Page 164 - EW December 2023

Postscript

nationalisation fallout October 23 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of
the Adani-promoted Mundra Port, Gujarat, Adani set
out the record of the country’s first true deep water port
NE of ThE BIGGEST DISaPPoINTMENTS OF
the purportedly pro-business and private sector constructed by the company in expensive front page ads
oBJP which is set to complete its second term in in major newpapers (ToI, The Hindu, Economic Times)
among others. The first page features a photograph of
office, is its failure to privatise India’s 28 public sector
banks, foolishly nationalised by then prime minister Mundra as the total mud flat it was 25 years ago. The sec-
ond page depicts the busy port and its impressive record
Indira Gandhi in 1969. Since then over the past half
century, nationalised banks managed by risk-averse busi- of development. Total taxes paid: rs.2.25 lakh crore; total
ness illiterate bureaucrats and over-promoted clerks have investment: rs.70,000 crore; employment generated: 75
million man-days; neighbouring villages benefited: 61;
destroyed the country’s banking system developed over
centuries by globally powerful Jagat Seths, who inter alia, mangrove afforestation: 6,000 hectares, 17 million trees
planted.
funded the East India Company. After nationalisation,
lending to private business and industry was driven more Yet according to aspirant prime minister Rahul Gan-
by control-and-command orders from the neta-babu dhi, a millionaire with no visible sources of income, Adani
is an anti-national wrecking the Indian economy. Also
brotherhood in Delhi, than on balance sheets and busi-
ness potential of desperate borrowers. according to Mahua Mitra, MP, she of thousand dollar
scarves and diamond wrist watches. Res ipsa loquitur.
As a result, with a disproportionately large share of
bank credit hogged by failing PSEs (public sector enter-
prises) and large corporates with good political connec- Prophecy foretold
tions in Delhi, the credit needs of the vitally important
MSME (micro small and medium enterprises) sector,
GLarING BLINDSPoT of ThE MUCh-hEr-
which employ over 60 percent of workers in industry and a
accounts for 40 percent of the country’s annual industrial ALDED National Education Policy (NEP) 2020
output, were almost totally neglected. is the large number of supervisory and regulation
The extent to which MSMEs and the common man committees it prescribes. Based on the recommendations
were denied credit by PSBs (public sector banks), which of the nine-member Dr. K. Kasturirangan Committee
were nationalised in the first place to make credit avail- which submitted a 484-page report to the BJP govern-
able to them, was brilliantly exposed recently by veteran ment at the Centre in 2019, the report was distilled into
journalist T. K. Arun in the Times of India (November the 66-page NEP 2020 approved by the Union Cabinet
16). According to Arun, the actual quantum of bank credit on July 29, 2020. While the K’Rangan Report is vision-
that risk-averse PSB managers dole out to India’s private ary and forward looking, its downside as highlighted by
sector aggregates 50 percent of GDP against the global av- EducationWorld in a lead feature titled ‘More govern-
erage of 97 percent — and wait for it — 180 percent in the ment, more governance’ (https://www.educationworld.
People’s Republic of China. In the circumstances, it’s no in/national-education-policy-2020-visionary-charter-
surprise that when as recently as 1978, the GDP of China educracy-shadow/) was recommending a spate of com-
and India were on a par, now their GDP is $19 trillion cf. mittees to supervise quality standards, curriculums, fees
India’s piffling $3.7 trillion. and as everyone knows — or regulation, teacher education and academic autonomy in
should know — PRC’s spectacular growth has been driven schools and higher education institutions.
by easy credit availability to its TVEs (town and village We warned of the danger of governments at the Centre
enterprises). Cry, beloved country! and in the states packing important committees with
ideologically aligned comrades and party faithfuls. And so
it has come to pass. For instance the recently appointed
belated response chairman of the National Council of Educational re-
search & Training (NCErT), the country’s largest school
textbooks publisher and syllabus formulation body, is
VEr SINCE JaNUary WhEN ThE DaMNING
report of the US-based Hindenberg Research — a Dinesh Kumar Saklani, hitherto professor of history at
eself-confessed short-seller firm in stock markets the obscure h.N. Bahuguna University, Garhwal.
Last month NCErT was in the news for purportedly
around the world — was published, prices of the equity recommending the inclusion of mythical epics Ramayana
shares of adani Group companies listed in the National
and Bombay Stock exchanges, have plummeted and con- and Mahabharata in the history textbooks of high school
tinue to search new lows. The Hindenberg Report alleged children. Although when a row broke out over the issue,
NCErT issued a denial, this recommendation was traced
that mysterious shell companies registered offshore were
purchasing and pumping up prices of Adani Group com- to Prof. C. Isaac, a Kochi-based academic appointed
chairman of a focus group by NCErT to write model
panies in India against which founder-chairman Gautam
adani was borrowing heavily from banks and financial social science textbooks under the National Curriculum
institutions to fund the growth of his fast-track busi- framework (NCf). Moreover in history textbooks pub-
lished by NCErT and mandatory in 28,900 high ranked
ness empire. When this exposé was published — and not
strongly refuted — almost overnight, Adani’s reputation CBSE schools, the entire Mughal period (1526-1757) has
been eliminated “to reduce students academic load”. The
as a latter day Midas took a big hit even as his sharehold-
ers suffered huge losses. tea leaves don’t read well for Indian education, especially
Now even if belatedly, adani has struck back. on the study of history.
164 educationworld december 2023