Author Chetan Bhagat feels that the government policy of keeping the education sector non-profit is not good for the country's education system. Speaking to The Hindu in the run-up to the release of his fifth novel, “Revolution 2020: Love. Corruption. Ambition,” Mr. Bhagat said: “The government policy is that the private institutes should be run by non-profit trusts. As a result, credible corporates don't venture into the education sector because the shareholders want profit. The government believes that you should not make money from education. This has led to a situation where a lot of people who have black money have ventured into the sector. They take out the money illegally in cash and on paper maintain the no-profit status.”
Mr. Bhagat maintains that in India only if you are in the top 10 percent can you get to study in a good college. “Otherwise you just fall off the cliff. Over the years, the number of applicants has outpaced the number of prestigious institutions. It is leading to ridiculous things like 100 per cent cut-offs and it needs to be fixed.”
Talking about the privatisation of education, Mr. Bhagat alleged that the wrong set of people was opening colleges. “The sari shop owners, the mithaiwalas , the liquor barons…they don't have any commitment towards education. I am not against commercialisation but I am against corruption. Commercialisation is going to make it sustainable, so it is fine.” Asked whether the government should move out from the education sector, Mr. Bhagat said it should not but it can't meet the demand. “The private participation is a must but it should be done in a way that the right kind of people come forward. If a professor wants to open a college, he should be able to do it but today he can't because he has to be corrupt at every level. The non-profitability clause should go away. It costs hundreds of crores to establish a university. People are not going to establish educational institutes for the goodness of their heart.”
Set in Varanasi, “Revolution 2020,” is a love story with the corruption in education system forming the backdrop. Mr. Bhagat says that the system hasn't made an effort to understand small-town India. “We don't seem to be interested in understanding anything that is non-elite. Votes are coming from there but the power, the media is concentrated on the top three four per cent and then we ask why they are not coming along with the progressive India.”
Small towns ‘exciting'
As a writer, he says small towns are exciting because of the conflict that still exists in society. “They are exposed to love marriages through TV and films but in their real lives it is still a rarity. In the book, the boy and girl enter the film theatre separately and leave separately. You can't have this sort of tension in a metropolis,” says Mr. Bhagat, who travelled to Varanasi four times for research.
He says for years publishers also missed small-town India. “I not only get my stories from small towns but also readership. The publishers were not aware that they could sell English novels in Varanasi. It was an ignored readership, which everyone has now woken up to. Many people tell me, ‘yours is the first English novel that we have read.'” His books generally don't find favour with literary critics, but Mr. Bhagat has made peace with the criticism. “Earlier, I used to feel judged. Now I have made peace as you can't talk about contemporary Indian literature without mentioning my name. I may not be talked about in elite circuits but that's what I am not all about. When you have music and cinema that are watched by masses, why can't we have books that are read by the common man without being judged,” says Mr. Bhagat, whose two books have been adapted into films and a third is in the pipeline.
