By Sanjaya Baru

Never before has a political party gathered the courage to pursue economic reforms and liberalisation in the run up to an election. The received wisdom of the past, that even a reformer like Chandrababu Naidu believed in till recently, has been that pro-market reforms are okay when in office, but before an election socialist populism is safer. The Atal Bihari Vajpayee government has given up that sham. 

There is some populism, no doubt, in some of what Union finance minister Jaswant Singh has been announcing of late, but no one is afraid of being pro-market. Even as the Lok Sabha is dissolved and general elections are called for, Union ministers like Lal Krishna Advani, Jaswant Singh, Arun Shourie, Arun Jaitley and others, not forgetting Mr Vajpayee himself, and BJP chief ministers like Narendra Modi and Vasundhara Raje Scindia have not shied away from re-affirming their commitment to liberalisation and globalisation. When was the last time you heard the phrase “calibrated globalisation” from a BJP worthy? 

In this new political environment of economic modernism, one Sangh Parivari stands firm in his antediluvianism, Union human resources development minister Murli Manohar Joshi. The anachronism of “Dr Joshi” is more than just about his being a social and political conservative. That many are in the BJP. But what marks him out in the party’s top and emerging leadership is his being a control freak. A “Dilli ka babu”. 

Mr Joshi’s ideological detractors flay his political views and his views about astrology, Vedic mathematics and Sanskrit. There could be many views on these subjects and there may be many outside the political fold of the Sangh Parivar who may share some of Mr Joshi’s obsessions. However, of all Mr Joshi’s failings the one that sets him apart from many in the present Union council of ministers is his obsessive desire to control, to centralise, to bureaucratise. Even “comrade” Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee of the Communist Party Marxist is today a born-again liberaliser. Mr Joshi is, without doubt, the last Stalinist standing

This newspaper invited its readers in the Indian Institutes of Management and Technology to comment on Mr Joshi’s proposals with respect to the IITs and the IIMs and we have published a selection of the flood of emails we received in response. Clearly there are few takers for Mr Joshi’s stand. If Mr Joshi has lost the support of the very institutions he wants to help, it is not so much because his ideas may be wrong, but because he is seen as an interloper. The control freak “babu” from the Delhi durbar swooping down to micro-manage institutions of global excellence. 

The so-called “secular” critics of Mr Joshi have done a disservice to the modernist and liberal cause by portraying Mr Joshi only as a Hindu chauvinist bigot, re-writing history, obsessively canvassing the cause of Sanskrit and seeking recognition for astrology as science. All this he is. However, the damage these obsessions may do to the cause of higher education in India may pale in comparison with the bureaucratisation and stifling of academic freedom that he is pursuing without let.

The revolt in the institutes of excellence against Mr Joshi is not fed as much by the amusement with his antediluvian obsessions as it is by the fear of his Stalinist bureaucratisation of academic institutions. Over a period of five years, every single institution that is linked with the HRD ministry has been gripped by this malaise. The media has only taken note of the controversy surrounding the Indian Council of Historical Research because of the high profile media battles between “secular” and “communal” historians. 

Less note has been taken of the reign of mediocrity and bureaucratisation of the Indian Council for Social Sciences Research (ICSSR) and the control Raj unleashed in a variety of institutions dealing with education policy and research funding in India. At a time when business process outsourcing and the movement of natural persons have come to symbolise India’s status in the global “knowledge economy”, the HRD ministry and an assortment of Mr Joshi’s cronies are in fact stifling the knowledge economy with their control Raj. 

One consequence of this could well be that more and more institutions will seek non-governmental avenues of funding to escape the clutches of Joshi’s Stalinism. I am aware of several research institutions that have already decided to reduce their dependence on government and government-funded agencies like the ICSSR to free themselves from the tyranny of Mr Joshi’s professionally mediocre but ideologically oriented nominees on their boards. 

While in many developing countries, research institutions have been dependent on foreign funding for a long time, Indian researchers were proud of the fact that they could go to national institutions like the ICSSR for funds and not have to go to Ford, Rockefeller and similar Foundations abroad. However, in board meeting after board meeting in institution after institution, decisions are being taken to seek external private sector funding so that these institutions can retain their dignity and independence and not kow-tow to the dictates of Mr Joshi’s storm-troopers. This is not in the national interest. 

Mr Joshi may be fancying himself into believing that his agenda will further the national cause. In practice it will do the opposite. If the director of a premier national institution with a global repute has to wait as a supplicant outside the room of a self-important joint secretary in the HRD ministry to impress upon him the great contribution he has made to the promotion of Sanskrit, the enthusiasts of a great Indian language end up as the enemies of a potentially great nation seeking its due in the global arena. 

When he goes into the election campaign in the coming weeks and seeks the electorate’s approval for another term in office, Prime Minister Vajpayee can truly claim that he has put together a very talented team of senior and middle ranking ministers. In that talented team, however, there are exceptions that for some may well prove the rule. Mr Joshi is among those unfortunate exceptions and he presides over the most important ministry dealing with our future. The ministry of the knowledge economy. Time to go, Mr Joshi. 

The Financial Express

Source: Express India.com