On 18th march,
Chandigarh police lathi-charged protesting students to suppress their struggle
against Fee hike. The Students were taken to PS sec. – 11 and were brutally
tortured, for opposing the entry of police in University Campus. The police
claiming to be responsible to maintain law and order, showed what ‘Law &
order’ really means. Police while registering fake cases to suppress dissent,
mocked the very constitution that claims the country to be the Worlds’ Largest
Democracy.
The question is why university
resorted to such measures instead of solving the issue?
The whole matter was
concerned with fee hike, against which SFS started a chain hunger strike since
24th February
that was converted to indefinite hunger strike after no response from
authorities. As the authorities tried to suppress the struggle, the struggle
fueled by the students’ unity forced the authorities to bow.
The university authorities gave
the argument that fee is hiked due to rising deficit. The central government
will only give grant to university in case if they mobilize their resources
themselves and hike at least 8-10% fees every year. Instead of opposing the
government, university is increasing the load on the students by hiking their
fees.Instead of making education a
right, government is making it a commodity, and is running away from its
responsibilities of ‘social welfare’.
To understand the whole issue
let’s have a look at the education related policies:
The formal education system was
introduced by Macaulay for creating a class of persons who are “Indian in
blood and color, but English in taste, opinion, morals and in intellect…” to
serve the interests of Britishers. Today also, our education system, in spite
of liberating the masses from reactionary ideas and dominance, is continuing on
the same lines. To understand the education policy in India “National Policy
Of Education” (1986) is a turning point which supported the funding of the
institutions by both public and private sector as well as ‘voluntary
agencies’, thus paved the way for commercialization and privatization of
education. It also proposed a ‘National Core Curriculum’ under which the
rich diverse culture and languages of our people were sacrificed. NPE also
purposed the banning of elections to further suppress the voice of dissent.
Instead of universal education, the concept of ‘model’ schools was introduced
which gave rise to the double standard education.