‘Higher education destroyed by academics, politicians’

The trajectory of the Narendra Modi government’s education policy has been “disappointing and makes one apprehensive,” said Dr. Devesh Kapur, Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania.

According to Dr. Kapur, Mr. Modi’s attempts to engage the Indian diaspora in the country’s development may be possible in private sector, but would be highly difficult in public universities, unless the structure of higher education changes radically.

“Suppose the Vice-Chancellor of a university said, ‘I am creating a special place for Indian academicians abroad.’ Do you think it is possible? It is not possible, as others in the university would be up in arms. Higher education has been destroyed by Indian academicians as much as by Indian politicians. So in higher education, diaspora’s role is difficult.”

Dr. Kapur said unless India grows at a reasonable pace, the new middle class of India could become a source of reactionary politics. “There are times when they are agents of progressive social change and times when they are reactionary. In Germany and Italy it was the middle class that supported the fascists. When there are times of insecurity, they are precarious. The lower middle class is always insecure about slipping back into poverty.”