Engaging with Elementary Education in India

The following note was written for a voluntary organisation which was looking to develop their strategy for working in the area of elementary education. This paper was to be one input for their decision. The paper primarily draws on what I learnt while working with Social Initiatives Group (SIG) of ICICI Bank. I am thankful to my colleagues at SIG and members of SIG's partner organisation for whatever I have learnt about elementary education in India. Of course, if these sound stupid, blame it on me. Not on SIG or its partner organisations.

A BRIEF NOTE ON SCHOOL EDUCATION IN INDIA

ROUGH SKETCH OF HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN INDIA

The idea of education has been close to the heart of many who sought to define and contribute to the development of a good society. Be it Socrates description of education for the philosopher king in The Republic or the more recent pronouncements of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan on the necessity of education and its purposes, they all stand testimony to the importance that philosophers and social reformers have given to education as a necessary instrument of shaping the good society. The premise for this belief is the definition of childhood and its importance as a preparatory phase for the adult life where individuals have to contribute towards a good society. It is a truism, but worthy of being stated, that often the kind of education proposed is founded upon the ideal of the society proposed. History and study of education systems do reveal a strong connection between the nature of society as it exists and how education happens in such a society. Therefore, it is only to be expected that proponents of reform will seek to achieve those reforms by impacting the system of education in that society.

Specific to India, education systems of varying kinds have been in existence over the centuries. This includes the gurukul system, the universities established by Buddhists, the madrassas of the Islamic establishment, community schools and home based schooling amongst others. Within these, often the gurukul system and the universities established by the Buddhists are generally represented as the prime examples of achievements in the area of education by Indian society. However, both of these were losing their relevance towards the 18^th century. The gurukul system had reached a decline and was slowly dying out by the 18^th century. The universities established by Buddhists had died down much earlier. The more common and widespread form of education was the village schools. This consisted of a teacher, normally from the community who taught a few children in the village. Many of these were established along communal lines (linguistic and religious) in that the support for these schools came from certain communities. However, it generally had children from other communities as students. They received patronage from the parents, wealthy people in the community and at times from the rulers. While the earlier gurukul system focused on preparing the students for future life as priests and rulers, the community schools were more about learning to read, write and do basic arithmetics. Hence, it attracted not just Brahmins or Kshatriyas but those belonging to farming and trading communities as well. Even through these community schools, the education of lower castes was a rareity if not non existent. Female participation in these schools was also minimal. The curriculum or decisions on what is worth teaching in these schools and the mediation of access to these schools closely reflected the prevalent political, economic and social characteristics of the time. Another aspect of the education system that requires mention is that of the acquisition of occupational skills. The training in these skills were primarily through a system of apprenticeship often within the household or with a skilled practioner of the craft. It is also of value to note that teaching children at home either by the parent or a hired teacher was also not an uncommon practice.

What is of value to note is that education was delivered through a diverse set of arrangements and the system for education was diffused within the 'school', household and the community. This evolved system that existed in India gave way to the modern public school system under the British rule. Many of the diversity and strengths of the earlier system was lost as a uniform system of schooling was sought to be established. At the same time, some of the rigidities of the earlier system in terms of caste and gender could also be challenged in the new system established by the British as it was premised on the belief of universal education.

The British implemented public school system was characterised by government funding, a common curriculum and a centrally administered schooling system. The government funding meant that the teachers were regularly paid and people without sufficient means could also access a school. (The social barriers still kept many communities out of schools.) It also affected the linkage between the teacher and the community in that the teacher became more an agent of the government unlike the teachers of a community run school. Again the uniform curriculum also meant that the caste based dissemination of knowledge was challenged in theory. However, it also meant that many of the trades did not find a place in the curriculum. The emphasis of the curriculum was on learning to read, write and do basic arithmetic. Economically productive skills were seldom taught in school. In the emerging society, ability to read, write and do arithmetic became critical skills which enabled one to acquire influential positions within the government. The social barriers to schooling ensured that people from lower castes were denied this opportunity. The central administration of schooling led to the establishment of administrative processes like recruitment of teachers, inspection systems, training and certification systems, central curriculum and syllabus formation etc. The public schools began to compete with the earlier models of schooling and ensured the death of the latter.

In looking at the history of Indian education system under the British rule, it is important to note the contributions of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore to the cause of education. Mahatma Gandhi through his Basic Education programme and Rabindranath Tagore through his Santiniketan experiment of 'education aligned with nature' were two of the most influential 'educationists' who had an agenda for social reform through the process of education. In the Basic Education Programme, Gandhi tried to challenge the hierarchy of labour and question the hierarchy of castes, emphasised the necessity of a holistic approach to education with emphasis on overall development and tried to bring back the idea of oneness of the mind and body. The Santiniketan experiment's contribution came in the form of its emphasis on learning in an environment of free and non authoritative environment, emphasis on aesthetic development of senses along with intellectual development, nurturing empathy and sympathy, achoring education in the natural and cultural environment of the child and a global outlook. While listing the contributions of Gandhi and Tagore, one must not lose sight of the contributions of many others like Jyotirao Phule towards women's education and education of lower castes.

