WHAT shape does the student movement take in the political and economic climate of liberalization-globalization?

In the 1990s, the media was eager to write an obituary of the student movement. The age of liberalization, they said, was an age of aspirations, of freedom, of new and exciting possibilities of lucrative employment. This shiny new Indian youth, they predicted, would have no time or inclination for political activism or idealism. To an extent, this was, and is, no doubt true. Liberalization has indeed produced a new youth culture, new attitudes and aspirations. But in other ways, ‘the more things change the more they remain the same.’

Opposition to fee hikes and privatization and the high cost and poor quality of higher education have emerged as overriding concerns. Anxieties about shrinking education and employment opportunities in liberalized times have also given a boost to divisive and reactionary movements – such as the anti-reservation agitations. While the corporate media has been happy to highlight and cover the anti-quota agitations, they have been less than ready to face up to the reality of these other student protests.

Today, the mainstream media are eager to deride any critique of liberalization, whether in the form of intellectual discourse or student protest, as a manifestation of ‘outdated’ left ideology, a vestige of a past era when revolutions and social commitment were in vogue. A typical instance is the signed article by an editor of a leading English daily, which comments on the social sciences and liberal arts in India: ‘What brand name can Indian social sciences and the liberal arts boast of? They, in fact, have a bigger problem than lack of resources: lack of intellectual freedom, diversity of thought and opinion. The few social science centres that we have, therefore, produce clones. Usually these are clones of professors steeped in the heady ideologies of the ’70s incapable or unwilling to notice that the "revolution" has passed them by. JNU is a perfect example.’¹

 

Universities like the JNU are caricatured as anachronisms precisely to undermine the fact that the student movement is alive and well in these institutions, and neoliberal ideology finds little acceptance. But this is not the case only of campuses like Jawaharlal Nehru University where various strands of the Left are known to have a strong presence. Protests against donation and capitation fees, fee hikes, and other forms of privatization have met with powerful protests all over the country, not only in government-run institutions but even in private institutions of higher education.

Much of the current contempt for student movements derives from a deeper discomfort with movements, especially working class protests more generally. In an editorial following a remarkably successful Bharat Bandh on 7 September last year, The Times of India commented, ‘In a democratic age, bandhs have lost their pre-independence aura and have outlived their purpose. They …reek of the old style of doing politics… With rising literacy and growing economic activity, modern societies search for moderate political methods such as debate, discussions or protests that do not involve public disruption.’²

Indian students, intellectuals and workers alike are being asked to embrace liberalization, but they have proved remarkably resistant to such advice. Ironically, while we are being exhorted to come of age and jettison the ‘old style of doing politics’ through strikes and protests and ‘public disruption’, the ‘modern societies’ that are presented as models seem to be going the other way! Britain, France, in fact much of Europe, and even the US, are witnessing a new phenomenon of huge working class and student mobilization, challenging ‘austerity measures’, job cuts, as well as fund cuts and fee hikes in higher education. The slogans raised by students and workers in India against fund cuts, fee hikes and job cuts (slogans we are told have no relevance in mature, developed countries) are suddenly finding a huge resonance in those very countries.

 

With the crisis in the US economy (and elsewhere), institutions of higher education too are in crisis. Militant protests and sit-ins have been witnessed in many major US campuses; students have even blockaded important highways; and 7 October 2010 was observed throughout that country as a National Day of Action to Defend Public Education.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) also participated in the Day of Action as part of its ‘Higher Education is a Public Good’ week, which its members described as ‘a week of action to demonstrate the importance of not-for-profit higher education.’ On 10 November 2010 in Britain, over 50,000 students met at the Tory Headquarters to protest fund cuts and fee hikes. Subsequently, many British campuses have witnessed sit-ins and occupations.

Two decades of liberalization, then, have failed to convince India’s students and young people, either intellectually or politically, that India is shining in a globalized world. Inescapably they have been confronted with a reality of ever-shrinking educational opportunities and severe job insecurity, of a privatized education market that is low on quality and high on corruption. They can see, all around them, how the forms of political mobilization – peasant militancy, tribal resistance, working class strikes – that had been stamped ‘past the expiry date’ by the ruling powers, have emerged with a renewed assertiveness and relevance on the political stage.

Inevitably, every move to hike or ‘rationalize’ fee structures or levy ‘user charges’ on basic facilities has met with student protests. Even the student outfits of ruling parties – NSUI (National Student Union of India) and ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) for instance – have had to take an overt posture against fee hikes, even when imposed by governments run by their own parent parties. In response, there has been a two-pronged approach on the part of the state. Faced with the unpopularity of its liberalization agenda, the state has been forced to pass it off as a discourse on welfare and reform. At the same time, there have been calculated moves to police political activity and democratic expression on higher education campuses.

