On Common School System in India

Towards Understanding the Fallacies of Movement for Common School System in a Capitalist Framework: A Note

It is often found that social scientists/researchers of our country put forward some prescriptions in their research papers for bringing about certain   pro-people steps or certain policy change either in social, economic, political or cultural fields assuming the Indian state machine as an apparatus that has basically been designed to function as per the Constitution of the people made by the people and for the people. But such an assumption has been proved to be wrong. We got the state machine in the way legacy of British rule. We have done nothing other than policing it to hide its inhuman face and framing some pro-people norms for its handling. This was simply an attempt of camouflaging on the part of the capitalist class and their leadership. The then Zaminders and their political representatives perceived this falsification but the leadership of the capitalist class tactically (without going into direct confrontations) brought them (the then Zaminders)   under the fold of capitalism providing them ‘privy purse’ and such other formal and informal licenses to maintain their hegemony over their subjects. Such arrangement was made possible only due to absence of the leadership of the common/working class people at the national level. 

 It is this capitalist state machine which is governing the people of our country or deciding the destiny of our countrymen for last 63 years. And what we witness today. It has given birth to a fragmented economy and society- a few haves and large have-nots.  Many people term it as India vs Bharat. Indians are those a few capitalists/elites and their allies who not only own the capital and other means of production but they also control over the politics, culture and spiritual faculties of mass mind; on the other the Bharatbasis are those majority who are grinded under the rule of capital and are forced to lead their lives with uncertainty, insecurity, threats and chaos.

It is the capitalist rulers in the garb of democracy justifies setting up elementary schools by the government like Central Schools, Model Schools, Sainik Schools, etc and  the most sophisticated Convent schools by the monopoly houses. It is their (Capitalist) certified officials and intellectuals   who design curriculum for elementary school education or higher general/technical education that would help generating healthy minds to serve the rule of capital devoid of human face. This is why, as Professor (Mrs.) Verma mentioned yesterday, “We find no serious student and teacher in government schools today who could articulate their views profusely expressing what they actually intend to express”.   

The ruling capitalist class and its allies, who are now in the forefront of politics representing Indian population in all its public bodies (Parliament, Legislative Assemblies, Panchayats, etc) framing the Acts like MNREGA, RTI, RTE, RTL and so on to empower the masses to rectify the misdeeds of the capitalist rule. My submission to the enlightened people of this country is – to ponder over whether these so called right-based Acts are more powerful than the provisions that have originally been made in our constitution. Is it a fact that our rulers have fulfilled all our constitutional commitments? Is it that they had seriously attempted to resolve the basic problems of education, health, livelihood and housing? Are these the attempts towards resolving the emerging problems and give the working class people something more than what was committed in the Constitution or these are the attempts to dilute the constitutional commitment of the state and make space for the market to exploit our man and material resources for quenching the blood sucking thrust of the capitalist class and their allies?  Are these not the eyewash and to sidetrack us from questing on the anti-people policies, laws and actions performed by the capitalist state machine?

Under such a situation where the state machinery, in the garb of serving the people’s interests, sidetracks the common man from mainstream development or allow the owners of capital and other means of production to exploit the working population for profit maximization, and justifies inequality in the field of education, economy and society, can common school system be set up? The present state machine ‘overtly or covertly’ serves the interests of capitalism and capitalism has tendency to concentration of capital by twisting and turning the market forces. Common school system could either be set up in an ideal state of capitalism which would never be achieved in this age of market-crises ridden world situation or such system could be set up in a socialist state by dismantling the capitalist state machine and making the productive forces free from the market regulations and instead to give it a direction to serve the interests of the working humanity and not the market as it is in the capitalism. 

In conclusion I would say RTE is a clever attempt of the ruling capitalist class to provide space for the market to invest in this field and make profit. My another question to the galaxy of the intellectuals present here is  that - can the knowledge or education (that have been accumulated through painstaking process undertaken by the great souls of the mankind) be a means of capital for the capitalist class for their profit maximization? Can the capitalist class be allowed to make education a marketable commodity? If not then we have to come forward to wage up a revolutionary movement to dismantle the very foundation of the capitalist state machine and institute a pro-people state machining it its place. 

Madan C Sarkar

mcsarkar@rediffmail.com