Page 84 - EW August 2025

Postscript

Sports & FLFP rules the opposition Congress with iron hand.
In an interview with PTI last December Aiyar lamented
ITH NATIONAL ATTENTION FOCUSED ON that Congress matriarch Sonia Gandhi has refused to
the commendable exploits of our men in blue meet him for over a decade, and Rahul Gandhi, leader
Win the ongoing cricket test match series against of the Congress in Parliament, only once. Not that Aiyar,
England, attracting huge in-stadia spectators unimagi- now put out to pasture, has taken his marginalization
nable in this diarist’s youth years expended in Blighty, lying down. Speaking from the floor at a seminar, he has
the unprecedented victory of the Indian women's cricket turned on his “sweet prince” mentor Rajiv Gandhi dis-
team in the T-20I (international) series last month has paraging him as a “two-time academic failure” who tried
received insufficient attention. India’s women in blue and failed to get degrees from Cambridge University and
defeated England 3-2 in the five match series winning the Imperial College, London, wondering aloud how such a
first, second, and third matches and losing the fifth on the duffer was appointed prime minister.
final ball. Yet not one to let the grass grow under his feet, while
Notable achievers in India’s women’s cricket — and in the political wilderness, Aiyar has written a volumi-
other sports — deserve much greater publicity and ac- nous self-exculpatory autobiography in three separate
claim. The proposition that Indian women, who because volumes, detailing at length the hard work and long hours
of generations of relative malnutrition and oppressive pa- he invested in furthering the national interest. But the
triarchy tend to be small, would ever best English women national interest, My Dear Mani, is not served by inputs,
— who typically have large hands and sturdy bowling-pin but outcomes. And on that side of the ledger, because of
legs which give them an advantage in catching and run- Aiyar’s sustained commitment to bankrupt Nehruvian
ning — in cricket was beyond the imagination of even socialism, sycophancy to the dynasty and avid promotion
most ardent domestic feminists. But not only are Gen Z of Indo-Pakistan rapprochement, there’s a negative bal-
girls and women giving as good as they get in cricket, but ance. Sad but true.
also in field hockey and badminton which require strong
legs and huge reservoirs of stamina. True our women
tennis and track and field athletes are not yet globally Root cause
competitive, but they are on their way.
Public honour and rewards for Indian women sports S THE COUNTRY’S DÉCLASSÉ POLITICIANS
champions are important because their emergence out play elaborate games of thrones in New Delhi and
of historically encouraged seclusion and demonstrating Astate capitals, a major physical and governance
performance capability is likely to improve India’s infrastructure collapse is manifesting countrywide. Roads
dismal FLFP (female labour force participation) rate. and highways are riddled with potholes, bridges are col-
Currently the country’s FLFP rate is a mere 32.8 percent lapsing, rail accidents are multiplying, and the law, order
against the global average of 48-49 percent. In China and justice systems are going from bad to worse. And
the rate is 60 percent, in Vietnam 70 percent. Even in few if any, of the country’s 10 million school teachers and
neighbouring Bangladesh it’s 35-40. According to several estimated 2 million dons of 52,081 undergrad colleges
studies increasing India’s FLFP to Asian average, would and 1,338 universities seem to be aware of the connec-
boost annual GDP by the 1.5-2 percent required to make tion between 21st century India’s collapsing physical and
the Viksit Bharat and $30 trillion GDP by 2047 goals governance framework and the poor quality of education
achievable. One hopes that the neta-babu brotherhood being dispensed in the country’s 1.40 million schools and
which (mis)rules the country with iron grip makes the HEIs (higher education institutions).
connection. Hard infrastructure aside, even the fabric of gover-
nance is in meltdown. On July 24, the Bombay high court
quashed the conviction of 12 citizens found guilty of
Negative balance synchronizing the bombing of the city’s suburban trains
which killed 187 and injured 824 commuters in 2006.
N INDIVIDUAL FOR WHOM PRIVILEGE CAME The court held that the police had severely tortured the
easily during the rock-bottom economic growth accused to extract confessions. The court’s stern criticism
Ayears of Nehruvian socialism — St. Stephen’s and of the police for “creating a false appearance of having
Cambridge-educated foreign service diplomat, who just solved the case” has exposed an open secret of police mo-
before retirement plunged into national politics and dus operandi countrywide: they routinely resort to third
became the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s strategic degree after rounding up innocents and torturing them to
lieutenant and secretary — Mani Shankar Aiyar has been extort confessions.
reduced to pathetic condition. Aiyar probably cost the The root cause of this sorry national condition — pa-
Congress millions of votes in 2014 when on election eve thetically neglected education system — is seldom identi-
he famously remarked that he looked forward to BJP’s fied. From pre-primary to Ph D, education institutions
prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, son of a tea are lumbered with obsolete syllabuses and curriculums,
vendor, serving him chai in the Parliament canteen after rote learning pedagogies, automatic promotion and reck-
the General Election. Now denuded of all party positions, less certification. Graduates who worm their way into
Aiyar has been reduced to gate-crashing Delhi’s perpetual government jobs are not sufficiently qualified to build
rounds of seminars where as a self-confessed “loose and maintain public infrastructure or govern efficiently.
canon”, he misses no opportunity to complain about his Hence the blood-dimmed tide of anarchy all around. It’s
“abandonment” by the Nehru-Gandhi parivar which the education system, stupid!

84 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2025