Page 14 - EducationWorld January 2023

Editorial

SEIZE OPPORTUNITY TO SETTLE BORDER ROW Tibet-India boundary lines drawn
by the British Boundary Commission
of 1846-47 and in the north-east by
n an official statement made in Par- mission way back in 1967. As a re- Henry McMohan in 1914, were uni-
liament on December 13, Union sult, 75 years after independence, the lateral and forced upon a weak and
Idefence minister Rajnath Singh country grudgingly hosts 287 million ill-administered China of the 19th
made light of a December 9 scuffle be- adult illiterates. In India’s 1 million century. Therefore after communist
tween Chinese and Indian soldiers on under-provided government schools China’s suzerainty over Tibet was
the McMahon line which marks the defined by crumbling infrastructure, conceded by New Delhi in 1950, Ne-
border in the north-east between the chronic teacher truancy and multi- hru’s obstinate refusal — graphically
world’s two most populous countries. grade teaching, over 50 percent of documented by Times (London) jour-
However the clash which prompt- children in class V can’t read class II nalist Neville Maxwell in his deeply
ed banner headlines in the media, is textbooks or solve simple arithmetic researched India’s China War (1970)
a grim reminder of conspicuous fail- sums. The outcome of weak founda- — to renegotiate and demarcate the
ure of successive governments in New tional education carried forward into entire China-India border was unrea-
Delhi to negotiate and demarcate a higher education and workplaces sonable and irrational.
settled China-India border — which for decades, is arguably the lowest The Galwan skirmish of May 2020
stretches over 3,488 km from the per capita agriculture, industry and and the latest scuffle between Indian
Aksai Chin plateau in the north-west government productivity worldwide. and Chinese troops is a reminder that
to Arunachal Pradesh and the seven Guns versus butter. This iron law of this is a good time to set self-destruc-
sister states of north-east India — for economics is relentless. tive national pride aside and negoti-
over seven decades. The reluctance of the incumbent ate firm boundary lines to resuscitate
Because of high defence expendi- BJP government at the Centre to ne- Sino-Indian harmony and mutual re-
ture aggregating 3.5-5 percent of GDP gotiate and finalise a settled border spect which endured for 2,500 years
every year, post-independence India with China is particularly surprising. before the war of 1962. The Modi gov-
has never been able to increase annu- The saffron party is under no obliga- ernment unencumbered by Nehruvian
al expenditure (Centre plus states) for tion to persist with Nehru’s ‘talk but baggage should avail this opportunity
public education to 6 percent of GDP don’t negotiate’ vacillation. In retro- to negotiate a permanent settlement
— declared as absolutely necessary spect, it’s impossible that the Nehru of the boundary issue for peace be-
by the high-powered Kothari Com- government was unaware that the tween our two great civilisations.

COVID PANDEMIC MANAGEMENT LESSONS central and state governments should
persist with wfh where possible, vac-
cination, masking and reasonable
he resurgence of the covid pan- shutdown the economy and especial- precautions, and not repeat mistakes
demic in the neighbour People’s ly all public transport nationwide at of the pandemic years. First, indus-
TRepublic of China (PRC) has four hours’ notice, was too panicky. try and business lockdowns must be
quite rightly triggered alarm bells in It visited unprecedented misery on localised. Second, all senior citizens
New Delhi and several state admin millions of migrant workers. But sub- should be pressured to take the pre-
capitals. Although the PRC govern- sequent pandemic management strat- cautionary booster dose. And the
ment of a communist dictatorship egy of mass vaccination and expedi- worst mistake of the 2020-2022 pan-
has stopped publishing data on the tious opening up of economic activity demic — locking down schools and
number of Covid infections and fa- even at the risk of a spurt in fatalities, education institutions — must not be
talities, by all indications the deadly was the more intelligent option. repeated. The prolonged education
virus and its several variants, hitherto Admittedly India’s official count of moratorium — the longest of any ma-
supressed by a globally unprecedent- Covid fatalities during the two pan- jor country — has inflicted huge learn-
ed rigorous lockdown of industry, demic years at 530,707 is incredible ing loss on the world’s largest child
business, education institutions and and the estimate of 5 million is more and youth population whose impact
entire cities with huge populations, is reliable. But it was a small price to will be felt in years to come.
back with a vengeance. Through over- pay to get the engines of the economy New variants of the virus are likely
reliance on lockdowns, testing and humming again. Evidently the strategy to be less virulent; the general popula-
isolation and relative neglect of vac- of combining work from home, mass tion has improved its immunity and
cination as also insistence on using vaccination and masking has paid off. it’s now proven that children are less
the under-tested indigenous Sinovac Last year the economy grew at 6.9 susceptible. Lessons of the past must
vaccine, the Xi Jinping government percent — the highest rate of growth be learned and improved upon while
has landed the country in its current worldwide — stock market indices previous mistakes eliminated.
mess which is certain to cause huge scaled new heights, cricket and foot- In the final analysis it’s prefer-
economic, if not political damage. ball stadiums filled up and the hotels able for a few to be struck down by
Back home in India, with the ben- and tourism industries revived. the virus than for millions to suffer
efit of hindsight, it’s clear the initial This time round in the event of the prolonged illness, hunger and depri-
reaction of the BJP/NDA government virus or new variants thereof enter- vation. That’s the advantage of a large
to broadcast a peremptory order to ing and spreading within India, the population.

14 EDUCATIONWORLD JANUARY 2023