Pothik Ghosh, Editor, Radical Notes speaking at the July 21st Demonstration
On the significance of the Maruti Suzuki struggle – Pothik Ghosh
July 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment
On the Struggle at Maruti Suzuki and the 18th July event – A Conversation with Shyambir
July 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Bhumika Chauhan talks to Shyambir, an activist with Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra, Gurgaon
Protest Against the Bijapur Massacre (July 31, 2012)
July 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment
DHARNA – DEMONSTRATION
At Parliament Street, New Delhi
11 am – 5 pm, 31 (Tuesday) July 2012
The chilling incident of the premeditated massacre of 20 adivasis peasants of Sirkegudem, Kothagudem and Rajupenta in the Bijapur district of south Chhattisgarh on the night of 28 June 2012 have shocked the conscience of every democratic and freedom loving people of the subcontinent. Till date no action has been taken on the officers responsible for this cold-blooded murder. Worse was the nominal sorry rendered by P. Chidambaram in his dull academic tone followed by a regret by his CRPF chief that too when more and more glaring stories and reports started flooding the media from various independent observers and some of the conscientious journalists.
We are witness to the countless massacres of dalits, adivasis, Muslims and other oppressed sections in the subcontinent by various gangs, landlord armies and private militias in the Indian subcontinent. But what we have witnessed in Bijapur is a continuing pattern of state-sponsored massacres committed by the so-called guardians of law with impunity. Significantly in this case, we come across a scenario in Post-1947 India where the Home Minister would openly defend the criminal act of the paramilitary without batting his eyelids. Rarely do we come across a situation where the Director General of the CRPF would openly come out in defence of the criminal act of his forces. Well this sum up the lawless face of the Indian state personified in the cold and calculated sophistry of a Chidambaram and his able accomplice in Vijay Kumar the CRPF chief. But the democratic and freedom loving people of the subcontinent have seen through the white lies propagated by Chidambaram, Raman Singh the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister and Vijay Kumar the CRPF chief as more and more tell-tale reports started pouring in from independent enquiry teams of civil rights bodies and other citizens who went to the area to get first hand information.
At this juncture it becomes important that we refuse to remain silent to this brutality of the state failing which we are complacent and condemned to be silent accomplices to the terror of the state all being perpetrated in the name of development; a development ostensibly for you and me, but irreversibly and violently wipes out the vast sections of the masses of the people. Yes, it becomes important for all of us to come together and say NO to such premeditated massacres of the state and demand unequivocally that all those responsible for conceiving and executing such acts be brought to book let alone those who vehemently and unabashedly patronise such criminal acts.
• We invite you to be part of this protest demonstration to be held on the 31 July 2012 at Parliament Street from 11 am to 5 pm in which various people’s organisations, civil rights groups, intellectuals and prominent citizens from various states would participate. Your presence is very much needed at this juncture as an act of protest to strengthen the voice of the adivasis in Bastar. Unite with the resilient masses fighting for their Jal-Jangal-Zameen!
A delegation from the Dharna Site at Parliament Street will go and meet the President of India to submit a memorandum on the Bijapur Massacre with the following Demands:
• Constitute judicial enquiry with a sitting or retired Supreme Court judge to look into the massacre,
• Punish the police personnel and politicians like P Chidambaram and Raman Singh responsible for the massacre,
• Stop Operation Green Hunt– Indian State’s War on People Immediately,
• Withdraw military and paramilitary forces from Bastar now, and
• Scrap all MoUs signed with imperialist MNCs and the domestic corporate houses.
REVOLUTIONARY DEMOCRATIC FRONT (RDF)
Contact: Varavara Rao (President), Rajkishore (Gen. Sec.) | 09717583539
| Email: revolutionarydemocracy@gmail.com |
Press Statement: Maruti Suzuki Workers Union
July 19, 2012 by 6 Comments
The Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) is anguished at the recent developments in Maruti Suzuki plant, IMT Manesar where the management has resorted to anti-worker and anti-Union activities in a pre-planned manner leading to violence and the closure of the factory yesterday.
