Economics of knowledge: Foreign universities in India

These issues raise basic questions about academic/intellectual excellence and social justice, and the varied answers to these questions go beyond the framework of academics. The different answers and responses reveal the diverse socio-political situations and ethical concerns of those who produce them. In other words, the entire debate reflects the complex nature of the spirit of our times.

It is essential to begin the discussion on the subject by asking what exactly necessitated the entry of foreign universities into India. Do these universities symbolise an inevitable historical and intellectual necessity as far as we are concerned? On whose authorisation has the government allowed foreign universities to start their operations in India? What is the rational basis of the idea that foreign universities are indeed ‘necessary’ for us? Has there been any open debate involving academics, intellectuals and educationists on this issue? The answers to all these questions are absolutely negative and point to the undemocratic methods of the ruling state and the various centres of power that support it.

One major argument is that foreign universities encourage competition that promotes academic excellence. This is a myth that needs to be blasted for the simple reason that nobody had ever associated intellectual rigour and excellence with competition. Competition applies to athletics, boxing, wrestling, etc and, of course, to market economics. The notion of competition is alien to the intellectual world. It is clear, then, that it is market economy, the power of global capitalism, that manufactures such arguments.

Great intellectual endeavours are based on collaboration and an open and free exchange of ideas. Are these foreign universities going to function as collaborators or are they coming in as glorious paradigms from whom we need to learn our lessons? Are we to measure ourselves in relation to their ‘standards’ of excellence? Have we become so barren and impoverished that we need alien agencies to raise our standards of education? This is clearly the colonial mindset at work — to say the least. Have we decided that we can never attain high intellectual standards on our own? Are we ‘Calibans’ to look up to ‘Prosperos’ for our enlightenment and salvation even at this stage of history?

We have learnt enough about the politics behind the introduction of English literary studies in India. Have we forgotten all our lessons not to realise that foreign universities are going to be no different from multinational companies whose sole concern is to make profits? Are we really naïve and gullible as to believe that these corporate universities bring us intellectual redemption?

The big divide
None with a conscience will ignore or overlook the pathetic condition of our corporation and government schools (and especially schools in rural areas) and how sadly impoverished the children and teachers there are. At the same time one would also unfailingly notice the steady growth of forbiddingly expensive private schools meant only for children of very well to do families. Even after six decades of Independence we cannot think of a single so-called democratic government that has considered it a basic constitutional obligation to improve the condition of our poor children and the schools they go to? Are we to talk of ‘excellence’ in higher education for only the affluent class and further marginalise those who so far have never had access to decent facilities?
Apart from this, why has an intellectual or moral conviction to take higher education in India to respectable heights never been a part of our democratic process and teaching tradition? It is certainly the dismal failure of our teachers in the UG colleges and PG centres — besides the opportunism of the middle class and the apathy of our ruling state — that has contributed an enormous lot to the failure of higher education in India and has given rise to this rather belief that foreign universities are going to be a blessing for our society.

It is also necessary to ask what infrastructure these universities will build when they start operating here. Would it be the same as at Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, Princeton, Cambridge, Oxford and elsewhere? Would the teaching of liberal arts, humanities and the natural and physical sciences be done with the same facilities available in America or England or other places? And, who are those who would be able to get into these universities?

One knows for sure that it is young people from that economic class which until now used to send them abroad for higher education. It is the same class that will get into these places right here. Would these corporate universities ever entertain concepts of equality and social justice by accommodating those who cannot pay huge sums of money for their education? Even a mindless optimist would not be foolish enough to answer in the affirmative. Foreign universities uphold the principle of privatisation of education and are institutions of the elite, by the elite, for the elite. Long live elitist democracy!