Democratising Universities LETTERS

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4
Democratising Universities
of life so that they could play a critical
role in the society.
T
Swapnil Dhanraj
PhD Scholar
Jawaharlal Nehru University
he editorial “Democratise the University!” (EPW, 4 October 2014) draws
attention to the struggles of the student
community in the university set-up. I am
very much convinced with the view that
university administrations should actively
encourage student participation in university affairs. The point on the absence
of internal democracy within the university is thought-provoking in the contemporary situation. Globalisation and privatisation have brought in significant
changes in the system of education. These
processes have played a major role in the
transmission and creation of knowledge
in Indian society. However, university
education should be understood in
terms of the functions it performs in society. Holding demonstrations against
the university administration is a step
taken by the student community to minimise the disorder that our universities
are going through today.
Universities as centres of learning are
facing a crisis of communication with
the student community. This is by and
large true for most of the modern educational institutions. Due to university/
administrative restrictions, students
find themselves isolated from socially
important issues. As sociologist Emile
Durkheim says, education creates consciousness and a sense of liberation in
the individual. However, in today’s modern education system, the student assertion is restricted by the bureaucratic
structure of the universities.
Thousands of students and young
people from different universities took
to the streets to demonstrate as part of
the public protests in the aftermath of
the 2012 gang rape in Delhi, which
showed collective assertion and consciousness among the youth of this
country. Striking against a huge fee
hike or protesting against injustice towards a fellow student is a genuine
cause, which the university should not
criminalise. The university administration along with the student community
should promote democracy and the
rights of students to transform education into a positive and rational process
october 11, 2014
New Delhi
Meat and Milk Sector
I
am not sure if the RSS (Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh) chief has contemplated the implications of his aadesh
(order) to ban the meat exports from India,
this in his annual address on 3 October
2014 on the day of the Vijayadasami
festival. India is a significant exporter of
meat, which is basically from buffaloes.
Hence, export of buffalo meat, which
has little demand in the country, should
not be discriminated against on any
ground. If the government were to implement the aadesh of the RSS, then the
adverse impact on the economy of meat
production would be obvious. First, India
will lose export revenue of $4.48 billion,
adversely affecting the balance of trade,
which stands at $146 billion. Second, the
slaughterhouses themselves will become
uneconomic because they will not be
able to sell their meat products domestically at the depressed prices due to the
glut in the domestic meat market.
Moreover, as the farmers will find it
impossible to sell their unproductive
animals to the slaughterhouses, the illegal
trade in such animals with India’s neighbours will increase, and if the government prevents that, milk production itself
will become unsustainable because the
farmers will not find processing facilities for their by-products. India does not
have enough goshalas (shelter houses)
to manage those unproductive animals,
and even if such goshalas are established,
the related subsidies will add to the
already threatened food subsidies. The
social effects on minorities who survive
in such businesses will be catastrophic
and unjust. The suggestion to ban meat
export is untenable as there are no
economically, socially and technically
workable alternatives. The proposed ban
is against the spirit of Article 48 of the
Constitution, which emphatically states
“the State shall endeavour to organise
vol xlix no 41
EPW
Economic & Political Weekly
LETTERS
agriculture and animal husbandry on
modern and scientific lines…”
Of course, people like the RSS chief
can give all sorts of aadeshas, but I hope
that the Government of India has a
shrewdness not to take such orders by
considering the export earnings from
meat and also the employment potential
for many people in the country. Any
such interference in the effective disposal
of unproductive animals by the farmers
would be against the farmers’ interest,
as it would affect food and nutrition
security, and the livelihoods of a large
number of people.
Chandrashekhar G Ranade
Washington DC
LPG Subsidies
W
hen we relocated to India a few
years ago, our biggest worry was
not bijli, sadak, or paani, but cooking gas.
Most of our upper-middle-class neighbours
appeared to benefit from subsidised LPG
at half the market price and we were
told that we too could get it easily…for a
“facilitation fee” at the ration card office! But nothing had prepared us for the
sheer scale of abuse of LPG subsidies,
which cost the nation Rs 21,772 crore in
2010-11 and had more than doubled to
Rs 46,458 crore in 2013-14.
The state of Karnataka, for example,
estimated in 2012 that 25% of its LPG connections were “ghosts”. An overeager minister tried to link LPG to electricity meters,
but over 22% of the consumers refused to
come forward despite numerous extensions. As it turned out, a miffed LPG mafia
issued death threats against the minister
and the initiative was abruptly terminated
under pressure from cabinet colleagues
presumably linked to the LPG trade.