We have had a long tough struggle with the strong unity of our permanent and contract workers to establish and register our Union last year, and had recently as of April 2012 submitted our Charter of Demands to the management of Maruti Suzuki, and the process of negotiation for wages and other demands was underway. However the management has done its utmost to derail the process since long and is trying to break the back of the spirit of unity of the workers and the legitimacy of the Union.
It is due to this, and continuing with this vindictive attitude and in a pre-planned manner, yesterday, the afternoon of 18th July, a supervisor in the shop floor abused and made casteist comments against a dalit worker of the permanent category, which was legitimately protested by the worker. Instead of taking action against the said supervisor, the management immediately suspended the worker concerned without any investigation as was demanded by the workers. When the workers along with Union representatives went to meet the HR to demand against the supervisor and revoke the unjust suspension of the worker, the HR officials flatly refused to hear our arguments, and it was in no mood to resolve the issue amicably.
When the negotiation was going on with the leaders of the Union inside the office, the management called in the entry of hundreds of bouncers on its payroll from outside the plant to attack the workers, and blocked the exit. This is completely an illegal vindictive action in the spirit of conspiracy to corner us into submission even as our demands and methods are legitimate and peaceful. The exit gates were closed by the security on behest of the management and the bouncers brutally attacked the workers with sharp weapons and arms. They, joined by some of the managerial staff and police later, beat up a number of workers who have had to be hospitalised with serious injuries. The bouncers, who are anti-social elements on hire, also destroyed company property and set fire to a portion of the factory. The gates were later opened to oust the workers and enforce a lockout by the company.
We have the workers and the company’s welfare in mind and have worked towards it after the resolution of the dispute last year, and to blame the current violence on us is unjust, which should be properly investigated. We are still keen to dialogue with the company and want to sit with the company management and the government labour department to amicably resolve the matter and restore industrial peace in the factory.
Ram Meher
President, Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU)
Academia as a site of class struggle
July 15, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Raju J Das
The recent student demonstrations in Britain, Quebec (and elsewhere) against neo-liberal education cuts (and fee increase) is an encouraging sign of sentiments of legitimate class anger brewing among students. This prompts one to think critically about academia as such. The academia must be a site of class struggle. And funding cut is only one issue. There are major problems with the academia itself. Students should fight not just for more educational opportunities, for an educational system that is not to be treated as a commodity. They should critically think about the very content of education being given to them by their professors.
One of the problems with the academia – universities, research institutes, etc – is that it is a great ‘leveller’, a ‘bourgeois-democratic terrain’. Take any topic, say, child labour. Lots of professors talk about the social-cultural identity of children (e.g. what does it mean to be a younger person, and all that). If you, as a Marxist, question them saying, what about how capitalism creates conditions for child labour to exist, these academics would say ‘yes, that is one approach, and ours is another’. Take the environment. Nature/environment gets transformed into ideas about nature/environment. So, anything and everything goes.
Marxism, as Terry Eagleton correctly remarks in Why Marx was right is ‘the most theoretically rich, politically uncompromising critique of … (the capitalist) system’. Marxism, however, gets constructed as one among several approaches. Irrespective of the intellectual merit of an approach, all approaches are considered valid within academic, on an apriori basis. Often, approaches which have little to do with Marxism at all are constructed as Marxism with a pre-fix (as in ‘post-Marxism’): those who do this practice double standards. They want to enjoy some prestige associated with Marxism’s rigour while denying the validity of every major principle of Marxism’s theory and politics. The history of the academic world, of production of social knowledge, appears to be a history of running away from the class question and its politics which define Marxism.
The effect is this: Marxism is forced to live in peaceful coexistence with other ideas. Here is the problem though: Marxism cannot naturally live that mode of life. No peaceful existence is possible (just as socialism in one country co-existing with capitalism in other countries is such a stupid idea in theory and practice).
There are only two types of approaches in the world, as Lenin says in What is to be done: socialist/Marxist and capitalist. Because Marxism lays bare the exploitative, destructive and oppressive character of capitalism which is the most dominant feature of our life, which is the most important cause of major world problems, therefore Marxism must be the dominant approach in society. To think otherwise is to fool ourselves.
It is not the friendly battle of ideas – Marxism vs the rest – that leads to this sort of peaceful coexistence. It is partly the structure of the academia which allows this to happen. And it is a structure whose main function is to reproduce capitalism and blunt class struggle.
