Minority Institutions: Examining the Foundations

In all this debate about St. Stephen’s College and its decision to go and have a Dalit Christian reservation, we have not taken time to unpack the concept of the minority institution. When the constitution guaranteed the minorities the right to start and manage their own institutions, they were not handing out freebies. The liberal climate that prevailed when the constitution was being drafted had the vision of a welfare state. They wanted the constitution to lay the foundation of a secular state where all sections of society would live with their identity and culture intact. It was such a benevolent gesture that made them reserve two seats in parliament for members of the Anglo Indian community, a practice that continues to this day, though the population of Anglo Indians might number in their thousands. Probably the two Anglo Indian members of Parliament represent their constituency more effectively than the elected members if the ratios and the representation formulae are taken into consideration.

The Minority institutions that were typically envisaged to enjoy the state’s protection were those which would actually serve to preserve minority languages, customs and traditions. The feeling was that minorities could get overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the majority community surrounding them and their culture and unique identity could just get subsumed into one large anonymous melting pot. So they needed a helping hand and the benign protection of the state. In this understanding of the concept, if a minority institution is not doing its job of preserving the ethos and culture and traditions and identity of a community, it is not really doing its job. A bunch of Muslims or Christians or Sikhs could get together and run a secretarial institute or a typing college or even a degree college running conventional BA and B.com courses. Would such institutes qualify to be a minority institute ? Not really in the spirit of the constitution.

The Christian Medical College, Vellore has put it well. When asked to explain why it should reserve so many seats for Christians when it was just another medical college , it replied that it wasn’t just another medical college. It put forward the very correct argument that running hospitals and clinics and providing affordable health care to the poor was an important function of the church from its earliest history in India and Vellore was training doctors to continue and preserve that tradition of the church. It was not another commercial minded, doctor generating machine but an instrument to preserve the identity of the Christian community in India which has always been associated with a spirit of service and especially so in the fields of health and education.

Another example one could cite is that of the Jamia Hamdard University in Delhi. Run by the foundation associated with the makers of the famous sherbet Rooh Afzah, the campus has a distinctly Muslim feel to it. It teaches conventional courses all right , but also has an impressive array of courses relating to Islamic theology, Persian , Arabic , Unani medicine and other facets of liberal Islamic culture.

But not every institution is CMC Vellore or Jamia Hamdard. I know of many several church run institutions- (and this is very likely true in the in instances of other communities as well) where there is very little of Christ or His teaching to be seen or heard. What makes it a minority institution is that the Board of Management is headed by some Bishop or Priest or church official. The Bible is seldom referred to or opened, students go to tepid moral science classes and the morning assembly is anemic. When the church is persecuted from time to time , it is common to hear that many eminent people attended such and such Christian school. Well they might have done so but the moot question is whether they were exposed to the teachings of Jesus in their student days or it just happened that the school happened to be run by some religious order or denomination but beyond these legal niceties , it ran as any secular institution would do.

The plumb line to determine if any institution is a minority institution – be it linguistic or religious or ethnic is to examine what minority values and cultures are being imparted there. If after studying in a Christian school for ten years or more, a child comes out with negligible knowledge of the church, its contribution to nation building and the Bible or if a Sikh institution teaches little about the history of the community, the valor and sacrifices of the Sikh Gurus or the Guru Granth Sahib, then in what way is the establishment representative of the Christians or the Sikhs ? They are no more than secular institutes which just happen to be run by a group of people who speak a particular language or profess a particular religion.

Let me end with an example from my own life. I studied in a school run by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The Ashram management in no sense of the term attempted to” convert” any one to Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy but in every turn and gesture, they indicated in word and deed , that they cherished Sri Aurobindo and his successor, The Mother and their teaching wasn’t just lip service for them. Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy is not easy to understand ,but in the school assembly where his teachings were unabashedly taught , the school principal and other speakers made every effort to present them with passion and reverence and the atmosphere was live and electric and Sri Aurobindo’s thinking and influence was every where and it wasn’t phony.

My Ashram school of course wasn’t a minority institution of course, but to me it represents all that a minority institution should be. Its mandate was to promote the teachings and ideas of Sri Aurobindo and it did so earnestly and with compassion and grace. In the same way, the definition of what is a minority institution is not to be determined by who owns a piece of property or who sits in the board room but by the larger question ---- is the institution fulfilling its mandate ?

