Education in West Bengal has become subservient to political need and greed for almost half a century. Bengal and particularly Calcutta, now Kolkata, was one of the top and most preferred educational centres in India, resulting in youth coming from all over. Student special trains used to come full with those seeking education, which now unfortunately go out full. The likes of Calcutta University, Jadavpur University, St. Xavier, Presidency College (now universities) are very much there but most of the sheen lost.
Education took its first blow, with the start of the Naxal movement in West Bengal around 1965. By the time this tide ebbed the CPI(M) lead Left Front government came to power. As the word goes, CPM started playing a hands-on role in education. The fact that most of the books were hitherto written by primarily leftists or left leaning people helped their cause greatly. Soon ‘Allimuddin Street’, CPM head quarters as it has been known, took ‘control’ of the entire education system – primary, secondary, higher, including university education.
The CPI(M) State Secretary (party chief), Anil Biswas became infamously known as Chancellor of Bengal. The education system of was supposed to have been ‘Anilised’, as it become the personal fiefdom of this comrade. On communist lines there is no room for a fief, but such beliefs had by then crumbled. All appointments were done by this comrade, inhaling his favourite nassi (snuff), and the orders were issued at the pleasure of the Governor.
There was an economic model in this entire thought. Teachers’ appointment was by and large restricted to the family members of party whole-timers. In simple terms, employees whose wages were lower than the minimum wages. The family member so appointed would actually be the main bread earner of the family and also pay a ‘levy’ to the party. This economic dependence ensured no one lost ‘ideological moorings’.
The most retrograde step of the Left Front was withdrawing English from public funded education system in the state in 1982. While this lasted 25 long years impacting two generations, the children of the top leadership went to English medium private schools. So much for a classless society! The entire process was so well planned and executed that it was only noticed once implementation was complete. In red terminology – hegemony established.
Finally when the red bastion crumbled there was hope that things in the state will change as the party now in power, AITC, is a Congress derivative and a class enemy of the Left. But to everyone’s surprise status-quo was maintained. People remained the same, ideology along with the red jersey was thrown to the winds and green donned.
The most visible change in this arena was the Education Minister, who hitherto, had the veil of ‘Prof’ as a suffix to the name, its no more the case. Now, the Minister, who is a business administrator, both by education and profession, has nothing to do with education.
Soon the people of West Bengal started to realise the rot in the education system was only increasing. It imbibed all the shortcomings of the Left and further compounded by removing the lid of internal discipline that CPM used to maintain. So instead of one ‘Chancellor of Bengal’ wielding authority in education many ‘Chancellors’ started mushrooming all over, some with inspiration from the supreme ‘Netri’, and some with allegiance to the current ‘Crown Prince’.
While Left persued its so-called ideological agenda, TMC has always been blatant in its appeasement agenda. In Bangla, rainbow is ramdhenu রামধনু, the state has made it rongdhenu. How can the word Ram find its way in textbooks? Similarly Durga puja became Sharad utsab and so on.
Some very senior academic functionaries believed to be regular visitor to Allimuddin Street are still holding high offices. A visible change has been that many academics are now seen on TV shows appearing as teachers, professors, and battling with representatives of other polictical parties. In fact their determination to defend TMC is so great it reminds one the famous phrase – more Catholic than the Pope.
Universities all over are known for their autonomy and despite their ownership, are academia run. It is unfortunate that the Education Minister of West Bengal does not believe in this and is also unable to keep his misgiving close to his chest. On more than one occasion he has publically stated – the Government pays the salaries so they decide who needs to be appointed and how. As a person from the corporate sector he is right but someone has to educate the education minister that his roles have changed.
In all this the crowning glory – pièce de résistance – was the action of the Calcutta University when it created history of sorts by conferring D.Litt. on a serving Chief Minister. The rush for this was so great that the investiture ceremony took place even while the High Court was hearing a PIL challenging the same.
The students of Bengal deserve better after all they are our future.
(The author of the article is Shishir Bajoria. He is an industrialist and BJP leader from West Bengal. He is a Core Committee Member of the Foreign Affairs Dept., BJP. He is also the Chairman, Board of Governors, IIM Shillong.)