Within this structure, then the agency of non-Marxists to weed out Marxists in various ways works. Within this structure, what works is the agency of bourgeois professors – which is what nearly all the professors are, although sometimes they give themselves a ‘critical’ name – in imposing nonsense and semi-ignorance, packaged as knowledge, on ‘helpless’ students (who constitute a ‘captive market’). This includes making students or encouraging them to do intellectually non-stimulating and politically infertile research, by making them read nearly-rubbish things in the class room, by holding out the threat of a low grade if students write radical stuff about society, and so on. Many students, thankfully not all, are complicit in this sort of game being played.
Within this structure – the supposedly democratic terrain – some ‘Marxists’ also get seduced and turn to non-Marxism (in the name of theoretical innovations to be peddled in the knowledge-market) or do not critically object to the non-Marxist nonsense on the pretext of collegiality, etc. This collegiality is in a way a reflection of crass class-collaborationism on an ideological plane: to the extent that non-Marxists represent the interests and ideas of the bourgeoisie and to the extent that Marxists represent the interests of the working class, poor peasants and all those still engaged in communal modes of life, collegiality is equal to collaborationism which is given a sweet-sounding name.
It is said that professors’ research should inform their teaching. But what kind of research do professors indeed do? To the extent that professors’ research is driven by a critical agenda – and note that being critical is as mandatory as younger students taking a writing course – their critique is a critique of those aspects which can be changed a bit: talking about things which cannot be changed are off their radar and therefore of their students. Professors ‘find fault’ with society (more accurately, they find fault with superficial aspects of society which can be modified a bit through the drama of so-called human agency as expressed in the form of NGOs, governmental action or union bureaucracy). But they get very edgy if someone points fingers at them. Much of their research agenda is primarily driven by whether their research will, for example, obtain a grant in the grant market, whether from business or from a bureaucratic state, which often sets its own agenda for giving money, and whether their research conforms to the agenda (‘strategic research plan’) of their institutions. Much of the research – funded or not – celebrates economic individualism or cultural individualism (the identity stuff, abstracted from the sheer material conditions). Poverty is replaced by ideas about poverty. The child is replaced by ideas about the child. And so on. Research has attained magical powers. If some workers think that they are not workers, the professor declares that the working class as a reality does not exist, and therefore class is as defunct as Stalinist USSR. By touching the keyboard on their laptops, professors can make an entire reality disappear at an instant.
Much of the research even by so-called critical scholars is about everything else other than capitalism’s class and systemic character. Research is about how to make the existing society look a little progressive on the basis of a little gender parity here, racial or regional equality there, and so on. Much research is purely descriptive: attempt to find causes of things is not a worthwhile project any more. No need to penetrate the structure of the world. Penetrate the minds of people around you. The entire reality is there. What and how people think about things is the main thing. ‘Ies’ (geographies, sociologies), ‘ality’ (governmentality), and a plethora of similar words decorate the academia, which signify multiple realities and social (=mental/emotional, etc.) construction of realities.
If a student garnering some courage tries to talk about class, or the state, the immediate response of the professors is: that’s old stuff or that is too orthodox or that has been done. ‘Do new things, man!’ is what a student is told. What to research is not to be determined by the lives and struggles of ordinary people, by people in their flesh and bones, as they produce and reproduce their lives. What to research is to be determined by ‘silences’, by what has not been researched (I will not be surprised to see a research project that will study the physical and socially constructed average distances among people defecating at dusk on the outskirts of a village in India).
The ‘democratic’ character of the academia will be put to test if lots of professors honestly follow the Marxist approach in a university. One or two Marxists can be allowed in a University as a token existence of radical dissent. The ‘law of dialectics’ will work if the number becomes large, too large. The quantity will change into a quality. The democratic character of the academia will also be tested if students start challenging their bourgeois professors, including in terms of what they make the students read and what is the content of what professors say in the class-room (which is supposedly based on their research). It is not too difficult to see students at the forefront of a renewed class struggle.
Raju J Das teaches at York University, Toronto.
