april 23, 2011

The Anna Phenomenon

Should the anti-corruption struggle be defined in terms of a virtuous civil society versus an evil State?

he hoax of a virtuous civil society pitted against an evil, leviathan State has been making the rounds since the 1980s. The collapse of the Berlin Wall ensured its political durability, emboldening the new right to go global in spreading its way of legitimising capitalist relations of exploitation and domination and obscuring the social problems that capital, in its ruthless drive to accumulate wealth by any and all available means, brings about. In India, as a result of the new rights neo-liberal programme, corruption has hit the roof. But the new right prescribes more of the same medicine. For its programmers, Anna Hazare, the self-styled authoritarian Gandhian from Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra best fitted the bill to be the messiah who would walk all over corruption. With god-men like Baba Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in tow, and with a bishop and a maulvi thrown in, faith-based power was guaranteed to attract the middle class in the numbers that are so essential to a favourable outcome of any crusade. Hazares fast-unto-death was to be the catalyst that would ignite the moral outrage of civil society against the corrupt representatives of the immoral State. But what is it that is meant by civil society? To our friends in the foundation and/or government-financed non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the word civil provides the key. It denotes well-bred, gracious, refined, civilised and decent, and it is they who fit that category. For they are the ones, the social entrepreneurs, who via their NGOs, create and accumulate social capital; in their own estimation they are the ethical motors that power society to becoming civil. Groups that seek power in the State are excluded, especially those who are interested in acquiring political power, that is, the political parties. In this NGO view, while civil society, the State and the market are the three spheres that interface in the making of democracy, it is civil society and the market that have to cut the big bad State down to size to realise this ideal. What is required, the typical NGO intellectual proffers, is a civil society onslaught. We are all girded to get on board the civil society bandwagon to create social power in order to combat political power. But coming to the very notion of corruption, what does it actually mean? Has not one of Indias most wealthy and powerful business houses funded a lobbyist and manoeuvred to get its nominee A Raja appointed as union minister for communications
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and information technology corruption? Was not the removal of Mani Shankar Aiyar as union minister for petroleum and natural gas in January 2006 and his replacement by Murli Deora at Washingtons behest corruption? (Washington did not want the IranPakistan-India gas pipeline project.) Of course, in feudal times state offices were bought in quite an undisguised manner and without any loss of face. In those times, a state official using his public office for the purposes of private appropriation was not unusual, indeed this was expected of him. But in 21st century India, the prime minister does not think that there is anything unusual going on over here and would have continued to accommodate A Raja in office if it were not for court strictures. Perhaps the distinction between the political and the economic, the public and the private is getting blurred as finance capital comes to the fore in the present phase of globalisation. Business and politics are so closely intertwined; indeed, politics is also a form of business, and a very lucrative one at that. And, to think of it, once upon a time in the history of capitalism, politics-asbusiness was not considered legitimate. Certainly, the rot in business and politics, politics-as-business and business-as-politics runs deep in India today, and the need is for progressive forces to do all they can to exercise their counterhegemonic role within civil society. When this comes to the question of corrupt practices, we need to be sensitive to the moral economy of the crowd the moral principles of Indias poor and middle peasants, dispossessed wage workers, artisans, lower middle class households struggling to keep themselves from going under. It is they who regard the reigning capitalist principles and practices as morally wrong. There are two capitalist modus operandi which deeply affect peoples lives, where those who take the decisions are outside the framework of liberal political democracy, in the market and the economy. Indeed, it is the leviathan State that protects this sphere by guaranteeing the right to protection of property and contract. It is in the economy that exploitation of the dispossessed wage worker and poor peasant is the norm, a practice that is, nevertheless, repugnant if one were to go by the principles of the moral economy of the crowd. So too would be the sharp practices of speculators and hoarders of essential commodities in a situation of shortage. The other corrupt practice that is abhorrent, again, if one goes by the moral economy of the crowd, is the separation of property

april 23, 2011

vol xlvI no 17

EDITORIALS

from need, which is a consequence of capitals competitive drive to maximise its net worth by any and all available means. In this, A Raja was merely a servant of his wealthy and powerful masters, all capitalists, just as Murli Deora was of his masters in Washington DC.