 

Planning Commission Vice Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, in an interview in 2006, said: ‘Unionization in higher education personnel is a major impediment. When you talk to students unions, I am not sure that they are arguing for the kinds of things that are oriented towards educational reform. They are certainly interested in keeping fees low.’³

One way to deal with the ‘problem’ of student unions and student politics is to crack down. The means adopted are not confined to police action on campuses and arrest of leaders. In Aligarh Muslim University, spies are hired to keep an eye on students and staff; students are suspended for blogging or even raising their voice against the quality of food in the mess. In Jamia Millia Islamia and Delhi University, ‘bouncers’ are hired by the university administration.

 

Another parallel strategy is to try and domesticate student politics. A World Bank Task Force on Higher Education in Developing Countries, (which included Manmohan Singh among its members) observed that ‘student awareness and debate should be encouraged’, but there are situations ‘where levels of activism can rise to the point where high quality education becomes impossible’, and ‘where academic pursuits have been taken hostage, activism may need to be restricted.’⁴

In India, ‘restricting activism’ is coming about through the medium of the Lyngdoh Committee (henceforth LC) appointed by the Supreme Court. The ostensible brief of the LC was to institutionalize student union elections in all higher education institutions while ridding them of violence and big money. Let us, however, examine how the LC conceptualizes student politics. The LC describes the ‘purpose of SUs’ as being to voice students’ ‘grievances’, take up issues of ‘student welfare’, and be a ‘healthy’ ground for ‘training future leaders’. Universities are encouraged to organize ‘leadership training programmes with the help of professional organizations so as to groom and instil in students leadership qualities.’

This model of ‘leadership’ prescribed by the LC is divorced from politics. Democratic political contention among students is discouraged. The LC observes, ‘Organizations like NSUI, ABVP, AISF, SFI, etc. …had a tendency, more often than not, to unnecessarily politicize the election process. The involvement of these organizations in student elections leads to the creation of rival factions within the students, which in turn leads to the subservience of the ultimate goal of democratic student representation.’ Democratic student representation, in the LC’s view, has nothing to do with the political views or choices of the students.

 

To bear out its apolitical vision of student unions, the LC states that the ‘primary function of a university is after all education, not political indoctrination’, and that students are entitled to only a ‘certain basic standard of teaching and infrastructure.’ But in times of privatization of education and fee hikes, when even the ‘basic standard of teaching and infrastructure’ are being denied by governments, unions can hardly hope to defend these without taking on the policy agenda of governments, i.e., without student politics.

Embedded in the LC recommendations, masked by the concern to curb money and muscle power, are ‘safeguards’ to ensure that student unions and student politics can no longer serve the radical function of challenging government policies. For instance, among the eligibility criteria for candidates is a stipulation that the students should never have been ‘tried/convicted’ for any criminal offence, nor should they have been ‘subjected to any disciplinary action by the university authorities.’ In the same vein, ‘disrupting’ or ‘missing’ classes is the ultimate crime. It is common for student protests to be branded as ‘disruptive’ and ‘criminal’, and for student movement leaders to face criminal cases and ‘disciplinary action’. Now, the LC allows these tactics to be used to disqualify such leaders from contesting student union elections.

The LC’s real purpose has been exposed by the uses to which it has been put. The LC has not been used to ensure regular student union elections in any major campus, including central university campuses like BHU (Benaras Hindu University) and Jamia Millia Islamia or Bihar campuses where elections have long been suspended. At most, its provision for unions ‘nominated’ by the administration has been adopted in many campuses. In campuses like Delhi University, notorious for money and muscle power in elections, the LC recommendations have done little to change things. But the LC recommendations have been used to stay elections in the one campus which, so far, has been totally free of political violence or big money – the JNU, known for producing politically mature and socially committed student union leadership capable of the most effective challenges to government policy.

The LC, while paying lip service to the idea of student unions and student politics, seeks to empty student politics of its transformatory potential. Its paternalistic model of student politics treats young adults in the mode of children needing protection and seeks to provide a sanitized, sterilized, ‘child-locked’ model of student unions.

 

This is not to say that political violence on campuses is not a matter of concern. But political violence cannot be eliminated by getting rid of politics; it calls for stern administrative action against the perpetrators, accompanied by student mobilization for a political alternative. The impetus for LC came in the wake of the incident at Ujjain in which the ABVP lynched a professor to death. Such organized political violence on campuses continues in spite of the implementation of LC recommendations. On the other hand, in DU, for instance, political student groups seeking to debate policy issues and political matters are denied permission to hold public meetings in DU colleges. Even public spaces (such as the Vivekananda Statue) in the university traditionally used for such purposes are now being taken away (by imposing exorbitant fees).

Meanwhile the example of JNU shows that it is alternate student politics, organically arising from among students themselves and focused on political issues, depth of political debate and movements taking on policy questions, which alone can keep violence and big money at bay. The LC model is a set of externally imposed regulations that has proved quite ineffective against violence and money-power in student politics, or to introduce democratic traditions in campuses where they have been absent. But it has been a weapon against the very model of student unions that was posing a political challenge to policies of privatization in higher education.

