Failing to lead by example

Kerala’s success in education is hard to reconcile with the palpable tension that the Sabarimala verdict has caused

Politics alone cannot explain the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s verdict in the Sabarimala case. This is because for the rest of India, Kerala has served as a model of progress guided by a long-sustained pursuit of welfare policies, especially in health and education. Kerala also has a history of social movements that mobilised people to let go of the grip of custom and ritual. Some of these movements were aimed specifically at propagating reason and knowledge. If the regime of modernity got a fair test anywhere in South Asia, surely it was in Kerala.

A patriarchal ethos

These common impressions are hard to reconcile with the discomfort and palpable tension that the Sabarimala verdict has caused. Conflict and the threat of violence can, and perhaps, should be attributed to political rivalry and administrative ineptitude. But there seems to be a wider unease with the verdict.

In a phone-in programme of the Hindi service of the BBC, a senior woman journalist, who knows Kerala socially, said that the verdict is ahead of the times, that it will take one or two more generations for people to accept the entry of women of all ages in the Sabarimala temple. That sober prognosis left me wondering about the value and meaning of Kerala’s achievement in public literacy and children’s education. Was it wrong to imagine that the spread of education would cause a deep enough dent in all forms of gender inequality? Persistence of dowry certainly suggests that. So does the acceptance of misogynist humour I have myself witnessed in the middle of serious discussion.

Apart from its failure to dilute a patriarchal ethos, education has also performed rather poorly in widening the space available for dialogue between contending positions. This is one reason why both the state and society are finding it difficult to appreciate a civic solution to a faith-related practice.

Promise of education

Education tends to arouse many expectations, both in the individual and the social mind. First, there are economic expectations. They are so strong that the educated do not mind enduring long stretches of unemployment. Equally complex is the political expectation association with education. It is widely believed that education nourishes democratic values and behaviours. But historical evidence suggests that education can nurture democracy as well as dictatorship. It depends on what is taught and how. If schools and colleges are intellectually exciting places, and if the curriculum encourages critical inquiry, we can expect education to strengthen democracy. If schooling stifles curiosity by regimenting the body and the mind at an early age, education can nourish authoritarianism.

Similarly, if language and literature are taught to train young minds for participation in open-ended dialogue, we can expect education to sustain an ethos where freedom to differ without fear is guaranteed and dissent is tolerated. The opposite may happen if language and literature are marginalised in the curriculum or subjected to mechanical testing and other means of oppression. Similar things can be said about the teaching of the subjects that constitute the social sciences. They can either be used for indoctrination or to encourage reflection.

Subject to regime change

The question why education has not improved Kerala’s capacity to sustain a culture of dialogue is not difficult to answer. Education did spread widely, but efforts to reform its inner world — curriculum and pedagogy — remained weak and somewhat confused. Significant initiatives were taken more than once, but the financial and intellectual resources deployed for this task were inadequate. Also, the effort remained subject to regime change. In teacher training, one had expected that Kerala would make a breakthrough by investing significant academic resources in this unfortunate area. That did not happen. Bridges between universities and schools remained half-built. As in other States, progress of education in Kerala remained confined mainly to expansion of the system. That too did not proceed coherently. Social and economic divisions got entrenched within the system of education. Successive governments remained indifferent to this trend and to the need to create a provincial policy.

Hailed as a model, Kerala has disappointed. Apart from failing to create an ethos where dialogue and deliberation are conveniently possible, Kerala’s progress on the gender front has also remained unimpressive. The grip of early socialisation into deep-set notions of womanhood has stayed tight. One consequence of this grip is the perpetuation of deeply negative beliefs about the physical aspect of maturation. At this level, gender disparity deserves to be understood as a far more complex cultural phenomenon than merely a matter of unequal opportunities. Education can influence gender roles and their relations by creating new predispositions in early childhood. This is a tough area for reform. It has remained on the margins of education, both in terms of funding and status as a policy sector. Few would admit that they do not fully understand it or its significance.

