change of situation
for the worse now with the so called ‘change’. Till date 96 elected student
unions have been captured by might. Democracy has obviously not been the tool
in capturing the campuses. Hooligans in different parts of Bengal started
attacking the campuses once the new government came to office. The
justification for capturing the campuses was simple. As 35 lakh more people
have voted in favour of TMC than the Left Front, there was no right for the SFI
to run the elected unions. Throughout Bengal starting from the mountains to the
sea, college and university unions faced unprecedented attacks and were
subsequently captured. As expected, the police remained a silent spectator. In
all, 28 college campuses were ransacked and 80 SFI activists were seriously
injured and hospitalised. SFI supporters are not being allowed to go to the
campuses, or even sit for their examinations. The peaceful environment of
learning and teaching has been completely disrupted. The recent addition to
this phenomenon is teacher bashing. The horrible picture of the education
sector is visible to everyone except the chief minister and her media
cheerleaders.
It appears the government had
prepared the script to curb democracy and is now basically utilising the
opportunity. After assuming office the government’s ordinance regarding
colleges and universities made this very clear. It says that the people who
will be in the governing body of the university will not be ‘elected’. The
members either will be nominated or will be ex officio. One of the reasons
furnished by the education minister behind cancellation of the election process
was that most of the present lot are ‘political’. He believes that if people
will be elected there will be politics behind it! He is also clear that the
government can not allow anybody to be in the decision making process who has a
political background. The ordinance categorically says that if the vice
chancellor has a political identity or if it is revealed the government has the
right to sack him or her.
STUDENT POLITICS
In a nutshell, a war against
democracy has begun. The ‘dramatist’ education minister is loud and clear --
campuses must be free from politics. The same echoing voice can be heard now
from different spheres. As the 'teacher bashing' continues on the Bengal
campuses under the stewardship of Trinamool Congress, people ranging from
television anchors to ex vice chancellors, singers to painters, half
intellectuals to half ministers have started blaming 'politics' as the sole
culprit for such incidents. Even columns have started appearing in leading
newspapers urging the state government to immediately stop the student union
elections in the campuses.
This is not at all new. The issue of student
politics has recurred repeatedly in discussions on the education policy of our
country. The right of students to have students’ unions has always been upheld
in principle by the State. However, with the onset of the neo-liberal era, the
approach towards student politics has taken a turn for the worse as exemplified
by the Birla Ambani Report (2000) and the proposed Model Act for Universities
during the tenure of the then BJP-led NDA government. These initiatives viewed
students’ unions as an impediment in the path of implementing the privatisation
and commercialisation agenda, and took refuge in the argument of preserving the
academic ethos of educational institutions. At that point of time Trinamool Congress was a part of the NDA
coalition and had supported such undemocratic moves. Now in the new era of
‘change’ in Bengal, the government is appointing ‘Mentors’ from Harvard who
will usher in a 'change' of the education system. These mentors are also firm
believers in the post-modern theory of ‘Campus without Politics’.
The politics of these mentors
is the politics of the market. Politics of protest is a hindrance to the
designs of the market. Therefore it is very necessary for people committed to
market forces to put a check on the political activities. And thus politics is
being targeted. In order to establish a logical conclusion to the neo-liberal
designs, violence is orchestrated in the campuses so that intense hatred
against politics can be worked up.
Whatever the claims of the
government may be, it has to primarily cater to the interests of the market
forces that helped them before the assembly elections. In the education sector,
it is being carried out in a fine manner. Let us look into two decisions of the
new government. In order to appease the private engineering college
managements, admission criteria have been relaxed and tuition fees doubled.
Almost every day the chief
minister and her team are declaring that no work can be completed as the
previous Left Front government has left no money in the coffers. There is no
dearth of money for decorating the rooms of the ministers or for increasing
their salaries by manifold. It is clear the declarations about lack of money
are being made in order to pave the ground for private initiatives.
The highest impediment for the
commercialisation and privatisation of education is the organised student
movement in the campuses. The acts of the government and the education minister
have automatically given rise to numerous questions among students. The
campuses are raising the question “Was it not the democratic process that led
to the education minister being elected as MLA and later as minister. Then how
can he oppose democracy in the campus?” The academic qualification of the
researchers who have lost their right to be elected as per the ordinance is no
less than the ‘dramatist’, ‘professor’ education minister.
The government tried to justify
its putting curbs on involving students and non-teaching staffs in the decision
making process of the universities, which was guaranteed during the Left Front
period. The campuses are discussing that the Senate and Syndicate not only
decided about the appointment of vice chancellors. Starting from the promotion
of sweepers to the making of syllabus of the students, everything used to be
decided in the Senate and the Syndicate - the highest democratic decision
making structures of universities during the Left rule.
To be precise, behind the
campaign to eliminate politics from the education system there is an elitist
design to crush the democratic fabric established during the last 34 years.
Ever since the TMC-led
government came into office, students and non-teaching staff were being
attacked. Now even teacher bashing is a regular phenomenon. Here are some major incidents:
10 December, 2011 - Trinamool
outsiders attack the headmaster of Ashoknagar Boys Secondary School.
17 December, 2011 - Trinamool
Congress activists slap the headmaster of Jadavpur Vidyapith in the precense of
local Trinamool Congress councillor.
29 December, 2011 - Trinamool
Congress goons attack the headmaster of Guma Rabindra Vidyapith.
5 January, 2012 - 58 year old
‘kid’ leads the attack on the principal of Raigunj University College.
11 January, 2012 - Raigunj is
repeated by Trinamool Congress goons in Rampurhat College.
These above mentioned days are
definitely black days in the history of the state. The black days of the
seventies shamefully records the killing of vice chancellor of Jadavpur
University Gopal Sen within the campus. There were instances where headmaster
of MAMC School, Durgapur, Bimal Dasgupta, was burnt alive for the crime of
protesting against unfair means adopted at examination hall by leaders of
Chhatra Parishad (NSUI). Teachers like Satyen Chakraborty, Santosh Bhattacharya
were killed at Howrah and Murshidabad. There are many more examples in this
regard.
Many firebrand right wing
student leaders of those days are today ministers in the Writers Building. Some
of them are defending the culprits who are associated with principal and
teacher bashing! The then black hair of the young turks of the seventies may be
white now. But still their cherished memories of the pandemonium of the
seventies are so very alive in their thoughts! Bengal has started witnessing
the repetition of history in the education sector.
But the protest is very much in
the air. There are Left students who are not allowed to enter campuses. They
are unable to sit for their exams. Their admit cards are being burnt in front
of them. They are threatened, beaten up. Some are hospitalised with fatal
injuries. But still they have not given up the flag of SFI. They are at the
barricades of resistance. The wall writing is sharp, bold and clear - ‘If
politics determines our education, we must determine the politics’. This
resolve to determine politics is the silver lining in these worst of times for
education sector in the state.
SOURCE: People's Democracy
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