EDUCATION SYSTEM IN INDEPENDENT INDIA

Independent India began its tryst with education by making Universalisation of Elementary Education one of the Directive Principles of the Constitution of India. The leaders of the newly independent India viewed education as an important ingredient of the efforts at developing into a society envisioned in the Preamble of the Constitution. It began with a series of attempts over the decades. This has resulted in the school education system that India has now. It is described in brief below.

As per the then Constitution of India, education was a state subject with the provision for a few central institutions of higher learning. It was the responsibility of the respective state governments to finance education, develop curriculum and curricular material, recruit, train and deploy teachers and run the education system. The central government was only expected to play a supportive and at times advisory role. However it became evident that due to economic distress in many states and specific socio economic histories of different states, the development of the education system was uneven across the country. In order to address this, education was moved to the Concurrent list of the Constitution in 1976. This meant that the Central Government also played an influential role in school education and was able to provide resources for resource poor states, albeit limited.

All states have the following institutions with different responsibilities at the state, district, block and cluster levels. It is through this system that the government runs its school system.

State Council for Education Research and Training (SCERT) or its equivalent: The SCERT is expected to provide the academic leadership to education in a state. It is a body responsible for developing the curriculum, syllabus and textbooks for classes 1 to 8, facilitate training of teachers and develop the curriculum, syllabus and reading material for the teacher education programme, Diploma in Education (D.Ed)

Directorate of Public Instruction (DPI) or its equivalent: The DPI is responsible for the administration of the education system in the state. Their responsibilities include creation of school infrastructure, recruitment of teachers and non teaching staff, deployment and general administration of the school education.

District Institute of Education and Training (DIET): The DIETs were established under a central programme which was initiated in 1987 by the Central Government called the Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Restructuring and Reorganisation of Teacher Education. This was in the wake of the National Policy on Education, 1986 brought out by the Central Government. The aim of the DIETs is to provide academic leadership to the schools at the district level. It is expected to run the D.Ed programme, regular inservice teacher education programme and do educational research. The DIETs are generally financed by the Central Government but administered through the SCERT which is a state level body.

District Education Office (DEO): This can be treated as the equivalent of the DPI at the district level. Similarly at the Block level, there is a Block Education Office.

Apart from these, there is also the structure of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme. Each state has a State Project Office at the state level, a District Project Office a the district level, a Block Resource Centre at the Block level and Cluster Resource Centre at a cluster level. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is an attempt to by the government of India to Universalise elementary education (classes 1 to 8, age group of 6 to 14) in a time bound manner. Started in 2001, the programme had the objective of achieving unversalisation by the end of the decade. It focused on varied aspects like girls education, infrastructure for schooling, teacher training, creating academic support structures for teachers and education for the marginalised.

While the above is a rough sketch of the state level institutions, at the national level, there are bodies which play an advisory role. It is important to note that many of them have only an advisory role and their recommendations are not binding on the state institutions.

National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT): The NCERT is expected to play the role of a thought leader in the area of school education at the national level. It comes out with its own versions of curriculum frameworks, curriculum, syllabus and textbooks for classes 1 to 12. These are primarily used by the Central Government administered Kendriya Vidyalayas across the country. There are many schools and state governments who have adopted this as well. They also organise many training programmes for the government education functionaries across the country.

National University of Education Planning and Administration (NUEPA): The NUEPA is expected to develop knowledge in the area of Education Planning and Administration. This is a particulary complex task given the diversity across the country. They also conduct training programmes for the government education functionaries in India.

Ministries: At the state level, there is usually a Ministry of Education and at the national level, school education comes under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). While the Ministry of Education in the states are responsible for the functioning of SCERT, DIETs, DEOs and schools in the state, MHRD regulates the NCERT, NUEPA and Kendriya Vidyalayas. In the case of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Ministries at the state and national level work together as it is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with administration responsibilities for the respective states.

Private System of Education

The above description focuses on the government system of education. While it can be safely assumed that for the majority in India are covered through this system, there also exists a strong private education system in the country. Historically, India has seen many educational attempts emerging from the non governmental space. This includes religious organisations, caste based groups and philanthropists. A characteristic of these schools was that they were generally premised on a social reform agenda. A more recent tradition has been the practice of setting up schools to meet the demand of quality education from parents. This demand is often premised on a widely held belief that the private schools tend to offer better quality education as these schools are in a competitive environment on account of existence of choice for parents. However, there is very little evidence to support this belief.

Right to Education Act

Today, with the passing of the Right to Education Bill in the Parliament in April, 2011, it is a fundamental right of every child in the age group of 6 to 14 to be educated in a school. This represents a major change in the status of education in India. From making its first appearance as a directive principle of the state policy, elementary education has now become a fundamental right of every child. This entails that the government shall be liable to provide for quality education to all children in that age group. It is a justiciable right. By stipulating conditions on what should be the nature of a school, defining training and certification as an imperative for a teacher, it can be seen as an attempt at strengthening the school education system. Also, by prescribing a child centred pedagogy, it creates a window of opportunity for many to remove some of the ills of the present day schools.

Having said that, it is also important to note that the capabilities to fulfill the promises of the Act are not present in all the state governments. Understaffed DIETs and SCERTs, untrained teachers in large numbers, inadequate number of teachers are some of the challenges. Apart from this, deeply held cultural views in the society regarding education can also be a deterrent at a deeper level in ensuring the fulfillment of the commitment, not least among them being the educability of children from certain sections of society.

