NEP 1: Elephant in the Room
P Chidambaram examines the language and school education aspects in the National Education Policy in his column in The Indian Express. The intention behind the twin policy prescriptions on language is a clear imposition of Hindi or Sanskrit, which will be strongly opposed in Tamil Nadu and other states, he points out. Also, if private for-profit schools are allowed, it will be difficult to enforce a uniform policy on language or curriculum or teacher standards across all schools.
Private for-profit schools are businesses; they will strive to maximise their profits and provide what the market wants — English as the medium of instruction, private tuitions, coaching, Saturday and Sunday classes, rote learning, focus on exams, academics at the cost of sports, etc. If the NEP falters or fails in achieving the objectives of school education, it will be on the Achilles’ heel of private for-profit schools.
A Year of Hatred
Tavleen Singh writes in The Indian Express that this year will be called as India’s year of hatred as the Prime Minister had taken upon himself the task of completing what the RSS calls the ‘unfinished business’ of Partition. With ‘ugly Hindutva triumphalism,’ triple talaq and the abrogation of Article 370 have been used in election speeches as Hindutva victories, making Muslims feel like lesser Indians.
If the economy was booming and millions of young Indians were able to get new jobs and take the first steps towards a better life, then the year gone by may have been remembered differently. If there had been some measure of improvement in the economy, there would be some reason to celebrate the end of the first year of Modi’s second term. COVID-19 is now being blamed by Modi’s more ardent supporters for why he has been unable to lead the country towards his declared goal to make the 21st century India’s century. This is not true. The economy was in trouble long before the pandemic arrived.
What Hindutva Trolls Can Learn From Gandhi
Devout Hindus can be the ones to save Muslims from Hindu mobs, can be secularists as in believing all religions should be treated with equal respect and that Hindutva promotes Hindu majoritarianism and not religious Hinduism, writes SA Aiyer in The Times of India.
Gandhiji was also a believer in inalienable individual rights, and the duty to respect beliefs of others and not force one’s views on them. Hence, he supported cow slaughter by non-Hindus. Despite being a devout Hindu who held a daily prayer meeting, he was shot by Nathuram Godse for being too secular. His last words were “Hey Ram.” Was he a sickular libtard? Today the Hindutva crowd claims it alone represents true Hinduism. It cannot stand Gandhiji’s secularism and adores Godse. BJP Member of Parliament Pragya Thakur, under trial for killing 10 people in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blasts, has lauded Godse as a great patriot. She was criticised and disciplined for this by Modi.
Yeh Dil Not Maange More: Indians Are Less Aspirational Than We Think
If Indians continue to prioritise sorting out past Hindu injustices, solving Bollywood cases, building temples, nationalism over income levels, good healthcare, education and infrastructure, then our future is going to be quite dull, writes Chetan Bhagat in The Times of India. He points out that with the present government being responsive to these priorities, the country’s economy has gone for a toss.
Countries like Australia and Sweden aren’t exactly super aspirational or growth hungry. However, they are already at a high income level. They have excellent health, education and infrastructure. Without growth, we will never have that. Our standard of living also won’t rise further. Our youth will remain in low-end jobs. We will become a nation of clerks, support staff and low-level employees. However, we will always have chhole bhature. Try them with freshly cut onions, lemon and pickle. You will forget economic woes, I promise.
The Centrality of the West Bengal Election
Karan Thapar writes about how the upcoming West Bengal elections which is a fight between Mamata Banerjee’s TMC and Narendra Modi’s BJP, would mean a struggle for supremacy between Hindutva and secularism. A BJP victory would lead to the spread of Hindutva in a state with 27% Muslims and a seismic shift in a state of unchallenged Communist rule, he writes in Hindustan Times.
The fall of Calcutta-Kolkata — if it happens — could be compared to the conquest of Carthage and Constantinople or, if you prefer, the Communist takeover of China in 1949. Nothing will be the same again. If Modi and the BJP can win Bengal, they will seem unshakeable and their spread irresistible whilst the Opposition would be crushed and humiliated. So, for the first time after 1911, Kolkata will be the cynosure of all eyes. The fight for Writer’s Building could seal the political future of the country. This is why we need to be better informed about the “Battle for Bharat” that looms ahead. The next nine months aren’t going to be easy for Mamata.