Protest Demonstration Against the Massacre of Adivasis of Bijapur
July 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Join Joint Protest Demonstration Against the Massacre of Adivasis of Bijapur
Date: 17th July (Tuesday) 2012, Time: 11 AM
Place: Chhattisgarh Bhavan, Chanakyapuri, Delhi
Recently the Indian state has intensified its eviction and extermination campaign against the adivasis of central and eastern India under the rubric of Operation Green Hunt. On the night of 28 June 2012 when the adivasi peasants of Sarkeguda, Kottaguda and Rajpenta (Bijapur district of south Chhattisgarh) gathered to plan the performance of the traditional festival Beej Pandum (seed festival), they were surrounded by hundreds of Police and Para-military forces of the Indian state. The armed forces resorted to indiscriminate firing killing 17 adivasis (including 6 minors) cold-blooded. Two other villagers were likewise killed near Jagargunda village of Sukma district in the same night, and predictably, were shown as casualties of an ‘encounter’ between the Maoists and the armed forces.
As the testimonies of the eyewitnesses coming through the Media, Fact Finding Reports of different Civil / Democratic Right Teams and the statements of different social-political forces (including the Congress Party of Chhattisgarh) now confirm that the killing of the adivasis was a heinous massacre committed by the Cobra battalion of the CRPF and the Chhattisgarh Police, under the command of top police officials. Even the Union Tribal Minister Mr. K C Deo has said that ‘17 innocent citizens, who were unarmed, who were wearing just a dhoti or a baniyan and who did not even have a sickle or a knife’ had been killed by the CRPF.
But still the central Home Minister and the top officials of CRPF are claiming that these adivasis have been killed in a “fierce” gunfight in the dense jungles of Dantewada on June 27-28 in a joint anti-Maoist operation by the CRPF and state police. This is really a matter of grave concern for all the justice loving progressive and democratic forces of our country.
We, the under signed progressive, democratic and civil rights organizations working in Delhi have decided to show our anguish and concern in front of Chhattisgarh Bhavan, Chanakyapuri on 17th July 2012 at 11 AM, in the form of a Protest Demonstration.
We earnestly appeal to you / your organization to join us at Chhattisgarh Bhavan to make the protest programme successful. Hope your positive responses.
All India Federation of Trade Unions (New), Inquilabi Mazdoor Kendra, Krantikari Naujawan Sabha, Krantikari Yuva Sangathan, Mazdoor Patrika, National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations (NCHRO), Peoples’ Democratic Front of India (PDFI), People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), Radical Notes, Sanhati-Delhi, Students For Resistance, Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha
Against erratic and unequal distribution of water in Delhi
July 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Hassled and angry residents of Baljeet Nagar
protest against Delhi Jal Board
Protestors question erratic and
unequal distribution of water in the city
On the morning of July 11, hundreds of angry residents from working class colonies in Anand Parbat/Baljeet Nagar area, as well as activists from Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS), Workers Unity Centre (WUCI), Anand Parbat Udhyogik Mazdoor Samiti, Centre for Struggling Women (CSW), etc., took out a rally which culminated at Shadipur Depot. The residents were protesting against the erratic and unequal distribution of water by the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) across the city of Delhi. The agitating residents strongly believe that the brunt of this unequal distribution of water is borne by the city’s poor who reside in colonies which are supplied water not through pipelines but through tankers.
After sloganeering against the DJB, a delegation submitted a Memorandum to the DJB. The delegation pressed for the following: (i) water supply to households in the entire Anand Parbat/Baljeet Nagar through pipelines; (ii) provision of 120 litres per person per day; (iii) provision of a larger number of tankers, as well as a greater frequency of tankers every week; (iv) provision of free and bribe-free water supply via tankers; and (v) immediate implementation of rain-water harvesting, boring and other effective projects to meet the residents’ needs.
There are over one lakh residents living in the affected area, i.e. in colonies like Prem Nagar, Nehru Nagar, Tali Dera, Chetan Basti, Punjabi Basti, Gulshan Chowk, etc., with some 20,000 belonging to the two large slums located in this area. Despite the density of the population, it seems that because the residents share a predominantly working class background, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has never considered supplying water through pipelines to this area. Water is instead supplied to the area via water tankers. Earlier, these tankers used to provide water to the said colonies on alternative days. However, off late the tankers have become so erratic that at many water supply points they come barely once a week. Neither does the DJB invest in rain water harvesting, or pursue other projects to meet the needs of these residents.