Mertitocracy in Education

As over breakfast , I switched on the television for the morning news, the opening headline was about the Symbiosis University in Pune has unilaterally gone ahead and decided to implement an OBC quota in its courses, without waiting for the Supreme Court verdict on the matter. As the TV screen came alive, the anchor was interviewing some aspiring students of the university on their views. One of them was heard saying that ''Reservation must be provided on the basis of scientific measures.

It is not clear what the smooth talking student meant by “scientific measures”. Sociological measures, yes, anthropological measures, yes, but scientific measures? Since when the fissures and the cracks in society manifested themselves along scientific lines.

When students are saying that they want reservations to be made on the basis of ‘scientific measures”, what they are really saying is that that measurable indicators like marks secured should be the basis and that meritocracy should rule. On the face of it there is nothing wrong with it, it looks fair and just. Except that it is a good question as to what is the scientific measure of excellence because presumably that is the elusive Holy Grail that every one is seeking. When St. Stephen’s College in Delhi, decides to lower the cut off marks to accommodate Dalit Christians, they hasten to assure every one that academic standards will not be diluted. When Symbiosis students file a petition in the Supreme Court, they take the same route – that by increasing reservations, academic standards would be diluted.

That leads to the inescapable conclusion that academic standards are all about scoring high marks and the higher the better. So you have students getting ninety five percent or ninety six or ninety seven percent marks. You hear of students getting into depression because they got a few decimal points less than the fellow in the next seat. Which makes people like me who got only seventy five percent or so wonder if these guys and girls are all smart geniuses or what and if so, why we aren’t winning all these Nobel Prizes that they give out every year. This article here is not taking a stand on reservations – for or against. The matter is as they say sub judice. But this piece does take a look at defining what excellence is though because the aim of all education is the pursuit of excellence or so it should be.

Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi has dared to question the prevailing paradigm in education that marks are every thing. They have discovered that the fact that students who scored 100 or 98 percent in English did not necessarily reflect one's knowledge and ability to grasp, understand and critically analyze literature. And to get the ``best'', Lady Shri Ram (LSR) college, has lowered its eligibility criteria from last year's 75 per cent to 70 per cent in English. Similar eligibility condition has been set for journalism honors course.

Among other established institutions, the Armed Forces had always a broader definition of merit and excellence. Though perhaps a bit blemished today, still it was and is an enshrined principle that is sacrosanct to the army that a military officer is somehow a gentleman, too. And it was in line with that concept, that the Army Act actually laid down penalties "for conduct unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman."

I do not know whether reservations are good or bad, who should have it and who should not, how much reservations should there be, should the creamy layer be excluded or not. All that I will wait for the Supreme Court to tell me as millions of students and their families in India are doing. But in the mean while, I do know one thing that marks scored in a robotically conducted examination and aided by cram camps like the ones in Kota and else where are no measure of excellence in education. The colonial army definition of an officer and a gentleman, adapted and attuned for today may be a far better one.

Religious Hegemony and Human Rights

What would Jesus do is a popular wristband that many Christian youth wear. It is supposed to remind Christians about how they should behave and act in life’s situations in the light of the example set by Jesus. So it is interesting to read about the face off between the Roman Catholic Church and the human rights organization Amnesty International where the Catholic Church has advised Catholics not to fund Amnesty.

AI currently does not receive any funding from church bodies but individual Catholics do give a fairly large sum to AI and if they were to heed the Vatican’s advice, the institution would be affected. As is often the case in the West, the issue concerned that of abortion. The Roman Catholic Church is “pro-life,” which is to say, vehemently anti-abortion as we all know, but no matter what, is it such a great idea — given a) its own long history on the wrong side of human rights, and b) its more recent concern with human rights, including opposition to the death penalty — to go after Amnesty International for promoting abortion choice is a matter of debate.
It is not as if Amnesty International was setting up of abortion clinics all over the place. They are advocating that abortion as and option or a choice be made available to women who are victims of rape and incest and other such traumatizing experiences. The church says that its stance is absolute on the matter – that the taking of human life, no matter how urgent the situation is always wrong.

It is nobody’s case that murder is right, that even the murder of an unborn child is right. But however it is a bit painful to see that the church is so concerned about the rights of the unborn that it is so totally insensitive to the rights of the ones who are living and breathing and will live with the scars of the trauma inflicted on them all their lives.

If the question “what would Jesus do” were to be answered here, Amnesty International, which claims no familiarity or allegiance to Jesus Christ comes through as a more humane, compassionate and caring organization than the church whose head the Pope is presented as the vicar of Christ on earth. The church comes through as cerebral, ideologically correct but aloof and unconcerned about the pain and concerns of those living in the here and now.