In supporting the Indian crowd against such deplorable conventions and practices as exploitation and the accumulation of wealth by any and all available means we would have broken out of the confines of the middle class and its morals, and the agendas of the new right.

Semesterisation
Change is necessary in our universities, but ramming through change as in Delhi University will not work.

ecent years have seen many measures to overhaul the working of Indian universities. After six decades of neglect and patchwork repairs, it is only under the United Progressive Alliance government that serious thought has been given to the requirements of Indias higher education sector. Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal estimates that India will require 1,000 new universities and over 45,000 new colleges in the coming decade. A large part of this expansion is planned through private funding, including foreign direct investment. It is as yet unclear what, if any, controls will be placed on such funding and on the working of these institutions to ensure that the social and pedagogical goals of higher education are not compromised. It is in this context that measures to reform existing universities are taking place. Assessments based largely on an annual exam are being replaced by semesters and internal assessments, which give students greater flexibility and cushion as well as provide them with access to a greater variety of courses. However, much of these reforms, whether about research and publication of the faculty, the introduction of integrated undergraduate and postgraduate courses or the switch to a semester system have been resisted by teaching faculty in most universities. In Delhi University (Du) the opposition to the semester system has turned into a bitter stand-off between much of the faculty and the university administration. For those outside the university system it has often appeared somewhat perplexing to find such strong opposition to the introduction of semesters which are usually seen as an improvement over annual exams. The annual system of examinations has nurtured a culture of learning by rote and making a three-hour exam at the end of the year the sole arbiter of a students capability. The semester system coupled with a reform of the exam system and introduction of multidisciplinary courses is surely a welcome move. It reduces the exam stress on the student, increases the number of courses and options before her and also allows for greater flexibility and creativity in teaching. However, in DU some have opposed the very principle of the semester system and linked it to the larger attempts to privatise and commercialise higher education. Thus the opposition to semesterise! Others have pointed out the practical and logistical difficulties in implementing the semester system in a university with 70 plus colleges teaching over one and a half

lakh undergraduate students. There was surely a need to discuss how the change from an annual exam system to a semester system was going to happen and to take on board the apprehensions and difficulties expressed by the teachers. Further, such change has to be rolled out over a period of time. Unfortunately but true to past precedent, the university administration has not invested much thought or energy into working out the modalities of the semester system for DU and many crucial aspects of its working the number of courses to be done, the level of multidisciplinarity allowed, exam reforms, etc remain unclear. They have, it appears, merely copied and pasted an idea and format thoughtlessly despite strong opposition from its most diligent and conscientious teachers. Rather than opening lines of communication and dialogue with its teaching faculty to reduce differences and work out solutions, the university administration has sought to introduce semesters through administrative fiat and the use of repressive measures. These include questionable tactics in the conduct of academic council meetings, sending police and bouncers to faculty meetings to pressurise teachers into compliance and serving show-cause notices on those opposed to the move. This is not just inexplicable but downright condemnable for which the university administration and the vice chancellor are answerable. Indian universities and institutions of higher education cannot function the way they have done in the past decades. They do have to change to meet the demands of rising numbers and new social classes accessing higher education. It will no longer do to merely oppose semesterisation a strange neologism and expect students and the larger community to accept the status quo. If indeed the semester system is bad for the university and for students, then an alternative system which ensures the benefits purported in the semester system needs to be articulated. But some of the arguments proffered against the semester system that a single semester is not enough time to teach a course and that semesters do not give students from deprived backgrounds time to adjust appear unconvincing and at odds with the experience in other universities. The neoliterate student, who will struggle against various social, economic and cultural barriers to enter a college or university will find herself caught between a thoughtless and authoritarian university administration and a university academic body which, rather than articulating a larger vision, is exhausting its energies in minor battles over relative non-issues.
april 23, 2011 vol xlvI no 17
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