According to the protesters, this current state of affairs is not merely the result of a shortage of water tankers. In fact, it is more the result of the DJB coming under control of the water mafia and private contractors. For example, tankers are increasingly providing water at earmarked supply points only when bribed to do so—a process which goes unchecked and creates ample space for private suppliers of water to exploit the needs of the people. As explained by Shri Alok Kumar from Workers Unity Centre (WUCI) who addressed the gathering, “by not maintaining a sufficient fleet of its own tankers, the DJB has gradually allowed a powerful group of private contractors and mafia to step in and provide water at high prices through which they make highly profitable business out this essential service. We believe that this on-the-ground functioning of the DJB reflects nothing but further privatization of water supply and distribution in Delhi.”
In addition to this, the privatization of water supply in the city is also reflected in the recent scams involving water treatment plants like the tender for Bhagirathi Plant where irregularities amounting to 200 crores were reported. Clearly, when issuing tenders involving water projects, the interests of private players play a significant role. Due to their involvement in such water supply and distribution projects, private contractors have now come to determine the quality of the water treated, as well as time taken to put such projects in place. Furthermore, under the influence of neo-liberal economic policies which press for privatization of the social sector (i.e. education, healthcare, etc.) as well as natural resources, successive governments have even sold water reservoirs and other water bodies at throwaway prices to private companies. Such private companies are either interested in the business of packaged water, or, desire direct access to a water source for their manufacturing plants. Private players have, hence, firmly wedged themselves in numerous ways between Delhi-ites need for water and water itself.
The impact of this growing privatization of water supply is most clearly reflected in the creation of an artificial water shortage in the city. On one hand, wealthy residential areas in the city like Jor Bagh, Sundernagar, Sainik Farms, etc. receive uninterrupted supply of water amounting to 450 litres per person per day, and on the other hand, nearly 50 lakh people in the city survive on just 40 litres per person per day. Similarly, it is difficult to uphold the theory of Delhi’s acute water shortage when big hotels, water/adventure parks, etc. enjoy generous supply of water. “If there is always plenty of water for some and never enough for the majority, then we are dealing with a biased policy approach and not an ecological problem,” asserted Sujit Kumar from KYS.
Before dispersing the protesting residents resolved to intensify their struggle, and to launch a larger public campaign across Delhi’s working class areas.
Alok Kumar
Convenor,
Ghar Bachao Morcha
Protest against a Cut-off System in +2 admissions
July 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Government School Students Protest Against the Recent Government Circular Introducing a Cut-Off System in Class XIth Admission
KYS Spearheads Protests in Three Different Zones Against the Circular
Future of Thousands of Poor Students in the Doldrums
Today on the morning of July 11, hundreds of agitated government school students, their parents, as well as activists from Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS), protested against the recent circular released by the Delhi Government’s Directorate of Education. Three different protests were held outside three separate government schools, i.e. outside Government Senior sec. School (Sangam Park), Government Sarvodaya Bal Vidyala (Nangloi), and Government Senior Secondary School No. 1 (Patel Nagar).
The contested Circular is extremely problematic because it has for the first time introduced a very high cut off for government school students who are entering class XIth (eleventh) in the Commerce and Science streams. This cut off is being implemented across the various government schools with immediate effect, and has created havoc with the young students’ lives. The immediate effect of this Circular has been that a large section of youth who are from working class families and are dependent on government school education, are being denied admission to these streams in government schools where they have been studying for years. More importantly, because a large number of these students cannot make it to the high cut offs, there is tremendous rush for admission in government schools offering Humanities/Arts stream.
Running pillar to post, the despairing students and their parents have decided to fight back and compel the Delhi Government to withdraw the Circular. Shri Sujit Kumar, KYS State Executive Committee Member, visited to all three protest venues and addressed the students. In his address he highlighted how the recent Circular was nothing but an attempt to further privatize school education. “When working class youth are ousted from government schools and denied their constitutional right to education, then where will they go—either they will be forced to drop out or to enrol in private schools where they will struggle daily to pay the high fees,” explained Sujit Kumar.