PRESENT STATUS OF EDUCATION IN INDIA

The present education system in India is diverse and large. The diversity is in terms of the nature of provider (public or private), curriculum and pedagogy, facilities available in the school and many others. With approximately 1.2 million schools and about 220 million children in the age group of 6

to 14, the Indian education system is possibly one of the largest in the world. This comes with its own set of challenges in ensuring good quality education for all. There have been many initiatives from the government and non government space. As we stand at the beginning of a new decade in 21^st century and complete our 64^th year of independence, it is of value to assess the situation of elementary education in India. To begin with, it is important to get a sense of some basic numbers that tell their own story.

No of children in the age group of 6 to 14 : 220,000,000 (approximate)

No of schools imparting Elementary Education : 1,303,812

Percentage of Schools in Public Sector : 80.37

Percentage of Schools in Public Sector : 19.44

Proportion of children in Public Schools : 69.51

Proportion of children in Private Schools : 30.42

No of children enrolled in schools : 187,872,996

Proportion of children enrolled in Public Schools : 69.51

Proportion of children enrolled in Private Schools : 30.42

Pupil to Teacher Ratio : 33

Literacy in India : 75.06 % (Wikipedia)

Women Literacy : 65.46 % (Wikipedia)

The above set of numbers are national averages. There is a lot of disparity across the states. For example, in Bihar the PTR would be 57 whereas in Kerala it would be 24 with the national average being at 32.

While there has been great achievement in ensuring enrolment at the primary levels (classes 1 to 5), there is a need to be seriously concerned about the quality of education that happens in schools. The Annual Status on Education Report brought out by Pratham for the year 2010 states that based on their study only about half the children (53 percent) in Class 5 could read Class 2 text. Many other studies of learning achievements point to a similar state of affairs. (A word of caution regarding the learning achievement tests. Generally, the learning achievements survey are based on a very small set of indicators that are comparativey easier to measure accurately. For example, ability to read, arithmetic abilities, ability to answer multiple choice questions etc. It seldom tests higher cognitive abilities, value orientation of children, ability to perform tasks like scientific experimentation, ability to articulate etc.) Understanding this failure indicated by learning achievement tests require us to explore the issue of education and schooling in India at a deeper level. It requires us to open the black box of school to examine closely what happens inside a school and what is supposed to happen.

For us to move in this direction, it is important that we first articulate our position on the aims of education and how we see the educational methods lead to these aims.

Aims and Methods of Education

The ideals aspired for by independent India found its expression in Preamble of the Constitution. The Preamble underlines our commitment to a society where its citizens have political, social and economic justice. The prerequisite for such a society is individuals who have a love of truth, a sense of compassion, a commitment to justice and ability for independent thought and action. The ability to reflect on oneself, appreciate knowledge in its diverse forms, an empathy and a sense of connect with people in society, an ability to engage with diverse cultures stem from these qualities. These are vital in a country like India with its rich history and diversity. (National Curriculum Framework 2005)

Education, primarily through formal schooling, is an important preparatory process for children to develop into such individuals. The school is a space within a society where children spent a large part of their growing up years. The boundaries of the school mark an artificial space where the child can learn and develop unfettered by the constraints of life outside. This is important for the child's full development into an adult that understands the self, has an orientation to learn and appreciates democratic values.

The schools, therefore, have a formidable challenge as it has to develop these qualities in children and at the same time protect children from the infuences that are contrary to these values and deter the development of these abilities. The school must draw upon the scholastic disciplines like sciences, social sciences, mathematics, languages and non scholastic activities like sports and crafts for the education of its children. Apart from these aids, the context of the school is itself to be an educative experience for children. Interactions with teachers and peers, natural environment of the school, the events that are celebrated in schools, the evaluation systems etc are some of the key aspects of the context of the school. The experience of the child of these aspects is going to be an extremely critical determinant of his or her educational outcomes.

The curriculum, syllabus, the teaching material and the education system itself is to be geared around these aims of education. To state the obvious, this is the essential challenge that India faces in education.

ENGAGING WITH SCHOOL EDUCATION IN INDIA

While the earlier sections dealt with the status of education and then went on to briefly describe what could be education in India, the following sections would focus on how to get there. As some of the data above indicate, all is not well with the Indian School Education system. As mentioned earlier, the reasons for problems that affect the education system are found in the political, economic and social systems of India. The visible manifestations of these problems are consistent inadequacy of public financing of education in India (expenditure less than 4 percent of GDP as against the prescribed 6 percent of GDP on education), administrative inefficiencies (average of 25 percent of teacher absenteeism in schools in India), unwarranted political manipulation in education (rewriting of history textbooks to advance narrow political agendas), poor training of teachers, caste and class based discrimination in schooling etc. This is not to discount some of the major advances that have been made in the area of education in the past few decades. Some of them have been mentioned earlier. However, a detailed analysis of these reasons is beyond the scope of this note. Having said that, it must be mentioned that an understanding of these aspects is the premise for some of these suggestions.

An attempt at engaging with school education in India must be premised on a clear vision of the educational experience of children. An attempt had been made earlier to describe such an experience earlier. A set of simple, but non negotiable requirements for the same are

• Children of the relevant age group must have access to schools
• The curriculum for their education must be appropriate to the aims of education
• The schools must be adequately staffed with teachers who are well trained and are oriented towards the aims of education

While they can be easily stated, the challenges in putting in place these requirements are the ones that all organisations dedicated to education in India are grappling with. However, these challenges do not lend themselves to a 'neat' problematisation and prioritisation. However, one can briefly described the contours of the major challenges at a very broad level. Organisations that are looking to engage with school education in India can choose to tackle any of these challenges.

