Why we love to hate Smriti Irani

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/smriti-irani-bjp-rss-congress-hrd-ministry-education/story/1/3285.html

The youngest minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet, human resource development minister, Smriti Irani's recent interview with Arnab Goswami on Times Now has raised another round of hullabaloo for the minister. Goswami begins by pointing out to her how she has been looked down upon as a "political lightweight" and one who has always being embroiled in controversies. During the course of the conversation, two seminal issues emerge; first, test of Irani's ability to prove her competence against all kinds of attacks - mostly personal - and second, the opening up of a debate on how educational policies are being determined in our country.

The attacks are not new for Irani. Photographs of her in swimsuit did titillating rounds in the media soon after she was sworn in. Ace academicians and intellectuals commented on her TV career to obfuscate her abilities as an education minister. We look back and find that she has been accused of pandering to powers that be in order to justify her position in politics. All these and many more, merely reveal the subconscious layering of misogyny inherent within the patriarchal psyche. After all, how else can a woman make it, for this male chauvinist world, than by mis/abusing her femininity?

Syllabi in educational institutions are meant to prepare a student not just for exams but for a life beyond classrooms. With studies and research showing the huge gap between education and employability, a culture very intolerant to alternative beliefs, an insensitive and abusive social media which has cost lives of influential thinkers and activists like Khurshid Anwar, there is an urgent need to have a systemic reform in the education system. This reform - the more holistic and comprehensive it is - the better it will serve to create tolerant minds.

I remember as a kid, when we were introduced to NCERT textbooks, the first thing one learnt in laboratory manuals was to experiment, observe and infer. When in college, while the layers of ideological schooling were skinned, one was left to wonder, where is it that we experimented? We were made to believe through brilliant logic and argumentation that Manu Samhita was evil, that Bible or Quran or Ramayana are patriarchal fables. But there was a disconnection here. Where did I read Manu? Where did I read the Bible? It was never a part of my course.  It came sifted to me and sieved through a very lopsided version of a western and anglophilic intellectual discourse. I do see a need and an urgent one at that to simply overhaul the mandate of educational foundations.

It is true that for the first time in the history of modern India, the HRD ministry has done something that has traditionally been considered the privilege of an elitist few. The ministry opened itself up to suggestions from common citizens in setting the curriculum for students across the country.

It is important that in a democratic culture like ours, we have a space for intellectual tolerance and dialogue. It is extremely problematic as a democratic nation to show the kind of derision we do in discussing anything intellectual that does not belong to the "left" and/or of the "liberal". Ironically, this treatment comes from the "liberal" clan which is the most authoritarian, totalitarian and almost fascist, in rejecting the overall discourse outside the realms and limits of its ideological "-isms". Today the left in this country is more right wing in its absolute disregard for theory alternate to what it proposes.

It might be true that the ministry receives requests from many organizations not quite 'left' and/or liberal' in their leanings. It might also be true that there have been pressure groups trying to assert their influence on the ministry - but why does it come as a surprise? All those left and liberal intellectuals who swear by Foucault's theorisation on "power" also know of Althusser's ideological state apparatus which explains the impression of dominant ideologies while defining policies and plans. Just as a certain workbook defines the syllabi and curriculum while Congress is in power, so does another while BJP rules the roost. Why is this disproportionate cry in the media then? Why this preferential treatment?

Why is it that the "right" in India has been constantly demonised as only "saffron" and only about "cultural resurgence"? Why is it that we never hear of a debate between the right economics of focusing on building capabilities versus the left which argues for doling out token subsidies and freebies?

As a nation that elects its representatives every five years, it is extremely important that decision making in the country is increasingly decentralised. It is pivotal that citizens involve themselves beyond mere participation to meaningfully engage and influence the various stages of policy cycle - agenda setting, policy development, policy implementation and policy evaluation. In a country that constitutionally mandates and grants freedom of speech and expression as a basic fundamental right, this engagement will invariably have inputs from citizens all across the ideological spectrum. Are we to deny this space to those who think differently from us, however revolting to our intellectual consciousness?

Smriti Irani's fidelity to constitutional norms and due processes, her dexterity to listen to the pulse but also step back, neither dictating nor being dictated, has led to some historic moments - the FYUP and DU impasse being broken, for instance. In the words of Smriti herself, for a "political non-entity" who is not a "Cinderella", transforming education as a ministry of "political friction" to "political consensus" at the young age of 39 is a task that only a "tough nut" can crack.

