FYUP- the Myth and the Reality

                                                 FYUP- the Myth and the Reality

It is a pity that a major debate on FYUP is not attempted on its academic worth but is used  only to settle scores politically. It is in keeping with the present trend of packaging everything into politics instead of looking at issues on a comparative analysis of their merits and demerits. The controversy that has erupted over FYUP is divided on political lines and steers clear of discussing its advantages over the conventional three year degree programmes. Students under the banner of different political parties have raised their voices demanding a roll back of the FYUP without giving one single reason for making such a demand. Burning effigies, shouting slogans and even assaulting teachers who are pro FYUP are exciting for them especially when the TV crews are in large numbers to beam live the agitation through their channels. I have not seen any single argument against FYUP except that the programme has to be rolled back in the interest of the students. There is no one among the protesting students  group to put the finger on its drawback except that there will be a wait of one more year to get their first degree and that means  delay in starting to earn alongside incurring  additional expenditure on university fees, and for the hostellers, on boarding and lodging for an extra year. The students have not bothered to educate themselves on the possible plusses of FYUP but indulge in a blanket negation of the course as unsuited for them. The teachers who protest against it are angry because they were not consulted in structuring the course and are upset that the University thrust a half baked syllabus for the Foundation course without any input from their side. Here also these teachers do not debate the crux of the issue- “why and why not FYUP.” Even those who are on the side of FYUP do not indulge in a reasoned debate on its merits.

The political parties love to fish in troubled waters especially if the yield on the vote banks is likely to be high. The pre election campaign dubbed the FYUP as the Congress brainchild that has to be dumped for that reason alone. With Delhi elections a few months away, the BJP, AAP and the Congress outrival each other in their blind opposition to FYUP sensing that a majority of the stakeholders are against it. If academics fail to debate issues on merit, how can we expect the political parties not to turn a rational issue on its head and make it emotive? The BJP spokesman pontificates that “We have been continuously opposing the four year course because I think the three year course is something that serves the university students better.” But “how” is a question that is neither raised nor answered. AAP is on record that it will abolish FYUP- though no reason has been given for its animus. Congress that had remained silent when FYUP was introduced has realized its mistake of remaining silent and in its bid to regain its lost ground has allowed its youth wing to protest against FYUP. In fact, the Ministry of HRD must  have recommended the DU Vice-Chancellor for Padma Shri for his innovative reforms and has now dumped him  for the very same reason. But none of them has one single rational argument as to why three year course is better than the four year course. Media men and women, anchors on TV channels and the same select group of intellectuals invited for discussion end up with a cacophony of voices that makes reason and FYUP the leading casualty.

 So what is FYUP and why has DU ‘thrust’ it on unwilling teachers and students? FYUP is an extension of undergraduate course for a  fourth year in order to provide time and  intellectual space for the students to get exposed to a wide array of disciplines other than the one in which he seeks to major. Gone are the days when students studied stand-alone disciplines to the total ignorance of all other areas of knowledge.  A student of humanities knew nothing about new trends in science and technology and a student of science hardly knew sociology or economics or literature. Unless a scientist understands society and human social behavior, especially the study of the origins, organization, institutions, and development of human society, his contribution to science will be a self contained effort with no relevance to society as a whole. When Physics and Philosophy are coming closer, it is unfortunate that students of Humanities do not have the basic knowledge of quantum physics or the Higgs particle also known as God’s particle. The Foundation courses are meant to fill this lacuna in higher education and qualitatively improve learning. Also the Discipline II course introduced at the FYUP is meant to provide students an opportunity to pursue in depth a second discipline other than the one he seeks to major in. The FYUP provides for the option to leave at the end of three years with a BA degree or study for one more year to get a Honours degree. So the three year degree is a part of the FYUP and why all this fuss?

Quality of higher education is assured in two ways through FYUP: (1) a holistic, inter disciplinary approach to learning (2) Those who pursue four years have the distinct advantage of studying in depth two disciplines and going for higher research in any one of them. The Masters  programme is reduced from two to one year—where the level and intensity of lectures will be high and students will be asked to do more self learning and write a dissertation as a part of examination requirement. This will be a qualitative high for University education.