 

The continuing distrust of and resistance to privatization has forced the government to cloak its agenda in the guise of ‘reform’. Just as the LC was imposed in the name of getting rid of the universally detested ills of violence in student politics, privatization in its latest avatar is being introduced in the name of action against ‘donation/capitation’ fees and ‘deemed’ universities.

A slew of bills are being packaged as the UPA government’s answer to the ills of ‘deemed’ universities that exploit students while providing substandard education. But these bills, in the name of more effective ‘regulation’, plan to usher in exorbitant fee hikes, commercialization of campus spaces and facilities like health care, halls, canteens and auditoriums, extraction of ‘user charges’ even for basic facilities like water and electricity and bring a fundamental shift in focus of educational curriculum towards market oriented courses.

Private and foreign education institutions will be free from any obligation to provide SC/ST and OBC reservations. Clause 9 of the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill and Clause 49 of the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority Bill allow the government to ‘exempt’ foreign and private education providers from regulations that apply to government institutions! Some of the provisions in these bills seem designed to scuttle the possibility of students or teachers going to the District or High Court to seek justice in cases of grievances with private education providers.

Take the case of the Education Tribunals Bill, clause 47 of which reads, ‘No civil court shall have jurisdiction to entertain any suit or proceeding in respect of any matter which the State Educational Tribunal or the National Educational Tribunal is empowered by or under this Act to determine and no injunction shall be granted by any court or other authority in respect of any action taken or to be taken in pursuance of any power conferred by or under this Act.’ This means that it is only after exhausting the long process of first approaching the State Educational Tribunal, and then the National Educational Tribunal, that students can finally approach the Supreme Court for justice.

 

The preferred policy framework for these changes in higher education is provided by the Yashpal Committee Report (henceforth YCR). The YCR was widely welcomed as an alternative to the neoliberal model. Indeed, it makes a powerful case for a holistic, humanist (rather than commercialized and market-oriented) vision of the university as organically linked to society. But a closer reading reveals that the actual policy recommendations of the YCR are virtually indistinguishable from those of, say, the National Knowledge Commission. The YCR with its sugar-coated prescriptions of privatization, seems to be the government’s way of persuading the intellectual and student community to accept a bitter pill!

The YCR states that one of its key concerns is upholding the autonomy of universities so as to ensure freedom in research and training. (p. 9) This is indeed a laudable principle, especially insofar as it calls for academic freedom, self-evaluation and self-reform. It also recognizes that funding to universities has become ‘inadequate, irregular and inflexible.’ Yet it goes on to prescribe a regimen where the university must solicit private funds to ‘supplement’ public funding.

 

For instance, it recommends that universities must develop an ‘ability to attract partnership from the private sector’ (p. 38), that the role of a VC must extend beyond the academic realm to financial prowess; and that the universities hire ‘professional fund raisers’ who will highlight the university’s ‘USP’ to attract funding. The dependence on professional fund raisers and the inevitable preoccupation with ‘selling’ itself is compatible neither with the social responsibilities nor with the academic autonomy of the university as outlined by the YCR itself.

As a solution to the problem of exorbitant fees in private institutions, the YCR recommends, not strict curbs on fee hikes, but merely a certain percentage of ‘freeships’ for poor students – a formula that has proved a dismal failure in the private sector schools in Delhi. The YCR seems to have no idea of the structural logic of private capital and private profit. Mistakenly locating the profiteering motive in ‘family’ greed, it fails to see that private capital inevitably has a profit motive that militates against the humanist vision of the university.

Time and again, in the context of both private and government institutions, the YCR repeats that, ‘No student should be turned away …for want of funds for education.’ And that the ‘primary focus’ should be ‘on making education affordable.’ (pp. 38-39) This can be achieved only through making public funding and low fees the norm: but the YCR does not recommend this. Rather it proposes a ‘differential fee structure’ – high fees for those who can afford it and scholarships and educational loans for those who cannot.

Such a measure cannot cater to poor students; it is nothing but a pretext to make high fees the norm while virtuously denying the agenda of commercialization. High fees, ‘for those who can pay’ means privatization by the back door: the government is sure to decree that all but the very poorest, ‘can pay’! The best way of making education accessible to the poor is to provide education at a very low cost. If we want to avoid subsidizing the rich, the best way is not through increasing fees, but through taxes: through an educational cess on people in a certain salary bracket, and an even larger cess on industry.

The student movement today faces unprecedented challenges. It is faced with a policy offensive of privatization and shrinking campus democracy, as well as all-out attempts by institutions to undermine social justice policies like reservations. It is also beset by trends of apoliticalism, as well as organized political violence by certain student groups. In spite of all these challenges, however, the student movement demanding democracy and resisting privatization has proved difficult to repress, and has time and again established its renewed relevance.

 

Footnotes:

1. The Indian Express, 30 May 2009.

2. The Times of India, 8 September 2010.

3. Walk the Talk, The Indian Express, 4 December 2006.

4. The World Bank, 2000, pp. 63-64.