Madhayaanai, a term coined by the DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi, means rogue elephant in Tamil. Tamil Nadu’s school education minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi has written a book to register his protest against one of India’s most controversial educational reforms. He insists that the state will not accept the reforms. Apart from the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the book—with a bold and engaging narrative style—touches upon several aspects like federal rights and the ideological agendas of political parties.
It begins with the changes that the education sector began witnessing globally since 2015, the year the UNESCO convened the World Education Forum in South Korea’s Incheon. The first chapter—‘Who chooses? Who loses?’—gives details of UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) reports which raised concerns about the transparency and integrity of education policy making in various countries, including India. Against this backdrop, writes Poyyamozhi, the NEP 2020 was introduced in India in the middle of the Covid pandemic.
The book then gives details of the BJP’s manifesto before the 2014 elections and the timeline of the NEP. Poyyamozhi wields the book as an intellectual tool to fight the Union government and assert the state’s educational autonomy. With detailed timelines and anecdotes, he argues that the NEP 2020 runs contrary to the cultural values and the rich social fabric of the people, not just in Tamil Nadu but also in the rest of India. He describes how it “came to symbolise a veritable saffron camp”, and says that the members of the 11-member committee headed by former ISRO chief Dr Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan “belong to or is closely allied with the RSS”. The NEP 2020, he adds, was not ostensibly designed to advance global education goals, and the public data to verify the Kasturirangan committee’s claims to this effect remains elusive. According to Poyyamozhi, though the committee had said that it had gathered inputs of two lakh people from 676 districts, the policy only fulfils the long-cherished dream of the RSS and similar organisations.
The minister says the NEP 2020 is against the spirit of the Constitution and adds that the policy is fascist because it deprives the people of their language, education and culture. The book argues that it “seeks to usurp the state rights over education, centralise power and eventually private education, transforming it into a commercial marketplace”. The policy requires students to clear public examinations at the end of each stage to progress to the next, signalling a rigid and exam-centric model. According to the author, the Union government makes the state governments struggle for their rightful share of funding, while it offers grandiose and illusory promises in the policy.
Another issue is how the policy is “conspicuously silent” on initiatives to promote teachers’ welfare. “Clear guidelines on salary structures are absent from NEP 2020,” writes Poyyamozhi. “Instead of bolstering the ranks of permanent teachers, the policy promotes contract-based appointments and appears intent on filling vacancies with volunteers.” He denounces how the NEP emphasises a tenure-track system which leaves the teaching and the non-teaching staff vulnerable. Also, mimicking western models like the US system without grounding them in our social context can be dangerous.
The book does not just critique the NEP 2020, but it also explains the Tamil Nadu case. It uses creative illustrations, photos and images of documents shared between the state and the Union government to anticipate the risk the policy poses to states like Tamil Nadu.
MADHAYAANAI
By Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi
Published by Anbil Pathipagam
Price Rs300; pages 141