What is urgently required is restructuring of the Foundation courses to provide holistic and interesting learning for the students.  I had suggested in a number of my writings that seminal books on each discipline can be prescribed and eminent professors within the colleges and outside of the colleges can be requested to lecture on them to make students understand the different and yet linked strands of various disciplines. To discard FYUP because of the current poorly structured Foundation course is a retrograde step.

As for the peripheral issues raised by sloganeering students and political parties about an additional year that would deprive the three year degree holder of prospective employment, less said the better. The current degree holders even after their Masters degree have obtained no employable skills as the degrees are degrees by rote and not degrees of learning.  For the other objection about fees for the additional year, DU’s charges are 18/ per month  that amounts to 216/ for a year. If boarding, lodging and other charges are taken into account it must be remembered that whether the student is   back home or stays in a hostel or PG accommodation, the difference will not  be that enormous. DU charges are pittance compared to private universities who advertise their tie- ups with foreign universities ( subtly hinting that Indian degrees are inferior). If DU is ambitious to introduce daring reforms for qualitative improvement, is it too much to ask for additional expenditure of an affordable sum?

Let there be an academic debate on the advantages/ disadvantages of FYUP. To discard it without a rational debate is to discard something valuable in the eagerness to get political mileage out of it. Instead of packaging politics into academics , we in India are packaging academics into politics.

Talk the Talk:

                                       An Open Letter to the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India

                                                                      Talk the Talk

I address this letter not as your acolyte nor as your critic but as a citizen of India who shares the concerns of many fellow citizens on issues that are vital to the nation’s social, economic and spiritual growth and development. Today is exactly a month since you moved into the South Block. Many including me were pleasantly surprised to see a ‘modi’-fied Prime Minister different from the PM-in-waiting before the polls. Gone was the vitriolic demagoguery that characterized your election campaign. The humungous mandate given to you brought out the softer side of your personality to welcome the modicum of opposition to join you in rebuilding the nation. I salute you for the graciousness you displayed in your address to the Parliament though you had the huge mandate to brush aside and crush the opposition.

But the issues that your party men have raised over the last four weeks are not a part of the 100days agenda you had set for your ministries. These issues are not that important to precede other pressing issues you had enlisted as a fulfillment of your campaign promises on development and decisive leadership. You have chosen to remain silent (though you used to refer to the earlier PM as Maun Mohan Singh) on issues that do not have any earthshaking urgency to be decided now. You have a full five years to go and if I remember your first statement on becoming the PM that you are not a one-term PM- which means you have a good 10 years to take decisions on non- sequitar  issues that do not follow your development agenda and issues that are volatile and inflammable and therefore can remain in the backburner till the time is ripe to let them out.  One suspects whether the PM’s chair generates a current of silence that short circuits decisive leadership.  Otherwise why do  you remain silent and not take decisive steps to stop your minions from gabbing too soon and without a care for the consequences? If the chair is not the cause, then I presume it is a planned strategy though it is difficult to imagine an experienced politician like you to rush into emotive and risky territories before the ink on your acceptance document has dried.

Two days into taking charge of his ministry, the MOS in your PM’s office, Jitendra Singh said that the process of abrogating Article 370 has begun. This is a highly emotive issue and threatens to develop into a mighty conflagration reminiscent of the street battles that erupted in Kashmir in 2008. A debate about it is certainly in the interest of the integration of J&K with the rest of India, but it is not an urgent issue to debate now.  This can wait – if it had waited this long –as there has been till now no solution to India-Pakistan dispute over the state. When your core agenda had been growth and good governance, do we need to start this debate that may help communal forces to raise their fiery heads? You who have proved to be a man of words,  would have done well to rein in your MOS and assured your countrymen that all these issues can wait as your primary attention is to fulfill your promises on development. You were not voted to power on the issue of Article 370 which is limited to Jammu and Kashmir. Why have you chosen to remain silent?

The second contentious issue has been raised by Radha Man Singh on Uniform Civil Code. This is again a sensitive issue and you have chosen to remain impassive and not pull up your minister for the unseemly haste of raising such an explosive issue. However it is reassuring to listen to your interview with a Urdu daily Nai Dhunia saying that implementation of UCC does not mean that Hindu code will be imposed on all citizens of the country. But how many have access to the Urdu daily and why choose that instead of giving a press release to all the newspapers?