After reading about the spat, I could not help wondering about the whole rainbow of human rights and religious rights and the whole gamut of where they converge and where they diverge. This is particularly relevant because most human rights though secular in ethos have their roots in religion but whereas secular human rights seems to have progressed and evolved religious thinks on rights seems to have frozen up in a medieval theologian’s library.

Where human rights bodies with their passion and religious bodies with their reach join forces, they can be a strong agent of change. The Catholic Church and Amnesty International which take such widely divergent views on abortion now are fighting shoulder on issues like the abolition of the death penalty, the elimination of child soldiers with considerable synergy and success. But the divide on the abortion issue seems unbridgeable.

Speaking on the issue in unusually candies terms, Amnesty International’s Deputy general-secretary, Kate Gilmore said: "The Catholic Church, through a misrepresented account of our position on selective aspects of abortion, is placing in peril work on human rights." She said Amnesty was not promoting abortion as a universal right but stressing that women have a right to choose abortion when their human rights have been violated, particularly in cases of rape and incest. "We are saying broadly that to criminalize women's management of their sexual reproductive rights is the wrong answer," she added. "We live alongside people's life experiences. We don't run a theocracy. We have to deal with the rape survivor in Darfur who, because she is left with a pregnancy as a result of the enemy, is further ostracized by her community." How true and how sad that the Cardinals of the Catholic Church aren’t showing this kind of empathy that Jesus would have shown.

Economic Power or Military Superpower ?

Two defense initiatives pertaining to India have become victims of uncertainty. Defense Minister A K Antony recently said there were “problems” in the acquisition of Russian-built aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov for the Indian Navy. The matter primarily relates to cost escalations partly because of delays in Russia's own naval dockyards. As a result, the induction of the warship has been postponed to at least 2008, when according to earlier plans; this should have joined the fleet by the end of the year or early 2008.

The other initiative that has got stalled is the testing of India’s missile testing program, possibly under American pressure. According to reports, India has put its programme to develop inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM) on hold and has capped it to a maximum range of 5,000 km for now. Capping missile capability at 5,000 km sends a message that India is not targeting anything beyond Asia. Sources correlated this move with the Indo-US talks on the civilian nuclear deal being poised delicately. Strategic experts slammed the government for capping the programme.

In India, the muscular variety of militarism has always been popular and the flames of it have been well and regularly fanned by ultra patriotic sections of the population which has equated strength and prosperity with military superiority and machismo. Although historically, military power has been paramount and has determined the equation of power, the definition and balance has begun to change since the end of the Second World War. Although the five big allied powers remain militarily powerful, it is no so much military power that determines their pre eminence in world affairs today. Countries like Singapore and the numerous gulf emirates in the Middle East have little to speak of militarily. But their strategic importance has only grown over the years because of their strong economic and financial might.

That has proved more sustaining than military prowess. In fact, Singapore’s founding Prime Minister; Lee Kuan Yew has in his book “The Singapore Story” as well as in several speeches asserted that the secret behind Singapore’s rapid development was an investment in and an attitude of pursuing excellence in education leading to a culture of meritocracy. Singapore’s military might is negligible.

India ’s recent acknowledgment as a player of some significance on the world stage has also happened because of its economic prowess and not because of its military brawn. In fact, the fact is that with the kind of problems associated with the Admiral Groshkov visible in the Air Force too and the once highly respected army increasingly fatigued and stretched as well as often accused of human rights abuses, the sheen of the military has started going off.

One argument that could be made for Singapore and the Gulf States is that they have prospered because of the protection of the US protection – both nuclear and conventional. While this is true, this in fact was a highly strategic move. By accepting this option, countries like Singapore never surrendered their national sovereignty and identify but rather this allowed them to use the millions of dollars that would have been tied up in defense to be used in health care, education and infrastructure development that allowed them to leap frog over those who were busy tanks and guns. North Korea is an extreme example of a country that sought refuge in the might of arms and ended up in penury.

So is it time that we rethink and redefine nationalism and what constitutes a strong country? The notion of huge armies stiff and starched marching out to conquer and defeat is more an epithet of the imperialism we love to hate than the symbols of a vibrant democracy. May be the rising value of the Rupee against the dollar is a better advertisement of our might than the sonic boom of missiles. And so in that light perhaps our strategists should revisit our understanding and doctrine of defense. As a parting shot, I can not but comment on the irony of the defense establishment investing in intercontinental ballistic missiles when larges swathes of the country face terrorism and insurgency and the primary functional role of the Army today is counter insurgency measures combating the enemy within our borders and not some entity outside.