Prose Over Poetry
A lot of hopes are pinned on Kamala Harris to become the next Vice President of the United States of America, but for that she needs to stop speaking prose like a lawyer and be soulful, writes Frank Bruni in Hindustan Times. He urges her to draw inspiration from her life growing up with Indian and Jamaican values and be more personal with the people, so as to prove that she is helping Biden with his politics of inclusion against Donald Trump’s politics of division.
What a rich mix of influences: as multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural as the country in which her parents wisely invested their hopes. What a portrait of life as it’s lived, with all sorts of swerves.In her public remarks she makes references to some of this, but they’re usually just that — references. After she mentioned school busing (“that little girl was me”) to attack Biden in a primary debate for his opposition to it, I went back and looked at the big speech that she’d given to kick off her presidential campaign. Busing was nowhere to be found. In fact her speech didn’t have all that much biographical detail, period, at least if you edited out the professional stuff. It was strikingly impersonal.
Why the State Must Promote Religious Tolerance
Mark Tully urges Indians to be tolerant and accepting of all religions as true, which is in contrast with Hindus taking pride in being tolerant and believing Hindutva should shape Indian nationalism. In his column in Hindustan Times, he suggests that the state should adopt policies to promote religious tolerance.
At Independence, there were three perceived options for Indian nationhood. There was what has come to be called Nehruvian secularism, which opposed any connection between religion and nationhood. One reason the Congress has declined is that secularism is perceived as having no place for Hinduism. It can all too easily be portrayed as actively hostile to religion. The second option was Hindutva, which believes the Hindu religion and culture should be the primary element in shaping Indian nationalism. At Independence, there was a third way, the Gandhian way which gave a prominent role for Indic religions and, at the same time, promoted religious tolerance. The Gandhian option faded away, leaving the field open for the battle between Congress secularism and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Hindutva.
Is It Time for an Infant God?
Anand Neelakantan asks people to consider the possibility of God as an infant because a judgmental, all-knowing, all-powerful God, has given humanity a lot of trouble so far. And now, it is our responsibility to clean up the mess we have created to make a world worthy of the kid god - innocent, pure and immaculate, he writes in The New Indian Express.
Then what would we do with all myths, holy books, and countless art that we have produced? Well, don’t we narrate stories to our children in which they are often the heroes? Fortunately, we have so many tales where god is the hero. Like any parent, we tell them those heroic legends with gusto and our infant god ought to love them all. For as parents, don’t we believe such fables, though fanciful, are the ones that shape the child? With all those beautiful legends, who knows, perhaps one day, the infant god would grow up to be a wonderful human being.
Inside Track: Age No Excuse
Coomi Kapoor writes in The Indian Express about Prime Minister Modi’s new look at the Ram mandir bhoomi puja, protests mounting from DMK cadres over M K Stalin hiring pollster Prashant Kishor as a consultant, how Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is rattled while Sachin Pilot doesn’t seem to have lost as much and on Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi approaching a Delhi court alleging London-based legal arbitrator Sarosh Zaiwalla’s memoir is defamatory to his late father.
Pilot had really nothing to lose since for the last 18 months Gehlot ensured that he was redundant. For instance, Rs 27 crore was spent by the state for the CM’s publicity in his first year, while not a paisa was sanctioned for a Pilot poster. Gehlot used the official plane 85 times, Pilot not once. Since Gehlot retained both the home and finance ministries, he ensured that no funds were released for Pilot’s portfolios and that he could not even choose his own staff, let alone ensure a posting in his constituency. Gehlot was certain that Pilot, a constant thorn in his side, would be finally thrown out of the party after his rebellion. On the contrary, shaken by the near loss of yet another state, the till now complacent Congress high command has decided to keep a watch on goings-on in Jaipur.
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