Indeed, the circular is a black spot and mockery of the recently implemented Right to Education (RTE), for it is assisting in keeping a large section of needy youth their right to education. Instead of increasing the number of its secondary and senior secondary schools, it is shocking that the Delhi Government is spearheading an unhealthy process like introduction of cut offs for admission to Class XIth. All this is clearly a big boost to the already on-going process of privatization of education.
Meeting with the authorities of the three concerned government schools, the delegation of students and KYS activists appealed to the respective Principals to write to the Directorate of Education, requesting for the recall of the circular. Realizing that the matter would need to be raised at the higher administrative level, the protesters decided to carry out a campaign and reach out to other affected government school students. If the aforementioned Circular is not withdrawn then a large demonstration will be organized against the Delhi Government to protest against its anti-poor students’ policies.
Open Letter to HRD Minister on the problems of working class youth and students
June 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment
To,
Shri Kapil Sibal
The Hon’ble Minister
Human Resource and Development Ministry
Government of India.
26.06.2012
Respected Sir,
We write to you as part of our initiative to apprise the general public of this country of the multifarious and crippling problems faced by working class youth who wish to pursue higher education. We realize that your own privileged social background, as well as your current political association, will, in all probability, prevent you from pursuing a sympathetic assessment of our concerns. However, we still appeal to your authority and sense of humanity, and ask your office to consider the following facts and concerns highlighted by us.
Sir, it is a well-known fact that the majority of working class youth of this country end up studying in government schools, and despite our best efforts, we still lag behind students who are able to pursue their education from expensive and reputed private schools. It is not that we do not labour and study diligently. In fact, because we belong to working class families, we are well aware of the value of labour. Working hard to survive is strategy taught to us from birth, and it is the principle we follow even when it comes to studies. However, it is clear to us that despite the valuable contribution made to the economy by the working masses, their children’s educational rights are assigned little value. Majority of the government schools we study in are divested of proper resources like adequate teachers, supply of teaching aids, good infrastructure, etc. This dismal condition at the school level is aggravated by the extremely precarious conditions in which we live.
The large majority of our families live in one room apartments because of the meagre wages earned by us and our parents. And needless, to say most of this housing is situated in the city’s slums and JJ colonies—many of which face the threat of demolition. In fact, many of us who are writing this letter have watched our homes being destroyed by bulldozers during our twelfth class examinations this year. Even if we want to rise above all these obstacles and problems such as the temporariness of our homes, we find ourselves severely handicapped by the simple fact that our families cannot afford tuitions. Forced to pay high rents and to meet rising prices of essential commodities, our parents are unable to put aside money for tuitions, or to purchase much-needed study material. Sadly, despite their desire to see us perform well, our parents are sometimes compelled to ask us to work as well, in order to contribute to the family income.
This brings us to the question of how successive governments have failed to address these disadvantages faced by working class youth, and have consciously denied us adequate opportunities at the level of higher education. Sir, we strongly believe that your government’s support for the dual education system, and thereby, its promotion of privatization of education, is a major source of our ruination. By encouraging the private schools on the one hand, and, on other hand, not investing sufficiently in government schools, the government is consciously creating a condition in which affluent students of private schools (who have had access to the best facilities, teachers, as well as tuition) get the lion share of seats made available at the level of higher education. Hence, the current government education policy is such that higher education has become out of reach for majority of this country’s youth, i.e. youth belonging to the working masses. It is extremely disturbing that the government provides subsidized education only till the school level. Beyond school education, the government adamantly refuses to utilize public money in a manner which makes subsidized higher education available to working class youth. Instead, the doors to higher education are opened only to the select few who have proved to be “meritorious”, i.e. those who have undergone private schooling, and hence, have the marks.
Clearly, this skewed education policy which has existed for years, has ensured that only 5 to 7 per cent of youth make it to the level of higher education (see National Sample Survey). In actuality, a large share of this 5 to 7 per cent comprises of middle and upper-middle class youth. The working class do not get a seat in the regular colleges and are forced to pursue higher education from correspondence and non-collegiate higher education boards. Needless to say, correspondence courses, etc. represent the poorly invested sector within the higher education field—a fact well highlighted in the kind of teaching provided, the lack of classroom infrastructure and the poor performance of correspondence students. The above-mentioned figure of 5 to 7 per cent also reflects the simple fact that governments like yours, perceive higher education as an opportunity which should be provided to the minority and not to the masses. After all, an inclusive, mass higher education program would not allow the system to reproduce workers from amongst the society’s youth, because if every youth was to pursue a BA or B.Sc. course, who would line up outside the city’s factories for a job.
