Sen and sense of a new India

SN Misra
Professor of constitutional law

TWENTY years back, Prof Amartya Sen was the only Indian to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics. His book 'Development as Freedom' (1999) provided the ballast to formulate Human Development Index and the HDR is now the template to uncover the impact made by countries in terms of education, healthcare and human capability development. Professor Sen is a bitter man today, as his new book, a Hindi version of 'An Uncertain Glory', co-authored with development economist Prof Jean Dreze, gets released. 

In an interview to a TV channel, he bemoans that "India has taken a quantum jump in the wrong direction since 2014". In particular, his jibe is directed against majoritarianism, keeping the STs away from the discourse of development, Dalits getting whipped for asking a salary hike and indifference to growing inequality in the country. Prof Jean Dreze, who piloted the MNREGA, the flagship programme to provide 100 days of work to unskilled workers, called the soon-to-be launched "Ayushman Bharat health scheme" a "hoax", as the budget provided will be Rs 20 per person! 

Detractors of Professor Sen often try to counter Sen's vitriol as a case of sour grapes, as he was not given a second term as Chancellor of Nalanda University. However, Sen is too lofty an intellectual to be lampooned by such idle broadside. He changed the discourse in economics from the "mindless pursuit of wealth" to "wider access to entitlement, human capability and freedom". Taking a cue from Johan Rawl's "The Idea of Justice" and Gulet's (1971) concept of life sustainment, self-esteem and freedom from want, ignorance and squalor, Professor Sen has expanded the contours of entitlement and capabilities to realise true freedom for all citizens in a country.

There is need to look into the merits of the sweeping charges made by Professor Sen, particularly in terms of the perceived neglect of the education sector. The HRD Ministry had promised in 2015 that the allocation for education would be hiked from the present level of 3 per cent to 6 per cent. This was the recommendation of the Kothari Commission, way back in 1966, and the subsequent Knowledge Commission (2005), which also recommended that at least 1 per cent to be earmarked for research activities in the universities. The Draft Policy on Education (2016) has reiterated an increase in allocation to 6 per cent as Professor Sen has been assiduously pitching for a substantial hike in public allocation to education. 

Most developed countries devote around 5 per cent of their budget on education; just as EMEs like South Korea and China do. They have become leading knowledge centres and manufacturing hubs of the world. This is sadly not forthcoming in the Indian context. Be it the UPA governments or the four years of NDA rule thereafter with promises aplenty. Primary public schooling remains swathed in decrepit infrastructure, poor teaching standards, with most parents preferring private schooling. The concept of education voucher to children below poverty line as advocated by Professor Arvind Panagariya, which will give parents choice of schools, remains stillborn. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2016 laments about the dismal learning outcomes, both in numerical skills and basic proficiency in English. Only 25 per cent of children in Class V can read simple English sentences. The ASER (2017) on secondary schooling is even more disturbing as it shows how poor vocational skills and high dropout rates in secondary schools stultify their employability and higher education. 

Global experience has been that educational allocation has never been caught in the trap of ideology. Be it Russia, China or Cuba with leftist learning or the western democracies that profess free market ideology. No wonder, these countries display HDI of more than 90 per cent. India embraced the ICDS programme in 1975, which is expected to provide pre-schooling to about 7 crore children through anganwadi centres. What is unsatisfactory is the complete neglect of non-formal schooling in these centres. There is also no formal national policy on pre-schooling. This crucial lack of linkage between pre-schooling and schooling manifests itself in poor educational capability later on and long-term impact on their employability. 

Prof Richard Musgrave called education, particularly primary education, as a merit good, where the benefit to the society is more than the benefit to the individual. Even in a capitalist society like the USA, primary education is the remit of the government, where 95 per cent students study in public schools. It's high time that India invests at least 5 per cent in its primary education, as against just 2 per cent which is being spent now in its public school apparatus through its rickety SSA initiatives. Fundamental right to education, without any real commitment to quality, which is an important goal of SDG (2016), has made this social sector most vulnerable.

There are two other pernicious trends that bedevil India, viz promotion of crony capitalism and public support of lumpens by ministers. One witnessed recently how, without due diligence criteria and complete lack of transparency, Mukesh Ambani's Jio University was accorded the status of "Institution of Eminence". Hithertofore, such status was accorded to IITs and IISc after long years of proven academic excellence. While the will to set up universities of global repute is welcome through private initiative, the blatant promotion of a corporate sector is disturbing. It may be recalled that Birla-Ambani Committee (2000) set up by the Vajpayee government had batted for the handing over of the university education sector to the private sector. What the committee had mooted then has fructified for Ambani now, with political patronisation. 

The other development has been the way ministers like Jayant Sinha has publicly complimented brutal lynching of cattle trader, Alimuddin Ansari in Hazaribagh after they were given bail. It's baffling how the minister who is educated at Harvard deemed it appropriate to get photographed with these lumpens, who have beaten up a Muslim trader. It is testimony to our democratic freedom that 50 senior retired civil servants are part of this protest and have demanded the resignation of the minister, as it sends a wrong message to the public servant entrusted with protection of citizen's life and liberty.

India today manifests a major malaise, viz dialogue of the deaf. Public-spirited persons and voices of sanity are given no hearing by a government which flaunts its majoritarianism. They are actively dividing the society through the media and pandering to the basest religious instincts of the Hindu community. Gauri Lankesh, journalist, was killed for speaking against the rabid ideology of the RSS. Lady television personalities are being threatened with rape and others abused in the social media, with the police refusing to intervene and even entertain FIRs. We live in very disturbing times, where indifference of the elite is either a manifestation of fear or acquiescence to the divisive majoritarian ideology. Professor Sen is possibly trying to sensitise us to a possibility of wilful acquiescence to narrow religious ideology and kindle our secular spirit and engage us in a debate free from rhetoric and shenanigans.