 The third issue on which you have remained silent except for a cryptic statement in the Parliament that you feel sad over  the brutal murder of a Muslim techie – one who had no connection with the Facebook derogatory depiction of Shivaji and Bal Thackeray. Can you remain silent without issuing a warning and a condemnation of the fringe parties that are raising their ugly majoritarian heads and resorting to covert ways to frighten the Muslims? Your remaining silent has given a lot of confidence to those who want to prove more loyal than the king. Are  you be a BJP version of Maun Mohan Singh allowing things to drift and come to a pass where everyone takes law into his hands to speak and act as he wills- an art that is perfected and practiced by your alliance partner Shiv Sena in Mumbai.

The next one is the issue of language. Is this the time to start a language controversy?  By suddenly letting loose the language genie from the bottle where it had lain for the last 50 odd years, aren’t you stoking a controversy that has no relevance in today’s world? Maybe it is Rajnath Singh and his deputy who have started the language ball rolling, but shouldn’t you stop it from getting lost in a battle of Babels? There are two basic problems with this directive to impose language only in Hindi speaking states on social media communications. Social media is the social interaction among people in which they create, share or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Does this mean that Hindi speaking people can share and exchange information in Hindi only among themselves and not with the rest of India? Doesn’t this create a divide between North India and South India?  Yet another point is you were voted to power by addressing to the needs of the aspirationsof the  youth of India. This mandatory circular (even if restricted to Hindi belt) of postings in Hindi is a retrograde step in fulfilling the aspirations of our youth.  Even today a large exodus of our bright young men and women to US and the West is taking place. English is a link language with the world outside and if perceptions become the truth, such unnecessary thrust on Hindi may drive away many  many more of our aspiring youths to seek foreign shores.

The calls emanating from the PMO to governors and heads of many organizations to resign are in bad taste. Again it is a covert way of pressurising the appointees of the earlier government without putting anything in writing lest they should go to the highest court of the land that had given judgement that removal is legal only if there are valid reasons of misconduct or criminal proceedings pending against these appointees. The wind of fresh graciousness that breezed through your address in Parliament seems to have been blown away by the vendetta storm. You have your compulsions to accommodate the 75+ disgruntled members of your party in some gubernatorial offices. But this can also wait as some of them may have their tenure over in a few months. The heads of National Disaster Management Authority, ICCR etc have been asked to resign. Why? Even if you have to oblige some of your party members jostling for such positions, you can appoint them as Co-heads so that the transition is smooth and does not smack of vendetta against all erstwhile government appointees.

Last but not the least is the Four Year Undergraduate programmes flagged off by University of Delhi last year.  Suffice it to say, the silence of your young minister and the clever manipulation of the UGC do not lend credibility to your government. No one wants to indulge in an academic rational debate about the usefulness of Foundation courses and Discipline II courses that have required an additional year to the existing three year course. The Foundation courses are broad based and give the student an inclusive understanding of subjects other than the one that he has chosen to major in. This is in keeping with the much sought after Liberal Arts courses in the West including Hongkong University to bridge the divide between Arts and Sciences. The objective is to expose the student to Shakespeare as well as to the laws of Thermodynamics. This is inter-disciplinary in nature and is useful for a broader understanding of disciplines that have an interrelated bearing on our everyday life. It helps the students who are given the right to vote at the age of 18 to debate, analyze and critique issues and develop  into a responsible citizen of the country and by extension a citizen of the world. It is unfortunate that the University of Delhi has not designed and structured these courses to make them interesting, informative and inclusive for the students. This can be done and restructuring of the courses can take place now. Further to keep in mind your promise of reducing unemployment, this additional one year in the University with added skill training may prove beneficial to you.

