Page 18 - EW-August-2024 PDF _Neat

Editorial

PREVENT REVERSION TO NEHRUVIAN SOCIALISM 8-10 percent in China (post-1978)
and the tiger economies of South-east
Asia, into one of the poorest countries
ddressing a post-budget meet- national ideology at the behest of his worldwide.
ing of the Confederation of great grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, On the other hand in 1978 under
AIndian Industry, arguably the against the advice of Mahatma Gandhi the guidance of Deng Xiaoping who
largest representative body of private and Sardar Patel. Inorganic Nehruvi- proclaimed that “to be rich is glori-
organised sector big business, on July an socialism was continued by Rahul’s ous”, communist China “took the
30, even if somewhat belatedly Prime grandmother Indira Gandhi, who un- capitalist road”. After that landmark
Minister Narendra Modi clarified the mindful of the subcontinent’s sophis- year, China’s annual GDP growth rate
BJP/NDA government’s economic ticated banking traditions dating back leapt forward to 10-12 percent. Now
development ideology. He described several centuries, nationalised the some 40 years later, it has risen to $18
India Inc leaders as “wealth creators” country’s major banks. In addition, trillion, second only to the US while
and “driving force of India’s growth she nationalised insurance, copper, India’s GDP is an embarrassing $3.5
story”. Decoded, this means that and coal industries. Simultaneously trillion.
socialism — the dominant ideology she tightened the licence-permit- In his tirades against the BJP and
which posited government-promoted quota regime to prevent expansion of PM Modi, Rahul Gandhi also routine-
public sector enterprises (PSEs) as the private industry. ly abuses Ambani & Adani — India’s
driving force of the economy with the Unfortunately, PSEs charged with most successful businessmen and
mission to dominate its “commanding the task of sparking a new industrial largest taxpayers. This is reminis-
heights” — has been given a quiet and revolution in newly independent In- cent of continuous disparagement of
overdue burial. dia, proved unequal to the task. Na- private industry and business during
This public endorsement of private tional savings poured into PSEs for his grandmother’s regime. Contrary
enterprise and entrepreneurship is over four decades provided an average to Rahul’s belief, it is the duty of the
necessary and commendable because ROI (return on investment) of 1-2 per- Prime Minister — regardless of his
Rahul Gandhi, the de facto chief of cent cf. 12-15 in private industry. As a political party affiliation — to encour-
the Congress party and officially rec- result, the expected PSE surpluses for age the country’s successful business-
ognised leader of the opposition in investment in the social sector (edu- men and entrepreneurs and proclaim
the Lok Sabha, doesn’t seem to have cation and health) never materialised them abroad. Informed public opinion
learned any lesson from post-inde- transforming high-potential post- should discourage reversion to anti-
pendence India’s disastrous romance independence India, with an average private enterprise socialism which has
with socialism officially adopted as the annual GDP growth of 3.5 percent cf. beggared the nation.

WHY CHILDREN MUST BE ENCOURAGED TO PLAY State of Play, two-thirds of second-
ary and over half of primary students
worldwide don’t receive required
he olympic games being staged in working towards that objective. minimum weekly physical education,
Paris have evidently fascinated The seeds of orderly civic gover- and two-third of countries spend less
Tmiddle class India, if not the nance have already been planted in than 2 percent of their education
remainder of the population. Daily the Constitution by the 73rd and 74th budgets on physical education. In
television viewership in India of the Amendments to the Constitution contemporary India, the condition is
games staged between July 26-Au- (1992) which mandate de-centralisa- worse with most children denied even
gust 11 has reportedly ranged between tion of governance and administration unstructured play opportunity. From
100 and 120 million, with the nation to the ward level. As often argued on youngest age, they are burdened with
cheering the modest performance of this page, if civic wards managed by academic load and tuition.
our 117 track and field athletes. Even elected property owners are empow- The plain truth is that the preva-
if India doesn’t perform well in in- ered to levy and collect property taxes lent model of selecting and training
ternational sports and games arenas, and administer themselves, reporting middle class children for internation-
there’s little doubt that this country to empowered municipal corporations al sporting excellence is flawed. The
provides perhaps the largest number headed by directly elected mayors, US, Australia and China examples are
of sports spectators worldwide. urban India would experience a dra- proof that world champions emerge
For India’s establishment and edu- matic transformation for the better. when the pool of children playing
cators in particular, the Paris Olym- The second takeaway is that we sports and games is of oceanic size
pics offers several takeaways. For one, have to devise ways and means for and every public primary and sec-
the aesthetic beauty and efficient ad- India with its population of 1.4 billion ondary school offers sports grounds
ministration of the host city which en- to emerge as a respectable sports and and facilities and integrates play into
abled the clinical efficiency with which games nation. It’s embarrassing that the curriculum. This requires several
the games were organised. It’s impos- small countries with populations of 1 multiples of the annual outlays that
sible to believe that any of India’s ill- million and thereabouts bagged gold the Central and state governments
administered metropolitan cities can medals which at time of writing, In- allocate for education. That’s not im-
host Olympic games in the foreseeable dia hasn’t won even one. According to possible as our Special Report in this
future. Yet this is a good time to start a recent Unesco report titled Global issue illustrates.

18 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2024