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DIVISIVE GOVERNANCE By Eduardo Faleiro The President's Address to Parliament, as we all know, is really a Government document. The President only reads the Address. This year's President's Address was more than ever before a long list of all so-called Government achievements, big and small. It did however hide the fundamentals of Government's policy, divisive governance not merely in terms of religion but though less blatant but equally insidious insofar as the social and economic status of the people are concerned. The present administration divides people not just in terms of religion, but it also separates the rich from the poor, the haves from the have-nots, the socially high from the socially low. Whilst we are dismantling national unity, we are also opening wide the doors of the country and of its economy, to the designs of the profit-making multinationals and of the Governments behind them. Presently, this is happening in India as it is happening in every country of Asia, Africa and Latin America. What is most objectionable is that we ourselves welcome the efforts at profit making by the trans-nationals for whom people of developing countries do not really count, even when their basic human rights to Education and Health are trampled upon. Grabbing and profit making by trans-nationals which look at everything as just another business has not been resisted by the present Government. I will illustrate this with reference to a subject which moulds the thought processes of people and then decides the future of a country, Education. The recent "National Curriculum Framework for School Education" provides for an educational system that has a dual role. At page 11, it speaks of a special system of education for those with a high IQ and a high "Emotional Quotient". The IQ is a concept formulated in the United States and debunked all over the world. The United States wanted to impart what we would call in India "non-formal" or "alternative" education to the blacks on the ground that they had an inferior IQ. Here, we have added an "emotional quotient" to the "intelligence quotient". The "emotional quotient", which has been conceived by this Government means that those students, who have a higher level of spirituality, may be given a better education. Who has a higher level of spirituality? Those who don't have to work for a living. The working class cannot afford to have the so called high spirituality. They are busy earning their own livelihood. That is how the New Curriculum Framework separates the classes from the masses. To further elaborate the point, I refer to page 90 of the Curriculum Framework. It says that those with a high intelligence quotient and emotional quotient will get elite education whilst the rest will be given vocational education. And who are the people targeted to get vocational education? The women, the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, and the physically- challenged persons. This is how at the very outset, two classes of children are being created and this is how the gap between the elite and the masses is widened. This is how divisiveness is accentuated within the social and economic fabric of the country. The Government depends for its survival on dividing people on religious lines. We ought to look at the new textbooks that followed the "National Curriculum". Let me refer to the textbook on Social Sciences, "Contemporary India", brought out by the NCERT for students of class IX. This is the book, which had no reference whatsoever to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. Incidentally, I would like the officials of the HRD Ministry to look at the different editions of this textbook. It has two first editions. One in August 2002 and the other in September 2002. How can a book have two first editions? The September 2002 edition further mentions that it is the first reprint in October. All this is very confusing. The Ministry must also look at the size of print orders. For the edition of September 2002, a print order of 3,75,000 was given, and for the August 2002 edition 2,25,000 copies were ordered. That makes a total of 6,00,000 copies. For whose benefit have so many copies been printed? In the previous years, the print order never went beyond 2.5 lakh copies. And yet, this year, the main users, the Delhi Government and many private schools in Delhi have refused to use this book. The Department should look into this matter. I would like to highlight a few of the many sectarian overtones and gross historical inaccuracies in this book. It mentions at page 60 that Goa, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, were collectively called Goa during the colonial rule. This is absolutely incorrect. It is like saying that during the British Rule the whole of India was called Delhi just because the Government was based in Delhi. On page 61, it is mentioned that Dadra and Nagar Haveli was captured by the Jan Sangh. This is not in tune with the historical facts. The then Chief Minister of Bombay State, Shri Morarji Desai at Volume II of his autobiography, "The Story of my Life", at pages 47-49, discloses how he had directed the Reserve Police to encircle Dadra and Nagar Haveli, so that the Portuguese troops could not enter that enclave. So when the half a dozen Portuguese policemen in Dadra saw the Reserve Police which looked like a military force, they ran away into the adjacent forest. There was no fight. That is what Mr. Morarji Desai says. Why do you want to glorify the Jan Sangh on wrong facts? I am sure that the Jan Sangh has done some good somewhere but this is not it. Our Government welcomes all the trans-nationals which attempt to gobble up our educational system. Until 14th January 2002, the policy was that at school level, no student could have foreign schooling in India unless he was the child of a diplomat or a foreigner or a student who would later pursue a course not available in India. As per a circular of the Department of Elementary Education dated January 14, 2002, however, any student in India can now take up, at school level itself a foreign examination. All the pronouncements of the Honourable Minister about indianisation, indigenisation and spiritualization of Education are rather meaningless. A student who wants to take up British, French or American school education in India does not require any permission anymore. He can safely ignore the National Curriculum. Therefore, we shall have in this country, two classes of people. Those with a foreign education at the school level itself and others with the sub-standard education which Government will provide in the name of informal or "alternative" education. The more we abuse Pakistan, the more we follow their ways. In Pakistan the elite has a Western education, and the rest has their education in madrasas. In my own State, several Government schools were closed recently and handed over to the Vidya Bharati. It is a tragic irony that we are doing this at a time when in Afghanistan and Pakistan, people are trying to move at least to some extent, however small, from a fundamentalist religious education to a more liberal educational system. The Ministry of Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Commerce are at this moment busy finalising proposals for opening our educational system to foreign business concerns. As per the decision taken at the Doha Ministerial meeting last November all such proposals must be submitted to the GATS Secretariat before March 31, 2003. Government should inform this House what it intends to do next month at the GATS. It should obtain the consensus of this House, before doing anything in this regard because commitments at GATS are irreversible. They cannot be reversed by future Governments. The GATS process is not subject to Indian courts. It is subject only to their own courts. I have found Vice-Chancellors who do not know what GATS is all about. This is because of the secrecy surrounding this whole process. GATS is the General Agreement on Trade in Services and is a branch of WTO. Government should also withdraw the "National Curriculum Framework for School Education" and the textbooks that followed which are divisive and will grievously affect the unity of the country for now and for generations to come. (The writer is a Member of Parliament. This is his speech in the Rajya Sabha during the debate on President's Address on February 24, 2003) _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.goanet.org/mailman/listinfo/goanet