Moreover, not everyone believes/wants education to disturb established social patterns. In fact, many people feel unsure about the introduction of critical pedagogy in schools. Why Kerala disappoints us today is because it had fostered the hope of being different. It probably is, but not to the extent one had assumed. Its system of education is just as bureaucratised and compartmentalised as anywhere else. Complacent attitudes also block vision and direction. A common meaning of progress now is to secede from the local board and join the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) or its private counterpart. Kerala set the benchmark for total literacy and implementation of the Right to Education Act. Looking ahead, Kerala could have sorted out the tenacious points of confusion such as the crucial role of language, both in children’s growth and in enhancing society’s capacity for dialogue. The social incoherence one sees in Kerala gains strength from poor teaching of language and related fields of knowledge.

The Sabarimala prism

It is true of many other parts of India, but Kerala’s case hurts because a sound basis for putting in place a sophistical system of education existed there. Had its early advantages been used with greater focus and commitment, we might have witnessed a somewhat smoother transition in Sabarimala.

Krishna Kumar is a former director of the NCERT

Source: The Hindu, 5/11/2018

The challenge of rebuilding Kerala

Kerala has faced the sort of natural calamity that should allow for a one-time easing of fiscal constraints

As the flood waters recede gradually in Kerala and the Kodagu district of Karnataka, the focus will begin to shift from relief operations to rebuilding. The trail of destruction is a long one. The initial estimates provide us with some idea about the scale of the task ahead. For example, 10,000km of roads as well as 100,000 houses will need to be rebuilt in Kerala. It is quite likely that the numbers will rise as more detailed surveys are conducted. The damage to economic life in the hilly regions of the two southern states will also need to be assessed.

The ongoing relief work has received support from across the country, be it other state governments or individuals or private sector organizations. The reconstruction work will need something more than voluntary effort, though even that would be welcome in communities that have been uprooted by the rising waters. Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has sought ₹2,600 crore from the Union government to help his government rebuild the state.

The state government has also asked New Delhi to increase the amount it can borrow from the bond market. There is a strong case for the Narendra Modi government to agree to this demand. Indian state governments have signed off on fiscal laws that restrict the amount they can borrow based on fiscal deficit targets. Such fiscal laws across the world have inbuilt flexibility that allow the borrowing limits to be crossed in the case of special circumstances such as a sharp recession or wars or natural calamities. That is true of Indian fiscal laws as well. Kerala, and to a lesser extent Karnataka, have faced the sort of natural calamity that should allow for a onetime easing of fiscal constraints. The Reserve Bank of India could also offer immediate liquidity support through a special ways and means advances (WMA) window.

One possible way to reduce the cost of reconstruction would be the issue of special bonds at interest rates that are far lower than what the bond market would demand. Here is an idea. This newspaper suggests that it would be worth structuring a bond where the interest costs of the borrowing are shared by three entities—the Union government can waive taxes; individuals across the world, including the Kerala diaspora, can accept lower interest rates; and the state government will be left with an interest rate that is around a third of what would otherwise have to be paid to investors. Of course, such bonds should be used only in special circumstances. The use of the money will also need to be tracked.

Financial markets can have another potential role in the case of future episodes in the country, especially given the context of climate change. India needs to have a market for catastrophe bonds that insure people against extreme events that have large costs. These bonds will allow governments to buy protection from investors who are willing to bet against extreme climate events, though at a relatively high rate of interest. Governments buying such protection will then need to set up special purpose vehicles (SPVs). Much will depend on the pricing of these bonds, investor appetite for them, potential tax breaks, and the ability to assess the risks of extreme weather events. Catastrophe bonds are gaining in importance across the world, and Mexico has been an early mover. Its most recent catastrophe bond was issued in 2017 with the backing of the World Bank.

Rebuilding Kerala is going to take time. The floods have perversely provided the state government the opportunity to think anew about its infrastructure. The case of Surat is interesting. The Gujarat city was hit by plague in 1994, following sudden floods that left rotting carcasses on the streets of a town that was reputed to be one of the dirtiest in the country. The plague rattled citizens enough for them to rally around a city administration that decided to start afresh. Last year’s rankings, released by the government under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, ranked Surat as the fourth cleanest city in India, after Indore, Bhopal and Visakhapatnam.Though it has slipped in this year’s rankings, the point is not whether there are parallels between what happened in Surat and what has happened in Kerala and parts of Karnataka, but that natural disasters can provide opportunities for fresh starts.

Source: Livemint Epaper, 23/08/2018