The official fear of a different point of view, a different perspective, will rob Indian educational institutions of their lifeblood.
Almost a month after the Ministry of Education circulated an office memorandum citing new Ministry of External Affairs rules mandating government clearance for online conferences or seminars on subjects relating to India’s ‘internal affairs’, the MEA withdrew this diktat and tried to cite the pandemic as alibi for its controversial move.
Until it was withdrawn, the order covered all Central educational institutions, including affiliated colleges (whether controlled by the Central or state governments).
The government may have chosen to dial back in the face of criticism from Indian and foreign based scholars but the ham-handedness and medieval mindset at play has not gone away.
The MEA/education ministry memorandum listed out as ‘internal matters’ subjects such as security of the state, border, northeast states, Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, and any other issues that are clearly or purely related to India. Clearly, health, education and welfare would also be categorised as ‘internal matters’.
The rules may be on the back burner now, but can easily be modified or given a fresh lease of life after some time.
It is one thing to list out subjects but quite another to provide for an “omnibus” of issues.
The government has a knack of bringing a great many things under the rubric of “any other issues relating to India’s internal issues”. And risk averse officials tend to beliece they are better off denying permission rather than taking on the attendant risk of clearing a topic and being censured later.
No one in the system has ever been punished for delaying, frustrating, and negating any permission. Since denying permission comes with no punishment, it is a no-brainer how the system will function in the face of such rules.
Dissent and dissonance
The reason why this memorandum was sent in the first place is clear.
The establishment does not want any international view – regardless of the quality of view – on anything ostensibly ‘internal’.
Second, any view which runs counter to the dominant narrative that the government would like to weave is taken as dissent if it comes from internal quarters, and it wants to avoid any dissonance it may create if it comes from abroad. What such control means to the future of education, and whether there is any space for an opinion different from what is comfortable to the government remains to be explored.
Members of various organisations display placards during a protest against the arrest of climate activist Disha Ravi, in Bengaluru, February 15, 2021. Photo: PTI/Shailendra Bhojak
Education of the future is situated at the cusp of what is and the vision of what ought to be. This requires research, teaching, and learning of different hues. Future education requires students to partner with international peers across cultures on the internet and in visual classrooms. The Internet has enabled a genuine interactive knowledge-generating learning arena. To handle complexity, conflicts and uncertainty, international partnership is important. The discovery of the COVID-19 vaccine in record time, when ordinarily it takes a dozen years, is strong evidence of a pressing requirement for this.
It is widely recognised that in the future, fully web-based classes, largely concerned with the theoretical framework and conceptual tools to help analyse, will co-exist with face-to-face classes, focusing on real-world problems.
Hybrid classes, consisting of both modes, can connect with two or more countries. This helps in leveraging the teaching capacity of the country with a fewer number of evolved academics. The pandemic gave rise to Zoom classes and students of small towns could get access to webinars by established names the world over. This held promise for bootstrapping the poor quality teaching in most universities.
That is why the fear of a different point of view, a different perspective, is essentially anti-education. Only a few years ago GIAN (Global Initiative of Academic Network) was launched to leverage academic capacity. Now, with university administrators aware of the suspicion with which the government views overseas academics, it will surely receive a setback.
Dissonance in education can be likened to the smallest musical interval in Western tonal music, the ‘second’, also known as semitone or halftone. When sounded harmonically, it is considered most dissonant, something obviously tense, ready to dissolve, or to strive for another state. This dissonance is not a calm anchor but a dynamic force that appears to be an unstable state. Such tones seem to necessitate one further step, pointing the music in one direction. They in fact are the smallest units of all great pieces of music.
If you miss out on the dissonance of the seconds, you miss out on the great architecture of music. They present problems, difficulties, and challenges on one hand, but they lead simultaneously to the development of great music. They are lifelines out of mediocrity and flat notes. The Centre seems to be wanting us to say ‘no’ to this.
The now withdrawn guidelines appear not to have come from expertise or from even experience regarding evolving education. They were an unhappy blend of power and passion trying to supersede the lack of attributes explained above by misguided enthusiasm and wasted energy. In the process, the opportunity recently discovered would have been wasted.
Deng Xiaoping once remarked, “Some flies may come in if you keep the window open but they can be taken care of.”
Sadly, the government’s impulse is to close the country’s windows at the cost of the future of education bridging the divide between good and indifferent institutions. Quiescence is the wrong stepping stone for quality education.
Dr. Satya Mohanty is a former education secretary, Government of India.
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(With input from news agency language)
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