Public Funding for Education in India

The government financing of school education in India has consistently been on the lower side since Independence. The Kothari Committee report of 1964 recommended an allocation of 6 percent of GDP for education and later it was asserted by the Majumdar Committee report in late 1990s. However, we have never had an investment of more than 4 percent of GDP since independence. In fact, the average would be close to 3 percent of GDP. This history of consistent under funding of education, specifically, school education has resulted in the sorry state of schooling infrastructure and weak academic and administrative support networks (DIETs, SCERTs, DEOs, BEOs, DPIs etc.). Additionally, in some of the states, this has also resulted in the inability of governments to attract qualified people to teaching profession.

School infrastructure in India is an area that requires tremendous inputs. This inspite of the significant progress that has been made by Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in the last decade. Poorly constructed school buildings, absence of boundary walls and playgrounds, lack of drinking water, absence of separate toilets for girls, absence of libraries and books, absence of desks and benches, inadequate and at times inappropriate teaching and learning material etc are some of the major problems on the infrastructural front. Some of these also result in problems of access. For example, the absence of separate toilets for girls result in drop out by many girls from schools. The overall poverty of large sections of Indian population puts additional demands on schools like providing at least one nutritious meal a day. The National Mid-day Meal Programme is an attempt in this direction. However, the quality of the meals could be improved in terms of nutrition content and taste.

The inadequate public funding has also resulted in weak institutional structures for academic and administrative support. At present, by various estimates, over 90 percent of expenditure on school education is spent on teacher salary with very little of investment in education research and professional development of education functionaries. This is visible in the poor functioning of DIETs and SCERTs in many states. Absence of good quality research, weak systems for training needs assessments, poor D.Ed curriculum and implementation etc are some of the very visible manifestations of the problem.

While on the one side there is lack of sufficient public funding, there is also the problem in efficient management of existing funds also. This is reflected in the under utilisation of budgeted amounts in education, especially in the Central Government budget.

Governance and Management System for Schooling

The current system of governance and management can be assessed at multiple levels. In terms of provider of education, there are two kinds of providers – public and private. While public provisioning accounts for atleast 70 percent of education, private education accounts for about 30 percent or less. There is a desirability of having a robust universal public provisioning system for school education in the country from the point of view of affordability, social integration, equality, perpetuation of democratic values etc. But, an initiative aimed at contributing to development in India has strong reasons to consider engaging with the public school system and not focus on the private school system. The coverage is one major reason. Also, the more secular and inclusive character of public schooling makes it a desirable option in the long run. This is not to suggest a strategy to roll back private schooling. Private schooling has spread wide in India and a roll back would be undesirable in the near term. A suitable approach would be look at regulation of private schooling in India and strengthening of public school system. The Right to Education Act provides a framework for this. It would be a good opportunity for organisations in education area to work towards developing a regulatory framework for ensuring good quality education for all.

Expertise in Education

Education has received the attention of many social reformers over the years in India. However, most of these have resulted in what one could call as 'islands of excellence' with a few set of experimental schools being set up. Shantiniketan, Rishi Valley, Gandhian Schools and many such are good examples. But it has remained a challenge to achieve educational transformation at a large scale. As J P Naik, a renowned educationist, put it, the challenge of Indian school education is best described as an elusive triangle of equality, quality and quantity. A key shortcoming that has been observed over the past many years is the absence of adequate number of people with expertise in education. Education is interdisciplinary in character and expertise in education requires one to undergo professional training in such a manner. Apart from the specific subject knowledge, a teacher is expected to have an understanding of child psychology, philosophy and sociology. When one is able to bring all these different domains together, one has the potential to be a good teacher who is sensitive to the child and the context and is able to teach. The current B. Ed and D. Ed programmes across the country attempt to do this. However, the curriculum is outdated and the training institutions are unable to provide a good quality educational experience for aspiring teachers. There has been severe dilution of standards in teacher training institutions with many colleges not have the mandated infrastructure and faculty and still continuing to operate.

This is further compounded by the distance between centres of higher education like colleges and universities from these teacher training institutions. Since, the teacher training institutions are separate from the universities, often the essential confluence of disciplinary experts to share the developments of disciplines amongst others fails to happen. Therefore, curriculum formation processes and actual training process do not have the vibrancy that is required.

Another issue, is the absence of expertise in people working in the area of education. There are numerous organisations that work in the area of education. However, the lack of proper training and proper orientation to the cause of education is often seen in their work. Primarily through adoption of improper training methods for teachers, lack of depth and quality in teaching learning processes, insensitive handling of concerns of children and parents from cross section of society etc. Some of the recent attempts in the Indian Education scenario are attempts to address this issue. Prominent amongst them being the Bachelors Level courses in Elementary Education started in select colleges in Delhi University, Masters Level course in Education initiated by the Azim Premji Foundation and Masters Level course in Elementary Education by Tata Institute of Social Sciences in partnership with Sir Ratan Tata Trust and ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth. However, these are very small compared to the requirement.

