Religion and Education - Policies out of Sync

The education ministry’s recent circular permitting and supporting a religious group to carry out preaching activities in educational institutions once again shows that the ministry is not a reliable agency to deal with national education. Policies are made on the run.

They are not supported with authoritative advice or with findings from research, especially in areas such as religion in education.

There is no consultation with parents.

Or teachers.

Or the public.

They flout the very principles of education they are supposed to defend. Policies have become the whims and fancies of those who have the power to make rules. They appear not to realize the lifelong impact their policies have on children and the harm they will do them and the future of this country if policies are not carefully made.

Education is not the personal fief of the minister or any of its officials, whatever their rank. Their first duty is to observe and comply with the laws that created their office and their functions. The laws have established two national councils to consider and advise on policies on education. The Minister and the ministry have a legal duty to process policies such as this through those councils. Instead, they proceed as authoritarians as if they have a personal right over such issues as the proselytization of religion in educational institutions.

National unity, equality of access to education, the equal treatment of all citizens are some of the objectives of national education. How are these objectives served by the ministry’s circular on religious proselytism in educational institutions? 

If religion is an important part of education (there is a body of research that supports this), then why are the other religions not taught and preached. If the education ministry is only concerned with one section of the students, who are expected to care for the others?

The ministry cannot blow hot and cold on these policies and not expect

to lose their credibility as stewards of national education.

Culture of Silence

What has been amazing and simultaneously troubling is that there is complete silence from academics about what they have gone through in their lives and careers. There is almost no protest by those who have been denied legitimate positions in academics. Even those who have been at the receiving end have not come out in the open.

Silence among those who perpetrated havoc on others is understandable. One does not, of course, expect them to talk. But the others? The apparent oath of silence is akin to what we come across among cricketers who refrain from letting out what happens in the dressing room. The match-fixing and betting that is undoubtedly prevalent in cricketing circles and involves some of the players.
Educational institutions -- those that are administered by the state governments as also the central universities -- are being subjected to political interference that is steadily increasing.

The various kinds of fixing that happen in the Indian academic realm will put a cricketer to shame in terms of the sheer ingenuity and cussedness that is employed in academics. The cricketers may have strong and compelling reasons to guard their turf and maintain a convention by constantly increasing the size of the carpet under which their shenanigans get swept. But does it behove academics, whose coffers are almost always funded by public funds to keep a tight lid on how misuse, manipulation, and corruption prevail in this so-called noble profession. Not to mention sexual exploitation of women colleagues, research scholars and postgraduate students.

From The Closed Nature of Indian Universities by M. A. Kalam published in www. TheIndiaForum Nov 1 2019