Present Quality of Electorate, Democracy, Official Culture cum Education Policy- A View by Tapas Choudhury

Last updated on Sunday, October 11th, 2020

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This is an era of information dissemination. While our electoral setup is electronically foolproof (yet to be enumerator wise); though electoral reform as such has a little bearing on the improvement of democratic functioning of the executive and legislature but imperative it is that our electorate should know about our parliamentary system and constitution. If observed keenly, it would be seen that generally, the people are hardly aware of the system, its functions, and its power, the role of MLAs, MPs, Mayor, Panchayat, and jurisdiction of theirs’ besides that of democracy.

We usually study the subject civics up to class VIII level except for those who opt for political science and read it thoroughly. But, otherwise seldom we find any educative program on these issues in media (Govt., private both). What normally gets broadcast is a discussion among political parties and those are more a politics than information. People usually cast (even educated) vote as the wave of a person or party goes. This is one of the ills of education. There should be curricula about our own planning process; the role of finance, parliamentary, and judiciary system. The curricula should be spread up to class XII.

As regards democracy, the democratic process means compatibility and conduciveness in functioning. A good democratic process allows control of prices. A balanced democracy allows PPP to evenly spread across all sectors. For a sound democracy, we have to prove that vigorously competitive politics in a democracy can achieve a sufficient consensus to be able to implement this difficult but necessary policy choice we face. Entrepreneurship should therefore be the key to success of our democratic system and hence to be thrust upon in all sectors. Again, in a true democratic system, education (formal, nonformal both) is held as the most important factor and continuous quality up-gradation is required.

Further, our prevalent caste system at times puts a hurdle on transparency in functioning (SC, ST OBC and Minorities). Several questions could be posed like why we should, still (after 67 years of independence) give preference to highly educated SC/STs, Minorities etc. Why a particular minority class should enjoy special marital right (not applicable to Govt servant) even today. Why Members of Parliament/ MLAs should not have any eligibility criteria like a Govt. servant. Why the pay packets of PSUs and Govt. are not the same after all Govt too is indirectly contributing to the revenue earning. Why jobs in private are so insecure.

Why cadre services should enjoy more direct/indirect benefits than ex-cadre/scientific cadre personnel. Why not informal sector personnel should have scale of pay and why there should be an artificial price rise of real estates and regarding this whether any study by M/O Urban development/NBCC/ CBRI (Roorkee) has been done. Much of democracy lies in our intangible feelings, like a sense of equality that needs to be spread. There is another factor which many times goes against the concept of democracy like stamping any institution (IITan, IIMian, etc- nothing great about these; many engineering colleges and other management Institutes are at par – not necessarily exceptional intelligentsia lie only in IIT, IIM- an age-old false perception we have been holding).

Besides above, another important issue that could be highlighted is Govt’s special dependence on Gazetted officers. For any attestation or character certificate, one has to go to a Gazetted officer; hence our viewpoint needs to be changed. All the officers of PSUs/Public sector banks and teachers of Central and State universities are appointed through Police verification; hence they should be equally empowered to do so. On our official procedure, there are many things that could be modified, like various forms of letters i.e. Demy Official, OM, UO etc. There should be only one form of a letter. Regarding making applications to Govt. Agencies, if one goes through UPSC form- 6 pages; whole history- Read, Write, Speak etc! Further sometimes in our official noting, we ridicule communication technology like for example “Pl. speak”. Why? The officer should pick up the phone and can just communicate. Another ill is “Online”. The day is not far when we will go for online DARSHAN of KEDARNATH. The computer systems should not be used to that extent as it would sidetrack the pains & pleasures of human life. Govt. has taken it for granted that even walls of offices should be computer savvy on their own. (!!) which largely is not the case.

Again, if Govt. can impose ICT across all the sectors (without arranging proper training curricula), then Hindi which is our National language should also be imposed. It has not been done for a lack of political will. Obviously hidden &intrinsic hypocrisy still exists among our Parliamentarians & Planners. Like, bilingual computers are still not in popular use in Central Govt. offices. None of the top officials of any State converse with the center in Hindi during a meeting. Minutes are first written in English, sent; and then translated in Hindi only for “A” category states and not for others. The current Rail budget was officially announced, spoken in English in media, the other day. Difficult, pretty difficult it is for us to have, in use, one National official language as in the past 67 years this was preached aloud and practiced least.

If introspected on educational & knowledge standards, it may be seen that Google culture has already taken us much away from the library. Library readership has asymptotically gone down. We are producing more literate than educated than learned than thinkers. Original thoughts are very few and after perhaps 1960, we had hardly any visionary or thinkers. Our highly informed/educated parliamentarians have deliberately shed their thinking process for basic educational reforms and making it liberal. The Education Policy which we had been having around & abound could not yet bring down/bridge the disparities in fee structures in higher education which are noticeable.

There is no corpus funding drawn from various PSUs and Private Majors to help poor but calibered students. Perhaps we can ill afford such a costly education. There should be one fee structure for all Engineering & Medical Colleges and subsidized. Presently admissions are based on marks; rather it should be a first come first serve basis –based on minimum qualifying marks (Like 55%). It has been presumed over the years that only high percentiles have rights for higher & specialized studies. There are no records examples:- High school-First Division, Intermediate-Failed(cleared next year), Graduation-third division, Post Graduation-First Division; retired as Dean of a Faculty.

3. Ours is a vast country with diversified ethnicity and culture. Easier said than done we require the dedication of our legislature /parliamentarian particularly those with finance and law portfolio to ponder upon various issues that could be made coherent for better functioning of the govt.

4. Our vanities of education are so high that we very often forget to pay as much attention to the means as to its end.