Instead of building walls of valour, focus on education
India must celebrate its heroes, but more needs to be done to enhance the quality of learning in our campuses
The government’s advocacy for ‘walls of valour’ at universities to instil patriotism in students is set to revive the debate on nationalism in educational campuses and outside. A brainchild of Tarun Vijay, former editor of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh mouthpiece, Panchjanya, these structures will come up at a thousand campuses, to start with.
It comes when public memory about the allegedly seditious activities by some students in the capital’s Jawaharlal Nehru University has just started fading. It also feeds into the nationalistic fervour generated by Pakistan’s “dastardly” act of beheading of our soldiers on the border and unrest in Kashmir .
The proposed ‘walls of valour’ have the potential to turn the debate in campuses on patriotism — and not on whether our education system has been able to respond to ‘Make in India’, ‘Digital India’, or ‘Skill India’ visions. These walls will have portraits of 21 param vir chakra—the country’s highest military decoration—winners. HRD minister Prakash Javadekar showered encomiums on Tarun Vijay while launching his pet nationalism project .
The endorsement of Vijay’s initiative comes as no surprise. His questions in the Rajya Sabha last year ranged from “anti-national activities” in JNU to compulsory military training for senior students in universities. He wants the government to establish chairs in universities to study the growth of Indian nationalism since the Vedic days.
It’s not that only India is witnessing a debate on nationalism and patriotism; it’s resonating across the globe. Donald Trump has declared his inauguration day as National Day of Patriotic Devotion. Vladimir Putin has declared patriotism the only possible national idea in Russia. China is re-writing history books to extend the 1937-45 SinoJapan war by six years — to predate it from 1931— to provide “patriotic education” .
Nobody can find fault with Javadekar for espousal of patriotism. A country must celebrate its heroes. But the question he should ask himself is whether he is doing enough to create the enabling environment in our educational institutions to create more heroes.
No Indian institution figured in the top 200 list of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016-17. Barely 40% of engineering graduates find placements. Only 47.8% of Class V children can read a Class II level textbook, according to the annual status of education report.
The draft national education policy, submitted by a committee in May 2016, is gathering dust as the NDA government completes three years in office this month. Javadekar now wants to set up another committee.
Walls of valour are welcome but the education minister might serve the country better by focusing on the quality of our education system and take advantage of the demographic dividend Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks of with so much optimism.