It is important that in a reaction to the first ever interview by the much written about HRD minister, we give Irani's views their due and not label and stereotype a woman making it so far. Let us debate and dismiss rather than wax rhetoric, be averse to dialogue and asphyxiate anything which is not "left" and not "liberal".

http://www.dailyo.in/politics/smriti-irani-bjp-rss-congress-hrd-ministry-education/story/1/3285.html

Why scrapping the FYUP in Delhi University defeats the effort to inject dynamism in traditional education formats

One year after the Delhi University (DU) introduced the Four Years Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) in 2013, the new HRD Ministry put an end to the stand-off between the Vice Chancellor and Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) by scrapping the programme. 

Academic circles in DU vociferously debated the topic ad nauseum from the day it was introduced till it got scrapped. The two broad camps that emerged were DUTA supporters that in most likelihood opposed the FYUP and that of the Vice Chancellor’s (VC’s) supporters who of course supported the FYUP in form and spirit. Amidst the swords that were drawn, slowly but definitely, the essence of the debate got lost.

At the culmination of the decision by the HRD, the finer distinction between FYUP as a concept and the way by which it was implemented got muddled. So the VC’s undemocratic way to push the course acted as the basic argument to denounce the course in toto. There was no positive criticism offered, no alternate arrangement proffered other than letting the status quo remain vis-à-vis courses. So much so, that the academic circle is gleeful to have FYUP removed irrevocably – at least that is how the public image around it revolves.

It is imperative to note that the FYUP came as an innovative concept in the traditional ways of education in the DU. Not only did it extend the erstwhile three-year long program by a year, but it also promised more and viable options to students after they passed, like directly applying for a masters degree abroad. To rule out this positive development in totality by the outright rejection of the experiment, is a pathetic portrayal of the impervious attitude of elite institutes like DU and JNU towards a change in their way of teaching and pedagogy. 

Each time there is a request to bring dynamism into education and teaching, activism in campuses increases in order to eliminate any possibility of hampering the comfort zone of educators using the traditional formats. The cases in point are the almost militant protests against digitisation of data (student attendance, performance evaluation etc.), request to publish research papers and academic notes, drawing attention towards making the syllabi more holistic, chances of introducing ideas beyond the cut and set mold of leftism, Marxism, feminism, postcolonialism etc.

I have been a student of English in DU both in my graduate honors course and in my postgraduate course. My batch was the first one to have seen the semester system introduced in MA. I agree that there were problems and issues in the implementation of the course, but at the same time, I also admit that this course did bring in some degree of order and professionalism in the study of English as a serious discipline. I am sure that after the lab rat treatment the first wave of experimentation gave us, the course would be much sorted and better by now. 

But even at that time, professors and students complained ad hominem about the authorities and used that flawed argument as the primary tool to attack the semester system. In hindsight, I do not recollect any instance where the lecturers, professors or student bodies offered a positive criticism to any proposal tabled by the DU authorities. I never saw them attach an alternate plan to what was proposed. I never saw any appendage detailing the ‘other’ proposal to work around the semester system and as a repetition again, today, to improve upon the FYUP model. 

It is good to raise concerns and questions, because that is how a healthy democracy functions. But to criticise something just because it is cool in certain ‘intellectual’ circles to bash up any innovation that comes up is the most regressive gesture and thwarts any possibility of change. 

FYUP was an idea that could have galvanised a fresh perspective within the intellectual environs of India’s most renowned and premier seats of humanities education. As a student of English literature, I can very clearly see that the extended year was a huge opportunity – now lost – to revamp the traditional mold of how English is taught in colleges. Had the course been designed such, students would have got a fair taste of what higher education looks like in literature. A teaching of formative tools of research would have helped students in making up their minds in taking up higher education, if at all they chose to do so. 
FYUP also had the possibility of changing the otherwise biased literary canon of DU syllabi to include north-eastern, Southern and northern literature in English because then we would have had more time at our disposal. It had the possibility of making literary theory and criticism and postcolonial literature a compulsory slice within the course for all students of English. 

What the recent turn of events have done is to brand DU as a staunch ideological battleground. DU has definitely lost an opportunity to change and evolve for the better.