The above are some of the key challenges that school education in India faces at the moment. These challenges have a social, political and economic background. On the face of it, many of these appear insurmountable given the scale and scope of issues. However, theses challenges must be taken on and solutions must be built brick by brick.

Absolutely nothing should matter

There is a part of me which feels that the methods of establishing intentions known to man kind are simply not enough. It has been my pet concern for years now. What naturally follows from this premise is an admission of my own inability to judge people and the inability of others to judge me. The reason being that for any judgement, ascertaining intentions is a critical part. If it is not possible to ascertain intentions with high levels of accuracy, the judgement is not quite worth it. However society is always in a constant attempt to improve its capabilities at judging including ascertaining intentions. Be it an individual who tries to judge the conduct of his or her colleague, a friend judging the conduct of a friend or a court trying an accused. One would assume that a court through its process of establishing intentions in criminal cases would have the most fine tuned and sensitive mechanism to assess intentions. But even the court finds it difficult to do it at times. And the court protects itself from misjudging by following the principle of establishing the intentions beyond any reasonable doubt and also believing that it is better to let a thousand guilty go free than convict an innocent. (The court does make certain exceptions to this rule.) In spite of these safe guards, there are still the instances where they go wrong. So now if that is the case with the court, what about us in our daily interactions with people around us where we make so many judgements. I shudder to think.

So now if I am unable to trust the best of mechanisms for judgement, I might as well not indulge in the process of judging. So is it possible to live in a society like that? No clue. Let me try and I will let you know the results. :-)

And on the other side, it would be a fallacy to bother about other people's judgement of us. So that brings me to the title of this piece. Absolutely nothing should matter. :-)


PS. And I am not sure we will evolve better mechanisms through our evolving understanding of jurisprudence.

Social Justice - a conceptual muddle?

This again is the ramblings of an uneasy mind on a Sunday morning triggered by the appearance of the term social justice in the newspaper. There has been, over the years, a nagging discomfort in my mind about the demands of people who are purveyors of the idea of social justice. In particular I was uncomfortable about the coercive elements of their demands and the reliance on a state to enforce social justice. I have not been quite clear in my mind on how could I explain my discomfort. Part of the reason being that I often found that the people were rather good natured and their objectives seemed desirable. Well, that was until today. Today a thought emerged in my mind. A result of numerous interactions with people on the ideas of social justice, compassion, fairness, governmental provision of public goods, reservation policy etc. I think now I have a foundation on which I can explain my discomfort. And as I went through the internet, I found that interesting people have said a few things which seemed to resonate with my point of view. Now that, as much as I hate to admit, is a source of comfort. So I will begin with a quote which I for now seem to agree with.

Ben O'Neill of the University of New South Wales argues that, for proponents of "social justice":[21]

the notion of "rights" is a mere term of entitlement, indicative of a claim for any possible desirable good, no matter how important or trivial, abstract or tangible, recent or ancient. It is merely an assertion of desire, and a declaration of intention to use the language of rights to acquire said desire.

In fact, since the program of social justice inevitably involves claims for government provision of goods, paid for through the efforts of others, the term actually refers to an intention to use force to acquire one's desires. Not to earn desirable goods by rational thought and action, production and voluntary exchange, but to go in there and forcibly take goods from those who can supply them! (sourced from Wikipedia page on 'Social Justice'.)

Now to get to my understanding.

Social justice as a word that possibly emerged from a realisation that normal applications of the concepts of justice does not seem to be delivering acceptable optimal outcomes. There could be many instances where the concepts of justice as we understand, when applied, seems to make decisions look unfair instead of fair. An easy example is when a hungry man steals bread from a wealthy man. Once we recognise right to property and accept stealing as a crime, the hungry man is indeed guilty. But we are not quite happy with the decision, are we? Not quite. So now we need to see why we are not quite happy with it and then see what can be done about it. I think the why is easily answered. We all have a quality called compassion. And that moves us. Moves us to sympathise with the plight of the hungry man. So now what do we do? We do not want our legal systems to pronounce the hungry man guilty and put him in jail. And we want the legal system and the government to protect him. So what do we do? We come up with the idea of 'social justice'. That gives us the opportunity to refer to the hungry man's requirement of food as a right. A right that must be guaranteed by the state/government. And if it means taxing the wealthy man to provide it, that is fine. And in some cases, if the hungry man does the taxation himself, that is not quite stealing. Coercion now has a justification. And here begins my discomfort. My discomfort is the coercion involved.

For the purveyors of the idea of social justice, I have a question. Why do you need to call it social justice? The trigger is your compassionate self. Why can you not say that society has to be compassionate? Why not say that an individual has to be compassionate to his of her fellow being? Why couch it in the phrase 'social justice'? My explanation for the necessity of this phrase is that in our democratic set up where reason, fairness and justice have to necessarily dominate law making and since we rely on the tool of law to ensure the hungry man's rights, we have to rely on support provided by the word justice. Justice is something that can be enforced. The arms of the state can be called upon to enforce it. Compassion is too nebulous an emotion and it would appear strange if one were to argue that the state should enforce compassion. Because compassion cannot be enforced. Just like love.

So my basic thesis is that social justice is a phrase which attempts to integrate the demands of compassion into the language of justice to bring about an 'enforceability' of those demands and legitimise coercion as a means.