Having said this, we would like to reiterate how misplaced your concern for last year’s and this year’s cut-offs has been. In 2011, when some prestigious Delhi University (DU) colleges declared cut-offs that touched 100 per cent, you expressed grave concern and assured the public that such cut-offs would not be repeated. Back then, and even today, the impact of such cut-offs on working class youth, is something you failed to consider. While your government is satisfied with the fact that the same cut-offs have not been repeated this year, can you claim that under this year’s cut-offs, working class youth will also make it to the Delhi University? And does your decision to allow the entry of foreign, private universities provide a solution to the concerns raised by working class youth? The answer to both questions is a definite no.
Firstly, despite cut-offs that are below the magic 100 per cent figure, the majority of youth who are coming from government schools, will still not get admission in universities like DU. Why would we, when the quality of education provided to us in government schools allows us to barely pass the Board examinations. It is here that we would like to highlight the bitter irony of the higher education system—public money is being used not for the betterment of those who most need it, but for those who are from the affluent sections of society, have got the best, and have, hence, scored the most. At this point, you may like to argue that some government school students do make it to higher educational institutions. However, we would like to highlight how this is a misconception yet again. The tremendously small segment of working class youth who make it to the level of higher education, often fail to perform (complete their course, to score well, etc.) because of the lack of essential, complementary facilities like remedial coaching and scholarships. There are, in fact, numerous instances of working class youth being unable to pay their tuition fees.
Secondly, further privatization of higher education via entry of foreign universities, etc. is far from a solution to the on-going problem. It will only result in more private players entering the field of education in the bid to misuse a social need for private, business greed. Education will all the more become an opportunity to be provided to those who can buy it. And lastly, it is only with greater investment in education by the government that the current situation can be improved. The building of more government subsidized schools and colleges, rather than paving the way for expensive foreign universities, is the permanent solution.
High cut-offs and less number of seats are problematic in many ways. For example if there are less number of seats overall, the reserve seats will be lower. Thus reservation which was a constructive policy to bring out Dalits from the villages and traditional occupations would remain an empty box as a large number of students will not get a seat. For example in Delhi University there are 12000 odd seats reserved for SC/ST candidates whereas the number of applicants are around 24000 i.e. double the number of seats. Thus a large number of students from the reserve category are forced to go back to their villages and continue with traditional occupations. This would deny not only upward mobility but also makes Dalit students prone to caste oppression and atrocities in the villages.
Of course, such long term solution need to be supported by immediate relief measures that cater to the concerns and needs of the majority of this country’s youth. One such immediate solution which we put forward and for which we seek government intervention, is the provision of 80 per cent reservation for government school students in every category, i.e. in the general category, SC-ST category, PH and OBC category. We appeal to you and to the society at large to understand and engage with the voice of the majority. Let us not reduce education to the question of who can afford it, and let us not reduce the novel concept of subsidized education to a mockery whereby it is used to provide educational advantages to those who are already way ahead in the race. We appeal to your conscience, and ask you to transform education structure into a truly mass phenomenon in which those who are most disadvantaged, are given an equal opportunity to transform their lives via education.
KRANTIKARI YUVA SANGATHAN (KYS), DELHI UNIT OF ALL INDIA REVOLUTIONARY YOUTH ORGANISATION, T-44, Near Gopal Dairy, Baljeet Nagar, New Delhi-110008. Ph. : 9312654851 , 9313343753
High Cut-Offs Burnt by Government School Students
June 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Sujit Kumar & Dinesh Kumar, KRANTIKARI YUVA SANGATHAN (KYS), DELHI UNIT OF ALL INDIA REVOLUTIONARY YOUTH ORGANISATION, T-44, Near Gopal Dairy, Baljeet Nagar, New Delhi-110008. Ph. : 9312654851, 9313343753
High Cut-Offs Burnt by Government School Students!
