Editorial Note

Dear friends,
Experimentation with the higher education has become a favourite pass time of our political masters. Some
times this is being done in the name of modernization, sometimes is the name of Indianization, some times in the
name of de-toxification and some times in the name of rationalization. Unfortunately, the whole exercise is being
carried out without any proper understanding of the ground realities. The policy making in the field of higher education
in India is largely Delhi-centric and fully elite-oriented and loaded with unrealistic perceptions and pre-conceived
notions strongly aligned with ideological orientations and ill-conceived prejudices regarding the other view and are
therefore, faulty and misguided. The attempts to modernize the Indian higher education during the early part of Indian
modern nation-building were dominated by left-oriented modern liberal approach directed towards ideologically
guided interpretations of history, social phenomenon and political realities because of contemporary concerns of real-
politick. The absence of well- meaning and widely visible strong opposition to the so-called national political
denomination at state and central level made the road easier for the policy makers and followers in the academic
world to dance to the tunes of the intellectual ringmasters. The experiments with the higher education during those
years of yore included the decentralized decision-making to very limited extent and bureaucratization of the
mechanisms of educational administration.
The widespread penchant love and admiration for the so-called most talented class of our society entrusted
with the duty of administrating the state and the working of planning and development made this section inaccessible,
arrogant, unreasonable and undemocratic. The persons asked to serve the larger mass of the people feel that they
are experts of everything, they know everything, they can do and are trained to do everything, they have the right to
decide everything, and they are over and above everything. The we-are-everything approach had led to a complete
mess in the different fields of human activity in modern India and higher education has been the main casualty. As a
corollary, we have been appointing semi-literates as education ministers in different states during different regimes.
We have been appointing person of zero experience in higher education administration as commissioners of higher
education. We have been appointing simple graduates from state civil services as directors of higher education. We
have been appointing persons with history of academic corruption and fraud, persons of zero-exposure to research
and publication, persons with doubtful academic and financial integrity, persons accused of plagiarism, persons of
political oblivion, persons of a cadre of deputy or under or additional secretary from University Grants Commission
and other such institutions, persons from completed opposite taste and specialization as Vice Chancellors in our
universities. We have had vice chancellors below the age of thirty five; we have had Vice Chancellors who were
political activists; we have had Vice Chancellors who hold no experience of teaching of research in any academic
institution; and we have had Vice Chancellors who have never studied in any university. We have had Vice
Chancellors who are not comfortable in any recognized language on this earth; we have had Vice Chancellors who
would not speak a single word out of the written speech; we have had Vice Chancellors who would not know the
difference between a journal and a magazine; we have had Vice Chancellors who do not sit in the office, do not meet
the faculty, do not sign any file, do not take any decision, do not listen and do not understand but are able to please
their political masters and would complete their assigned terms.
We have been experimenting with appointing our faculty. We appoint the faculty members on the basis of
their caste, religion, sex, region, language and money. We have had appointments of university and college teachers
through different modes. Sometimes and some places we haveessential in- breeding, we have commissions with
unofficially everyone knowing the rates of commission for appointment, we have panels with subject experts who
seldom attempt to decide the things on merit and rather usually go by the decision (or the pre-decision) of the
chairman of the board and are seriously interested in the payment of travel dues. We have had candidates appointed
by any means but denied any opportunity to join because either the authorities do not like the appointment, or
somebody else is working on adhoc basis or any other excuse. We have had the system of no-promotion during
entire career and people serving the institution without any possibility of any kinds of incentives like promotion. We
have had the system of umbrella departments and witnessed the monopoly of one or other person in the working. We
have had the personal promotion and career advancement schemes making the promotions easier than
contemplated in some cases and tougher than visualized in some other cases. We have had faculty members
promoted on payment to the authorities. We have had promotions being given in lieu of sexual, financial and other
gains. We have had some faculty members who never visited any other university or higher education institutions
except for evaluation work. We have had faculty members who are usually guests as they visit their own department
or institutions once in a while. We have had faculty members in senior positions who have never published a line of
their own anywhere on this earth, who have never participated in a seminar; who do not posses any book purchased
by them, who cannot speak in any national or international language, who cannot write a single page in English, who
have never seen a journal of their discipline.
We have universities and institutions of higher learning claiming and understood to be among internationally
known bodies of academic excellence and we have enormous amount of money earmarked for them in our higher
education-budget. We have good number of institutions and universities which do not get even a million rupees for
the one academic session as library grant, which do not have half the number of faculty positions filled, which do not
have half the number of official staff positions filled, which do not have respectable and responsible infrastructure.
We have had experiments of Indianization of higher education which could not infuse any sense of faith in
the society towards the re-orientation of the syllabi or about the real intentions of the political decision-makers. We
have had the experiments of detoxification which were manifestly directed towards winning over the confidence of a
political ally in the national coalition and un-doing the attempts of the earlier coalition at the centre. Now, we are
experimenting with the higher education in the garb of giving it a global face and the direction is more or less un-
doing the decisions of the earlier incumbent of the same coalition. We are simply groping in the dark without any
clear, well-prepared blue-print, without a sound understanding of the ground realities, without any homework, without
finding any solution to the basic ills, without trying our hands with the Indian alternatives and without any possibilities
of fruitful outcome. We must involve the people of grassroots of higher education and people from different
disciplines, areas, languages, and hierarchical positions for being able to take some congruent view of the situation
and defining some feasible and achievable targets for our posterity as the Indian shastra says :-
;konknkueLekde~ L;kr~ iznkua rrks·f/kde~ A

Meerut
22 march 2010
(Sanjeev Kumar Sharma)