COVID-19 SERO-SURVEYS POLITICS AYODHYA FROFar from herd NTLINEimmunity 34 Wreckers as builders 30 AUGUST 28, 2020 I NDIA’S NATIONAL MAGAZINE HTTPS://FRONTLINE.THEHINDU.COM RS.125 Decoding the New Education Policy It is a deadly cocktail of the Hindutva agenda and the World Bank model of knowledge prepared to suit the needs of corporate job markets V OLUME 37 NUMBER 17 AUGUST 15-28, 2020 ISSN 0970-1710 HTTPS://FRONTLINE.THEHINDU.COM COVID-19 COVER STORY HUMAN RIGHTS Bhima Koregaon case: At the mercy of the market Victims of vendetta 79 NEP 2020 greatly increases the scope of WORLD AFFAIRS India&China: private participation in education, ig- Fragile truce 85 Far from herd immunity 34 nores the country’s pluralistic tradi- Latin America: Suffocating democracy in the Andes Strategy: Gloating in defeat 39 tions, and furthers the neoliberal Disease surveillance: How the poor die 42 agenda of designing a profit-oriented Prisons: Breeding grounds for coronavirus 48 system that serves corporate interests. 4 Controversy: COVID ventilators, who cares? 51 88 Interview: Hagia Sophia issue: Prof. K. Srinath Reddy 54 Triumph or tragedy? 91 Communalism: OBITUARY Christians as target 58 Sa. Kandasamy: Global distress 60 Profound yet simple 93 POLITICS C.S. Seshadri: Music of the spheres 95 CINEMA “Run Kalyani”: Patriarchy in perspective 99 CONSERVATION Ram temple: Wreckers as builders 30 Rajasthan crisis: RELATED STORIES Over to Assembly 67 Decoding the Hindutva agenda 9 SOCIAL JUSTICE High on rhetoric 14 Interview: Thangam Western Ghats: The great Thennarasu, DMK leader 63 Interview: Prof. Krishna Kumar 18 Indian hornbill air show 102 Timeline worries 21 JAMMU & KASHMIR Whose Sanskrit is it anyway? 25 COLUMN Silent rage 71 Interview: Prof. Shyam B. Menon 27 C.P. Chandrasekhar: COMMUNALISM Time to overhaul or replace GST 82 Delhi riots: On the Cover Victims twice over 74 Children of the Bakarwal community on their way to the open-air Interview: community school at Doodpathri, Budgam district, in central Kashmir, Zafarul-Islam Khan 77 on July 28. 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In no event can the Owner, Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Publisher, Printer, Editor, Director/s, Employees of this magazine/ company be held responsible/liable in any manner whatsoever for any e-mail: [email protected] claims and/or damages for advertisements in this magazine. Frontline is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites. A UGUST 28, 2020 . F RONTLINE 3 COVER STORY NEP 2020 greatly increases the scope of private participation in education, ignores the country’s AT THE MERCY pluralistic traditions, and furthers the neoliberal agenda of designing a profit-oriented system that serves OF THE MARKET corporate interests. BY MADHU PRASAD IT IS AN INTRIGUING, BUT BY NOW HARDLY surprising, fact that on June 24, the Ministry of Human Resource Development finalised a loan with the World Bank as the culmination of a process allowing for its third and final intervention in determining the structure, content and governance of the entire system of school education, from pre-nursery to Class 12, through its Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS) programme. (The earlier interventions were the District Primary Education Programme or DPEP of 1993-2002 and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan since 2002.) Just a month later, on July 30, Ramesh Pokhriyal, the Minister for Human Resource Development, told mediapersons in New Delhi that the Central Cabinet had passed for immediate implementation the long-delayed New Education Policy or NEP 2020. Both events occurred amid the COVID-19 pandemic that is showing no signs of abating across the nation. A series of lockdowns, in various stages in States, districts, cities, towns and urban localities, has brought the economy to a halt. Lakhs of migrant workers, deprived of even the barest incomes, returned to their home towns and villages in the most atrocious conditions. Schools, colleges and universities have been closed since March and examinations have either not been held or are being held or are threatened to be held online, creating confusion and panic among the majority of students. ‘ REFORMS’ DURING PANDEMIC The last thing one would have expected is the Cabinet to pass the NEP without presenting and debating it in Parliament at a time when the people are concerned only with getting their lives back on track and coping with the unprecedented health and economic situation. But it comes as no surprise, since the Government of India has been utilising the COVID-19 crisis to great advantage by passing several of its “reform” programmes without observing democratic niceties or permitting any democratic resistance. CHILDREN who missed online classes owing to a lack of It has abrogated protective labour laws and collective Internet facilities listen to pre-recorded lessons over bargaining, disinvested in the public sector and the loudspeakers in Dandwal village in Maharashtra on July 23. Railways, allowed privatisation of the electricity sector, reorganised banks, and cleared environmentally REUTERS sensitive projects at breakneck speed. F RONTLINE . A UGUST 28, 2020 5 F RONTLINE . A UGUST 28, 2020 4 NEP 2020 states that its priority, like that of the State Institutes of Open Schooling (SIOS).” (3.5) World Bank, is ensuring that quality education be made According to the document, “.... various successful accessible to all children from pre-nursery to Class 12. So, policies and schemes such as targeted scholarships, one would be justified in assuming that the World Bank conditional cash transfers to incentivise parents to send must be providing a hefty grant, or at least a significant their children to school, providing bicycles for transport, loan, to assist in realising this laudable goal. etc., that have significantly increased participation of However, the finalised loan constitutes a mere 1.4 per SEDGs in the schooling system in certain areas.... must cent of the total investment required for the Samagra be significantly strengthened across the country.” (6.4) Shiksha Abhiyan of which the STARS programme is a The NEP also declares that to make it easier for both part. The Centre and the governments of States and governments as well as “non-governmental Union Territories would be contributing 98.6 per cent. philanthropic organisations to build schools, to Yet, the STARS programme will focus on the whole encourage local variations on account of culture, school approach and teacher education in the Samagra geography, and demographics, and to allow alternative .V. MOORTHY .V. Siksha Abhiyan in the selected “high performance States” R models of education, the requirements for schools will be of Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan and the made less restrictive. The focus will be to have less “learning States” of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and AT A NEWLY RENOVATED classroom in a school run embarked on a path-breaking direction 34 years after the emphasis on input and greater emphasis on output Odisha. It will thereby allow the World Bank to acquire by the Delhi government in August 2019. The Delhi 1986-92 NEP is misleading. It is only advancing the same potential concerning desired learning outcomes.” (3.6) an overarching role in influencing the teaching-learning government’s substantial allocation to education made strategy as previous governments that followed the Does the much-needed inclusion of the Early content, practices and outcomes of the entire system of such facelifts possible. perspective and approach of the World Bank model after Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme as school education; training and monitoring faculty for the adoption of the neoliberal reforms policy in 1991. an integral part of the school system offer any new implementing it; setting up “merit-based” learning other, learn from each other, and also share resources, if Public-private partnership (PPP) strategies, which directions? For universal access to the ECCE assessment systems to measure achievement based on possible. Best practices of private schools will be lie at the core of the World Bank’s approach, do not programme, it offers the old idea of strengthening the above; and formulating and implementing documented, shared, and institutionalized in public provide better quality education. They increase the anganwadi centres and equipping them with high- governance reforms to cover the training of educational schools, and vice versa, where possible,” states the NEP. exclusion of the deprived and the marginalised, exploit