Cartelization of the Environment

In the Biblical story of creation, after God creates man, He gives to man (and woman) the mandate to be a steward of the creation which they have been privileged to enjoy and to preserve and care for it. Sadly, this has often been breached and most often by those whose civilization has been shaped by the Bible and what it teaches. The recently concluded Heiligendamm summit of the G-8 nations provided a good opportunity for those nations who have the biggest political influence in the world to address the issue of climate change seriously. It was actually the main item on the agenda, the main course on the menu. It is therefore a pity that that the agenda of the main summit got some what hijacked by the simmering differences between the US and Russia on missile defense and the fact that this was British Prime minister Tony Blair’s last major global conference before he steps down.

While nations who have the power to make things happen and are effectively the globe’s movers and shakers chug along merrily and keep deferring making real choices and decisions , the countries where the climate change is going to hit the most and the earliest have no voice at all to voice their concerns except activist NGO environment groups. Although the methods that many of these groups use to garner attention may arouse distaste, there is no getting away from the facts.

Take for instance, Bangladesh. The media there has been raving and ranting about the effects of climate change and global warming and its effects which the country will feel pretty early. Also, unless action is taken pretty quickly, many of the changes will be irreversible. the impact of the climate change, the sea level use will lift up 100 cm at the end of the 21st century and flood 15 to 17 per cent land of Bangladesh that will make about two crore people in the country homeless.

There are also effects expected on the economy. Rising levels of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere has begun to affect crop yields. Production of main food crops like rice, wheat and potato will deplete steadily as the climate changes more and more, and by 2015 Bangladesh, along with neighboring countries, may be forced to look for new brand of crops. Food insecurity in a country where famine and starvation deaths are part of the collective psyche is or should be a cause of concern.

Two things disturb me as I read all the literature coming out of the G-8 summit and as I recollect all that I heard about in Bangladesh about the concerns surrounding the whole climate change issue. One is that we in India seem to be intoxicated by the short term goals of high economic growth and are part of the villains in this whole game. Along with China, the USA, Japan and Australia, we appear to be part of a cartel who would like to veto any attempt to adopt a target for emissions cuts, however inadequate. Experts reckon that we need to cut emissions by 80 or 90 percent, and by 2030, to have any chance of keeping global warming at levels where damage can be minimized.

The other disturbing element is that states like Bangladesh and other nations from the two third world do not seem to have a voice in forum of worth. They do not get invited to chats over power lunches in the G- 8 summit or the World Economic Forum and with a weak(and currently care taker) government, the voice of those who are going to be most effected like the fishermen of the Sunderbans is never going to be heard.

What is interesting to me in al this is not that a few industrailaized nations or industrializing nations have ganged up to safe guard their narrower national interests but that India is a part of this cartelization of the environment. Till not too long ago, there was another grouping of nations that was active on the world stage and that was the Group of 77 and here India provided active leadership in this forum of the two thirds world. At that point, we in India loved to identify and sniff out the foreign hand – or more specifically, a particular foreign hand. Now when did we switch sides and become an ally of those very same foreign hands that we so loved to hate. Clearly the world is changing as rapidly as the environment around us.

The Child Specialist from Chattisgarh

One would have thought that being a child specialist is a safe, selfless and innocent profession, especially when it is practiced among the poor and the disadvantaged of the country. Not necessarily so, especially if you happen to work among the poor in Chattisgarh and have the rare penchant of matching your walk by some talk. I say, ‘rare’, because most of us would find it far easier to talk rather than match it with some walk.

Dr Binayak Sen, a pediatrician worked in the Naxal-hit villages of Chhattisgarh for many years. He is a rare man as most pediatricians sit in cities and make money or go abroad. But Dr Sen was arrested recently and sent to Raipur central jail supposedly because of his Naxalite convictions. I do not know Dr Sen myself but I have friends who do. And they tell me that his profession was that of saving lives, especially those of children and no one who knew him could accuse him of having gone to someone’s house and shot them down with a gun or commit some other wanton act of terrorism which would deserve such an arrest.

On the contrary, Dr Sen seems to have picked up a calling to serve and work in a place where few would go. Possibly, he picked up the vision from his Alma Mater, the Christian Medical College in Vellore. In Chattisgarh, Dr Sen has been involved in the setting up of the Shaheed Hospital, an initiative of the great trade unionist Shankar Guha Niyogi who was murdered at the behest of rapacious industrialists.