So now if I were to reject the word social justice, where does that leave the hungry man? Is he to be taken to the prison. Not quite. We will try and construct an alternative premised on the starting point. Compassion. Secondly, we will also read closely into one of the statements earlier. To be precise the statement “we want the legal system and the government to protect him (the hungry man)”. Why do we want the legal system and the government to do the protection. How about me? How about the wealthy man himself? For these alternatives to be feasible, me and the wealthy man must be compassionate. We must be people who are moved by compassion. Are we? May be not. So then try convincing me or the wealthy man. No amount of argumentation or reasoning is going to make me compassionate. It is an emotion that has to be generated from within me or the wealthy man. That is not going to be easy. No one quite knows how it is generated. For a Christian, the solution is easily known. May be not easily attainable. Flip through the pages of the Bible and in Ephesians 4:32 you will find a standing instruction. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just like Christ forgave you.” Many of Christ's miracles begin with Him being moved by compassion. And that compassion stemmed from His love of Man. And that love is a Fruit of the Spirit. Now attaining the Fruit of the Spirit. That is a stiff ask. There are no easy answers. Only a promise from God that it shall be give to people who yearn for it.

It is this difficulty which is behind the attraction of a phrase like social justice. It is far easier to be optimistic about a state that delivers social justice than to think of a society of men and women who are compassionate. Our worship of institutions seem to make us lose hope in engendering compassion amongst ourselves. The state sponsored compassion is no compassion. It is only a faceless coercive wealth transfer. It can at best result in a society in which different groups/individuals (I am not clear which) are in a tense equilibrium.

By the way, the origins of the word social justice seemed to be Christian according to Wikipedia. Apparently, the term was coined by a Jesuit priest by the name Luigi Taparelli based on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas. And the Liberation Theologists who seemed to have accepted the idea of social justice (again according to Wiki) seems to have taken on the responsibility of establishing the Kingdom of God on themselves. I think the Bible does make it clear that the Kingdom of God will be established through a direct intervention by God himself and not through human beings. The standing instruction for humanity is to be compasssionate. Interestingly, God says that justice is not quite in your grasp. As far as I recollect, he does not seem to instruct human beings to be just.

People who talk too much

(This was written three years ago)

Let me describe two instances which drew my attention and concern in the recent past. One was a meeting with a member of a Municipal Corporation (MC) who was the Chairman of the School Board. He is the chap who is responsible for the governance of schools run by the MC. The second was an article that appeared in DNA, a daily prominent in Mumbai. It was an article about malnutrition death in the city.

In the first instance the MC was facing a situation where the children even after reaching the seventh or eighth were in no position to read or do basic mathematics. The problem as identified by the MC was that the teachers were not teaching properly. They were not present in schools most of the time, they were not ensuring attendance of children in the classes by meeting the parents and a host of other such complaints against the teacher. In order to improve the performance of teacher it was decided that the incentive structure had to be modified. The idea was to conduct a test of children of a particular class. The performance of the children in the test would be used as a proxy indicator of teacher performance for that particular class. (Most classes have just one teacher) With this measure rank all the teachers under the AMC and then structure their incentives accordingly. This was expected to improve the teacher performance in the schools run by AMC. On the face of it, this sounds as a very pragmatic solution. The proponents of this solution were driven by the philosophy of ‘we are in a crisis; we must do something; doing something is better than doing nothing’.

The problem with the whole idea in above case is that the solution is based on a very rudimentary understanding of the problem of teacher performance. Their rationale for the structuring of incentives is that ‘that is the way it works in corporate world; perform or perish. We want the same system in our schools’. Now do you seriously think that successful corporates are run that way. There is a whole HR department which focuses on performance of employees. The employees are selected through a rigorous procedure; they are given sufficient training and learning opportunities through out their career, sufficient opportunities for career growth and above all decent pay and adequate support systems. It is after putting in place a whole environment where performance is possible that employees are expected to perform or perish in a corporate organizations. Where ever these perform or perish idea is pursued without putting in places processes and systems to aid performance, failure has been the result invariably. Now coming to the case of government teachers, in all these facets of HR there are serious deficiencies. Teaching as a profession does not attract the best of talent because it does not pay well and nowadays does not have much of a social status. (Some matrimonial ads say that teachers need not apply). But arguably you don’t need that kind of talent. (I have serious reservations about the usage of the concept of talent and also about calling some one less talented. But that is besides the point here and I will not dwell upon it). There is no prospect for teachers to grow in a career, the training that is normally given to teachers is pathetic and the kind of duties that they are expected to perform including things like election duties and the like puts a lot of pressure on them. Now in this kind of environment if you expect the teachers to perform, you got to be talking through your hat. But the solution that was proposed by AMC people is very attractive to people as it closely resembles the visible part of corporate HR. People are ignorant of those finer invisible points of corporate HR. This solution if implemented is only going to worsen the situation further for the same reasons as to why such half-baked ideas don’t work in corporates. I don’t want to go into the details of improving teacher performance. My only intention here is to highlight the dangers of ‘doing something as it is better than doing nothing’. It is critical to have a deep understanding of the issues before looking at applying correctives.

