By Badri Narayan
The politics of democracy is evolving at a lightening pace as the times and social spaces change constantly. The ongoing process of development also plays an important role in changing the nature of democratic politics. A few decades ago, mobilisational politics was largely dominated by the issues related with bijli (electricity), paani (water), and sadak (roads). Along with caste and religion, issues of the lack of basic infrastructural amenities were being raised and used by political forces as instruments for mobilising the populace. In the past decade or so, especially after 2014, the rapid expansion of roadways in urban and rural India and the availability of water and electricity even in remote regions made these issues almost irrelevant and thus redundant for mobilising public dissatisfaction to serve political causes in electoral and democratic politics. So, the politics around developmental dissatisfactions is witnessing a shift towards potential new issues.
In the process, such political forces are seeking issues related to human development such as education, health, climate change, and environment. Such issues are emerging as potential political issues because after getting basic infrastructure, the aspiration of a good quality of life is growing among the people. This can be actualised with the conceptualisation and implementation of policies aimed at providing quality education and healthcare as well as utilising holistic sustainable developmental measures. That is why political forces, especially those from the opposition, are trying to drag these human developmental issues to politics. They want to cultivate these issues for electoral politics in the long run.
Recently, the Indian National Congress (INC) systematically did two things—first, it released a video of Rahul Gandhi in which he criticised the ongoing educational development of the country under the Bhartiya Janta Party(BJP) regime after 2014. Just a few days after the video was released, the party’s erstwhile chief Sonia Gandhi wrote a piece for The Hindu within which various allegations were made against the BJP, New Education Policy (NEP-2020), and the condition of schools and higher education in India.
Responding to these two critical attacks on the condition of Indian education, Union minister for education Dharmendra Pradhan wrote a nuanced piece for the same daily with sharp arguments supported by data. In his arguments, the minister effectively displayed how significant growth and improvements occurred for education after 2014. The article put forth three arguments—first, post-2014, the infrastructure, quality, and inclusion improved within the Indian education system. Second, NEP-2020, which is central for bringing about qualitative and quantitative transformation in the education system, is paving the way for the decolonisation of Indian minds, and was the result of the world’s largest consultation exercise with various stakeholders. Third, this growth, expansion, and deepening of education in India is quantitatively and qualitatively higher than that under the INC’s regime.
The data provided to support his arguments compares the development of education under the INC and BJP regimes and suggests that the enrolment of Scheduled Castes (SC) in higher education has increased by 50%, Scheduled Tribes (ST) by 75%, and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) by 54% since 2014. The enrolment of female students across all categories has grown by an impressive 38.8%, crossing 2.18 crore in 2022-23. Among Muslim minority students, female enrolment rose by 57.5%. For higher education, enrolment for doctoral degrees among women has increased by a whopping 135%. Today, women represent 43% of the student body enrolled within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Moreover, female teachers now constitute 44.23% of the teaching workforce, up from 38.6% in 2014, thus transforming academic leadership landscapes. The per-student government expenditure has also increased by 130%, from `10,780 in 2013-14 to `25,043 in 2021-22.
Meanwhile, government schools are being upgraded with modern infrastructure, holistic pedagogy, and other support systems. For example, over 10,000 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) are nurturing innovation at the grassroots. Global recognition of Indian higher education is authenticated by the fact that India now has 11 universities in the QS World Rankings’ top 500. The progress of higher education institutes’ research output is reflected by the fact that research publications have increased by 88% since 2015, propelling India to the 39th rank in the Global Innovation Index, up from 76 in 2014.
Most of the BJP educational ideologue argues that before 2014, the expenditure of education in India never crossed 3% of GDP, but reached to 4.6%. This shows a marked difference in the prioritisation of education by the BJP and INC regimes.
This interesting ongoing political debate on education shows that the INC is trying to carve out a political issue by painting a picture of Indian education systems being underdeveloped under the BJP regime. By doing so, INC leaders are working to develop political capital around education for the upcoming elections. They may strategise the politics of mobilising the youth by highlighting the evolving underdevelopment discourse. The youth is a significant part of the Indian population, and hence has the capacity to change the electoral map of India.
The INC and, by extension, the opposition, is strategising a shift in the focus of politics—they want it to be around human development issues such as education and health. However, the BJP is alert and does not want to give any space to them. That is why Pradhan replied to Gandhi’s piece without losing any time. In fact, the INC’s strategists may have missed the point that in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of development, education is centre-stage. The entire mission of Viksit Bharat is closely linked to the transformation and expansion of the Indian education system. Thus, since education is being emphasised prominently by the BJP government, the INC may get very little space to politicise it. However, one thing is clear— in the near future, the politics of Indian democracy is going to be centred around education, health, and the environment. It is interesting to observe that PM Modi, as a visionary politician, understands it deeply, and subsequently, in his various policy and political discourses, keeps raising these issues.
The writer is Director at GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad.
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