The situation was not much different
in other states: Andhra Pradesh estimated
in 2013 that 20% of its 1.6 crore LPG
connections were “bogus”, and that 80%
of its ration cards were BPL (below the
poverty line)! The state had attempted
in 2005-06 to link ration cards to an irisonly-based biometric ID system, but had
failed miserably.
The appalling state of our public distribution system (PDS) (by extension, that
of subsidised LPG, which are linked to
Economic & Political Weekly
EPW
october 11, 2014
ration cards) had prompted the Supreme
Court to appoint the Justice Wadhwa
Committee in 2006 to take an in-depth
look, state by state. Following its report
in 2010, the Court had called for “end-toend” computerisation of PDS at a national
level and integration with Aadhaar “in
due course”. The Court had come to the
inescapable conclusion that there was
no consistent political will at the state
level to reform subsidies.
In a nutshell, dependency on international oil prices, ballooning fuel subsidies,
lack of action by states to rein in fraud,
botched attempts at automation, etc –
these were the genesis of the United
Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) Aadhaar
programme and its direct benefit transfer (DBT) initiative for LPG, which the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government
has now embraced with even more gusto
than the UPA. It wants to extend DBT to
other major schemes and has issued orders
to speed up Aadhaar enrolments in lowpenetration states like Uttar Pradesh with
the goal of 100% enrolment by mid-2015!
BJP’s U-turn on Aadhaar was surprising,
but not unexpected, as its options were
stark: either reinvent the ID wheel, with
no hope of immediate payback, or leverage the already established Aadhaar
system. Contrary to some news reports,
the National Population Register (NPR)
was never an independent option, as it
too relies on Aadhaar for de-duplication.
Based on initial results, DBT is expected
to save Rs 6,500-10,000 crore in LPG
subsidies, which alone more than offsets
the Rs 4,906 crore spent to date on
Aadhaar – the kind of return on investment that critics would do well to
take notice!
Between June 2013 and January 2014,
DBT for LPG had covered 10 crore consumers in 291 districts. Rs 5,400 crore were
transferred to Aadhaar-linked bank accounts of 2.8 crore consumers. As much as
6.18 lakh duplicates were uncovered, representing an annual savings of Rs 193 crore.
Rs 400 crore more in savings resulted from
consumers who did not produce their
Aadhaar numbers and hence paid the
market price – a combination of “ghosts”
and legitimate consumers who were still
awaiting their Aadhaar numbers.
The UPA government drew strong criticism on the latter count, i e, for prematurely launching DBT in low-Aadhaar
districts, and was forced to put it in
abeyance in early 2014. It appointed a
committee chaired by S G Dhande,
former director, IIT-Kanpur to study the
programme and address the disquiet
among consumers. The committee’s report in May 2014 concluded that DBT
was indeed fulfilling its goal of curbing
duplication and fraud, suggested several
process improvements, and strongly
urged its resumption nationwide.
The BJP government appears poised to do
just that and much more. It has announced
plans to extend Aadhaar-linked DBT to other
key areas such as pensions, scholarships,
the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and PDS.
After decades of mismanaging subsidies, the nation is in a unique position to
tackle corruption at the point of service
delivery. A reputedly decisive government with a huge mandate now has a
proven technology at its disposal. What
it now needs is the political will to move
forward even if it means upsetting some
of its traditional urban middle class
support base or its ideological mentors.
What is at stake is much more than cooking gas. How this government fares in
tackling LPG subsidies will be a harbinger
of its ability to better target all other
subsidies and entitlements.
Raju Rajagopal
Former Civil Society Outreach Coordinator
for UIDAI
Bangalore
Web Exclusives
The following articles have been published in the past week in the Web Exclusives section of the EPW website.
They have not been published in the print edition.
(1) Privatisation of CPRs and the Informal Sector: A Case of Chilika Lake – Lalatendu Keshari Das
(2) Mahuva Andolan of Gujarat: Judicialisation of Politics and Protests – Varsha Bhagat-Ganguly
(3) BJP’s Assertive Pitch: Panipat of Marathi Asmita? – Mahesh Gavaskar
(4) Teachers’ Day Marked in the Modi Way: Hidden Curriculum of the Master Class – Kishore Darak
Articles posted before 4 October 2014 remain available in the Web Exclusives section.
vol xlix no 41
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LETTERS
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october 11, 2014
vol xlix no 41
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