Coming to the second instance. There have been a few cases of malnutrition deaths of children in Mumbai recently. A few cases of malnutrition death points to thousands of cases of malnutrition affected children. Now the deaths took place among some tribal communities living the suburbs of Mumbai. The journalist in the article came up with solutions for the problem. The solutions proposed were

Introduce a cess tax on the lines of education cess tax on petrol in hotels and restaurants. Use the proceeds of the tax to provide food in the malnutrition affection regions
Excess food in parties be diverted to malnutrition areas

The solutions again sound fine. But again the issue is there is a very inadequate understanding of the problem of malnutrition. Malnutrition is not about not having adequate food. The seeds of malnutrition are sowed in the wombs of the mother. It is essential that mothers be given sufficient care and attention during the pregnancy stage to tackle malnutrition. Again issues like sanitation, access to clean drinking water and protection from very much preventable diseases like diarrhea, cholera and the like are critical to preventing malnutrition. Now in our cases these things are taken care of because of factors like our wealth, our ability to negotiate with the government and our education. These three factors are unavailable to the poor and there is a total systemic failure in delivery of services to them. There is a total breakdown of the systems in the areas where these poor people live and it is manifested in the lack of sanitation, lack of health care facilities, inadequate shelter and lack of access to safe drinking water.

Now you might very well ask, the above listed efforts will add to the overall efforts to solve the problem. It wont damage the efforts. I will argue that it will damage. This is an opinion that came in a leading newspaper. This will contribute to formation of a public opinion and also inform the policy of the public systems to some extent because the people in the public systems are not inured to the discourses taking place in the public. Now imagine if the resources of the public systems in terms of time, effort and money are invested in solutions of this nature. It will be like throwing money down the drain and the problem will remain unaddressed in spite of the ‘best efforts of the government’. We are not exactly resource rich to waste resources. Each penny has to be invested with a lot of thought. Now lets say the article did not appear in the newspaper at all. Some politician decided to address the issue. To him also, if he does not engage sufficiently with the problem, such solutions would occur easily with the same disastrous consequences. If you think they would consult doctors and health officials you got to do a rethink. They will dismiss the experts in these areas as ‘people who talk too much’ and do nothing.

Some experiences from being in schools in India

I am tempted to share some nuggets from my experiences of being in the education sector although at the periphery. Listen to this and you would wonder whether there is any hope at all of having a good schooling system in this country.
 
A higher secondary school teacher: "The different seasons are explained by the fact that earth has an orbit which is elliptical and when the earth is farthest from the sun it is winter and when closest it is summer."
 
A teacher in high school: "I did my BA not B.Sc. I do not know negative numbers."
 
More than fifty percent of teachers in a state in the central part of the country failed to clear 8th standard exams in Mathematics.
 
This one takes the cake. This is from a Maths teacher in the northwestern part of the country. "In our schools the method of proving that sum of angles of a triangle is proved by drawing a triangle, measuring the angles and summing them. But since the measuring instruments are not accurate, the sum generally becomes 178 or 181 or some such numbers. We ask the students to adjust the angle measurements to get the sum of 180."
 
This one would be a suprise for  you as to why it is noteworthy. At least it was for me.

A teacher in a workshop in SCERT: "Hindi is our national language."
 
You might have read the issue of Saraswati Vandanas in schools in newspapers. I see  them on a regular basis.
 
Going to the schools is once in a while a completely discouraging experiences. When you visit the schools, the teacher would offer water to you. Now the water will be brought to you by a child. The child will always be from the upper caste. There are huge issues in schools in this country where teachers ensure that during mid day meals children are seated separately according to their caste. There are teachers who would refuse to share food handled by lower caste children. But this should not surprise us. A look at the Malayala Manorama matrimonials would be sufficient to show us that the grip of caste is yet to be shaken off in this country.
 
But inspite of this, my interaction with teachers give a lot of hope to me. Engage with them deeply and you would find that most of them, like us, are struggling to live in ways which they believe are right. We may disagree with their understanding of what is right and wrong. But that to me is the foundation of hope. We will all make our mistakes and still add some value to someone.

The guns are coming home

Everyone of you might be aware of the terror attack in Mumbai. I am using this mail to add my two bits to the deluge of writings on it. On 26th of November,I had taken a cab from Pune along with a few colleagues of mine to reach Mumbai. We reached the Mumbai airport area around 10:15 PM. Here we split and went in different directions. I, along with a colleague of mine, headed to Borivili (which is in the opposite direction to the location of the seige) in an auto. As we were about twenty minutes into the auto ride, my colleague received a calll from his sister informing him of a bomb blast that happened in Vile Parle along the high way some time ago and some reported shooting in Colaba region. From her account it seemed that the blast had occured some twenty minutes after we left Vile Parle. Later we were told that my boss who was behind us in another taxi had actually witnessed the explosion happening about 20 metres in front of her. But the telephone call did not surprise us much as explosions were not unexpected in Mumbai and shootouts were also not unheard of in Colaba region. We did not realise that it was the beginning of a seige.