Government School Students Demand 80% Reservation in Government-Funded Institutes and Universities!
Government School Students and their Parents Agitated over the Fact that Cheap Public Funded Education is Beyond Their Reach!
An Open-Letter is also sent to HRD Ministry for Immediate Intervention!
Today (June 26) a large number of government school students, their parents and progressive individuals protested against the high cut-off for admission in Delhi University. The colleges of DU declared their first cut-off for admission to various courses on Tuesday. With this the wait is formally over as far as the procedure to get oneself admitted in a college was concerned. However getting a seat secured in a college/course still remained a distant dream for many as the cut-offs have sky-rocketed beyond the expectations. However this is not something which is unique to this years’ cut-off. Every year cut-offs are so high that government school students are not able to get a seat in the institutes of higher learning. Our organization firmly believes that the cut-offis nothing but a calculated policy to keep the higher education beyond the reach of students from government schools, an overwhelming majority of whom come from socio-economically deprived backgrounds. These students have also sent an open-letter to HRD Ministry for immediate intervention.
It is important to note that the higher cut-offs eliminates the chances of government school students in the institutes of higher learning and the only recourse left to them is to do some technical certificate and diploma courses and become a source of cheap labour in the market. Also interesting is the fact that the government has not only continued with the dual education system but has kept the same cut-off for government and private schools.It is an undeniable fact that students from private schools with better teaching and coaching facilities get higher marks and the domain of government funded higher education becomes virtually theirs as there are a very limited number of seats. Whereas the students from government schools always have to kill their ‘ambition’ without anyone noticing the fact that the race was unequal from the start. The bad result of these government school students is a result of the larger policy issue. Most of the government schools students lack basic facilities and have insufficient number of teachers (mostly in science and commerce courses) which is magnified by their home environment as most of these students are first generation learners and mostly live in a single rented room with the entire family. The unavailability of sufficient teachers forces the students to go for unregulated tuitions which not only creates havoc of their career but promotes the privatization of education. It is high time that government should undertake its responsibility of ensuring that a large section of students is not denied higher education due to loopholes in the policy. We demand an immediate enactment of a policy that provides marks relaxation/reservation to students of the government schools in the publically funded institutes of higher learning. We do understand that the reservation cannot be a permanent solution. Therefore the government must abolish the dual system of education with private schools students with all sorts of facilities getting the fruits of cheap higher education on the one hand and on the other the government school students from socio-economically deprived background and lack of good learning facilities remaining outside the domain of higher learning. We also demand that the government should increase the amount of budget spent on higher education for the children of working masses.
It is to be noted that in India the number of students who go for higher education are abysmally low. Only 7 percent of the students who pass 12th standard go for higher education. Even these seven percent students do not get to study the courses and colleges of their choice, and only a very small number of students from them get seats in regular colleges. Most of the students end up doing their study through correspondence or distance learning. In Delhi University there are only 54000 seats whereas 146000 have applied for admission. Thus around a lakh students will be denied admissions. It is important to note that these students are aspirants yet they will not be given admission due to less number of seats. Isn’t it ironic that even from a small number aspirants a large number is denied admission. Most of students who are denied admission are from government schools and are first generation learners. Thus denying them admission eliminates their scope for upward mobility.
High cut-offs and less number of seats are problematic in many ways. For example if there are less number of seats overall, the reserve seats will be lower. Thus reservation which was a constructive policy to bring out Dalits from the villages and traditional occupations would remain an empty box as a large number of students will not get a seat. For example in Delhi University there are 12000 odd seats reserved for SC/ST candidates whereas the number of applicants are around 24000 i.e. double the number of seats. Thus a large number of students from the reserve category are forced to go back to their villages and continue with traditional occupations. This would deny not only upward mobility but also makes Dalit students prone to caste oppression and atrocities in the villages.
We demand:
1. 80% reservation for government school students in public funded institutes and universities.
2. Immediate increase in number of seats in institutes of higher learning.
3. Increase in the amount of budget spent on education.
4. Abolition of the dual education system.
5. Hostel facilities for all the students from socio-economically deprived background.
Radical Notes 