Dismantling the public university -Manoj Kumar Jha & Ghazala Jamil

-The Hindu

The debate on privatising higher education must be founded on the role of such institutions in developing a democratic and inclusive society.

Motihari University, Manipur University, Hyderabad Central University, Jawaharlal Nehru University — these names have become shorthand for a set of problems that get framed differently depending on who does the analysis. The list of campuses of public-funded higher education institutions where anger is simmering or has flared up is too long to be recounted here. But we would err if we failed to mention Allahabad University, Banaras Hindu University, Aligarh Muslim University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and the Film and Television Institute of India. The latest entrant to this list is Hidayatullah National Law University.

No matter which side of the debate one is on, it would be hard to deny that this is a list of the best public higher education institutions of India. The recent story of each of these institutions has some common tropes — hostile vice-chancellors who also tend to be underqualified, narratives of sexism and sexual harassment, labelling of students from minorities and vulnerable sections as seditious, violence against dissenting students and teachers, subverting of statutory bodies and processes, and victimising teachers and bringing in expensive technocratic fixes for non-existent problems. Throw into this mix two prominent TV news channels beating their chests about tax payers’ money and lazy/dangerous teachers and students, the situation becomes a flashpoint. Enter a student-wing of a cultural organisation as the source of ignition and you get the picture.

This is a picture of problems public university campuses in India are fraught with. They arise from an attempt to reformulate education as a marketable service that people should have to buy, and from the idea of students pursuing higher education are a drain on public funds (“tax payers money”). It also helps that, in the same breath, any criticism of the government and its policies is dubbed anti-national.

The need then is to place the debate on public-funded universities in India in the context of the role of higher education in developing a democratic and inclusive society.

Through a concerted and violent suppression of dissent on various university campuses, the stage is being set to knock down two well-established principles. One, that public funding of higher education is the only way to ensure that students from all kinds of socio-economic background can access it. And second, that if higher education is to be seen as a means of fostering a democratic, equitable society it must be governed through democratic decision-making with the inclusion of all stakeholders in universities.

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