The hospital, owned and operated by a workers’ organisation, remains unmatched anywhere in India as a voluntary venture. It helps the population of a backward tribal area, callously neglected by the state. Dr Sen was on an official advisory committee, which drew up one of the most successful community-based primary healthcare programmes in India, based on the Mitanin, the local barefoot health worker. Besides being actively involved in the Shaheed Hospital, Dr Sen is a very well respected member of Jan Swasthya Sahyog, which is committed to develop a low-cost, effective community health programme in the tribal and rural areas of Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh. He also donates his service to a weekly clinic in a tribal community in Dhamtari district.

Dr Sen has been contributing theoretical papers to books and journals on public health. He was honored with the Paul Harrison award in 2004 for lifetime work of medical care in the service of humanity. This is an award given annually by the Christian Medical College, Vellore to one of its alumni.

It is not unnatural for such a man with an obvious passion for the poor and who was a civil liberty activist in addition to all the other things that he did, to have strong convictions about what kind of policies and practices would benefit the poor. It is also to be expected that such a man would have the courage of convictions to speak out, which he did. With such a multi faceted personality and vision and a passion and energy to match, he was a trail blazer and a role model for all doctors – especially the deal cutting, commission fed cash cows that many in today’s medical fraternity have become.

Clearly the state government believes otherwise. The myopic and feudal attitudes fuelling the way the government is run there, obviously has decided that if it does not care about improving the manner in which the poor are treated, no else would either, and if they do, then they run the danger of falling afoul of the law as Dr Sen has done. Clearly with people with convictions and concern for the poor like Dr Sen out of the way, the BJP led Naxalite chasing government of Chattisgarh want to prove Jesus right – The poor will always be with us.

The Economics of Contenetment

Jan Grebski, a 65-year-old Pole recently suddenly and inexplicably emerged from a 19-year-long coma. Mr. Grebski fell into his coma after being hit by a train in 1988, the year before the fall of Communist rule. Recently he told Polish television that "when I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol queues were everywhere. Now there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin." According to his wife, Gertruda, "Jan was so amazed to see the colorful streets. He says the world is prettier now. These people walk around with their mobile phones and never stop moaning.”

The scene was a bit bizarre because Mr. Grebski woke up to discover the wonders of this world, on the eve of the G-8 summit in Germany where a gaggle of anti globalization activists were gathering to shout out how the world was a much messed up place in a unipolar world. The story reminds me of the Biblical character whom Jesus healed after years of lying paralyzed on a mat. The intelligentsia gathered to scrutinize his strange experience with a sheaf of questions but the paralyzed man wasn’t bothered. He was too busy celebrating life. He was also like Mr. Grebski contented with life. He had seen the past, a black and grey life full of deprivation and was suddenly saw life in techni color. The numbers and the grim predictions of the activists didn’t connect with him. The protestors had graphs and charts to bolster their spirits; Mr. Grebski had seen life – literally on both sides of the iron content. And from his experience of life, he knew one thing- he was content and happy.

Although I am no card carrying activist, I have many friends who are on the edge. But activist or not, development practitioners like me typically have our eyes trained to spot what is wrong with our governments, their policies and society in general and like to believe that we know which buttons to punch that will alleviate poverty, remove lack and make life easier for everyone.

But the key to contentment and fulfillment does not lie alone with NGOs and charities; or exclusively with governments and their policies. The key lies, as Mr. Grebski shows us is in setting our internal clock so that we learn to be content and know that the secret lies in recognising the good that exists in life unrecognised and unlamented. For good reasons, Mr. Grebski cannot understand why those like his sons and grandsons who do not live in a world of shortages and ration queues and are spoilt for choice, should still moan and grumble about their lot. And indeed why should they really?

The British columnist, Dominic Lawson asks, “Is anyone in the former Eastern Europe (except possibly ex-secret policemen) absolutely worse off, as a result of the collapse of the centrally managed economies? I was discussing the case of Jan Grebski with a friend in Poland yesterday; she said that she knew "no one, literally no one, who has a lower standard of living than they did under the Communists. Some people are less happy, of course: those who see that their neighbour has a bigger car than they do. And of course, it’s worse that you can’t find a plumber now that they’re all working in England." Then she corrected herself: "Actually, that’s not quite right. You could never find a plumber when the Communists were in charge, either: they were all working for the Government.” Clearly, being rich and being content is a matter of perspective and not a matter of having more and more of this world’s goods as the Bible so wisely reminds us.