As I reached my friend's place in Borivili, I saw my friend intently listening to the news and it was then that I realised that what I had heard of earlier was no regular event but something much more terrible. I was worried and scared now because I had to catch an early morning flight the next day to Raipur and Vile Parle was very close to the airport. I continued watchnig the television as the gory assault unfolded on the television. Reports were streaming in with gory details. I watched until around 1 0' clock and then went to bed while my friend continued to watch. But not before sending a message to my parents to tell them that I was safe. After lying on the bed for sometime, sleep escaped my eyes and then I heard from the television in the next room that there were reports of shooting from Borivili also. My heart sank. I  got up again and went in front of the television but there was not much being added on that front. After waiting for some time I again went to bed. By now I had serious reservations about going the next day. I tried calling my colleague who was to come along with me. But there were connectivity issues and the call did not go through. I was dead tired and I thought I will get some sleep for a couple of hours and then make a call on going. I slept for sometime and then woke up at around 4 O' clock. I switched on the television and began to realise the full extent of the event as I saw the Maharashtra CM on television calming the people in Mumbai but at the same time cautioning them. A statement from the government asking people to stay at home in case there are no urgent works was shown as a ticker on the television. However there did not seem to be any further reports on the attack in Borivili. I flipped through different channels to figure out the truth of the matter. But it drew a total blank. So I concluded that it was only a false alarm.

Now as the time for the flight was approaching I was struggling with the decision whether to go or not. The attacks had happened largely in South Mumbai which is quite far off from the airport. But there was also the report of a stray explosion close to the airport at Vile Parle. Also the style of the attack; mainly spraying bullets at people at random meant that the airport would be an ideal place for the attackers. There was not much stopping them at that point. But after imagining the worst possible scenarios in my mind I decided to go. I got ready and said a quick good bye to my half awake friend and headed out of the safe confines of the apartment. I tried to wave down a couple of autos. Both of them refused when they heard that the destination was the airport. After this I waved down a third one who agreed. As I headed to the airport, I continued praying for a safe passage.

As I reached the airport, I soon paid for the ride and walked quickly to the entrance to the airport where I showed my ticket and got inside. I heaved a sigh of relief as I knew that I had crossed the first line of defence and would be safe behind a line of CISF soldiers from now on. After the security check in I managed to be a bit calm as I waited for my flight. It was at that moment that I realised that the guns are coming home. What used to happen in the far away Kashmirs and Nagalands was now happening near me and I was stricken with fear. Paralysed with fear,unable to make a decision and confused, I knew for once what it meant to be terrorised. (Of course this is nothing compared to what might have gone through the minds of the people in Taj et al during those days.) With these thoughts I got into the flight at around 7:30 AM and landed in Raipur safely about two hours later. As soon as I landed I received a call from my parents inquiring about my safety. I told them that I was safe and sound in Raipur and quite far away from Mumbai for the next few days.

I saw on TV the carnage that Kasab and Co had unleashed on Mumbai. I was numbed at the audacity and the sheer intensity of hatred that was being manifested in this form. Many had to die a painful death, many orphaned, many lost their children, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters. Although I escaped, I realised that the guns are coming home.

Compassion.......

On a Sunday morning as I was reading the newspaper I came across an article about Khobad Ghandy. He was recently arrested for his Naxalite activities. He was one of the many who left the comforts of an upper class to join the struggle for the poor but one of the few who stayed back. One little part in the article is the reason for me to write this blog. It instinctively brought to fore many of the concerns that I am grappling with in my own life.

While I am writing this I am fully aware of the pains that Khobad Ghandy had gone through and is continuing to go through in his quest for justice. I cannot ignore the sacrifices that he has made in this quest inspite of the fact that I do not agree with extreme left wing ideology that he possibly upholds.

Let me reproduce the passage from the newspaper that I am referring to. This is in the context of a divisional commander of the Naxalite movement who surrended to the police and was being interrogated. He did not know Ghandy by name but was referring to a lecture that Ghandy had given to the cadre. The passage in the newspaper describes it as follows

".....When a divisional commander surrendered and the police took him in for questioning, he did not know Ghandy by his name, the official adds. "After much prodding, he talked about a long lecture Ghandy had delivered, nibbling dry cashew nuts while talking about revolution in France, China and Russia even as a huge classroom of cadre sat hungry and tired for hours. 'When it was over, we told him we were hungry and he looked angrily at us and left,' the commander said."

Arguably the "nibbling dry cashewnut" is a snide remark and should be ignored as such. But if the rest of the story is true, then I would urge you to compare it with another lecture. This time from my favourite book the Bible.

This is Mark Chapter 6 verses 34 to 36.

"And Jesus, when he came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like a sheep not having a shepherd. So he began to teach them many things. When the day was now far spent, His disciples came to Him and said "This is a deserted place, and already the hour is late. Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat." But he answered and said to them, "You give them something to eat."

The story goes on to describe the miracle of five loaves of bread and two fish feeding the multitude. Of course the minor matter of ability to perform miracles comes in between a comparison of Ghandy and Jesus. But what I would like to point out is the compassion that characterised Jesus' response to the situation. He was concerned about the hunger of the people in a very immediate sense. He had not ignored the immediate concerns of the people in favour of the long drawn out battle for Kingdom of Heaven. In some sense he was also talking about a revolution, perhaps a more difficult one, because there were no convenient despots to be thrown out but only the struggle against one's own sinful nature. After such a message, he could have expected to witness a multitudes fired with passion. But it was not to be. (In fact that never happened in his life time. Even his closest disciples ditched him in times of trouble.) It was the hunger of the multitudes that stared at him. And he chose to be concerned about it and respond to it. I think it was indeed a powerful statement. The king and the servant rolled into one.....