Allied to this controversy is the UGC trying to create a wedge between colleges and the University. Delhi Colleges are constituent colleges of the University and follow the resolutions passed by the Acdemic and the Executive Councils. The  UGC had dispatched messengers on a Sunday afternoon with its letter to each of the 70 colleges of Delhi University threatening them with stoppage of grants if they did not revert to three year programme by Monday but toed the University decision to continue with the FYUP. Should colleges be made pawns in the fight between the University and the Government? Again why is the Minister silent and has asked the UGC  instead to do the bullying? May I ask you, Hon’ble Prime minister, why are you silent? There are many promises made in your pre-poll manifesto and this issue is one of them . It may be  xpedient for the BJP to derail FYUP to garner the votes in the coming Delhi elections – votes of the students who are not aware of the significance of Liberal Arts programme  ingrained in the Foundation courses.   It will be salutary in the interest of Higher education if the University is asked to allow students the choice to opt for three years or four years of UG studies  so that those who do a four year course alone will be eligible for admission  to one year Masters course. The worthwhileness of any change is to be measured in terms of quality output and the challenges it offers to the student. The pandering to the students’ whim  to revert to three year UG course –which has no rational argument to support- is going against the needs and aspirations of the youth today.

One more point. You are now the much sought after Prime Minister. US has invited you to address both the Houses. Well, Kindly pardon me if I say that the invitation is to the Indian PM and not to you in your  personal capacity. US does not want to lose its potential ally for trade and business and so they have bitten the bullet with reference to you. The only point you have to remember is this high priority status given by US to India is the result of years of work done by the government from which you have freed India. You are reaping the fruits that are the yield of the seeds planted and nurtured by the party and its leaders you have your own reasons to dislike.

Usually everyone will request you and look to you to walk the talk. I request you to talk the talk and not remain Moun like your distinguished predecessor. Lastly I would request you to stop complaining about Congress whenever you have to administer bitter pills towards ache din. You have allowed the rise in railway fares before the rail Budget is to be presented- something that you flayed the then PM as being unethical. Where  have these ethics gone? Kindly talk the talk you have made famous during the election campaign and not walk the talk of your predecessors.

The Right to Public Amnesia

                                               

                                            Santosh Desai ‘s column City City  Bang Bang in the latest Monday article The Right to Public Amnesia is bang on a complex issue of individual’s rights over his/her life and actions. Despite his lucid and argumentative style, the article that starts with a bang ends almost with a whimper as he has no answers to the disturbing question of one’s right to be forgotten in the age of internet where the ready availability of information renders it impossible for  the erasure of one’s actions from public memory. The cliche^’d truism ‘public memory is short’ has no validity in today’s age of advanced technology with its remarkable storage space in megabytes. Can public amnesia be restored as an individual’s right is only one part of the question. Implied in this question is that the action and sayings of the individual leave such a damaging imprint on the society that cannot be forgotten and swept under the carpet. The ethical question is how far an individual can claim as his right to privacy when s/he inhabits a collective space called society. The modern paradox is the current faith in individualism overstressing the importance of the individual to live and act as s/he  wishes , stays cheek by jowl with the  public scrutiny of his/her private life. Nothing can be hidden as everything gets recorded by technology and safely vaulted for posterity. Albert Einstein said: “Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events.” But internet memory is permanent and cannot be changed. For example the acrimony and invidious personal attacks by politicians on their adversaries in the pre-poll days stay permanently recorded on the net that all the bonhomie they display post elections cannot be wiped out from the hard disk. To project oneself in a new avatar and get accepted is a gargantuan task because it is no longer the human memory at work but the internet memory with its vast storage space and instant retrievability.                                                            So in this era, it is not possible to be forgotten- yet another modern paradox as human nature always loves to be remembered. The modern technology thus puts the onus on us to act and say that leaves a lasting and feel-good imprint on the society that we live in. One small slip and we are netted into eternal incarceration. Instead of asking for a revival of public amnesia, we should accept the fact that we are today digitally born and should try to avoid being an embarrassment to our space in this new technological society of memory. Jean Paul Sartre speaking about human responsibility to the society wrote: “the only possibility of creating a human community is to accept the human condition-that we exist, that we must work, that we are mortal, that we are involved, that we must choose and that in choosing we invent ourselves and take full responsibility…it is up to us to give life a meaning and value is nothing else but the meaning that we choose.” In choosing our ethics, we make ourselves.

Do we still need to demand the right for public amnesia? Or do we accept the inevitability of being born into a digital world that does not have amnesia in its dictionary and allow it to record our life, action and sayings in a way that leave an imprint on society about which we need not be ever ashamed.