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sity Teachers’ Association. riculum, which gave universities a ties. In the circumstances the state’s
New York-based educationist and free hand to alter 20 percent of the radicalised students offer the only
human rights activist Dr. Partha syllabus to include local content in hope of the CPM returning to power
Banerjee, who frequently visits the interests of diversity.” in West Bengal.
Bengal and closely follows political he state’s intelligentsia and Meanwhile, the BJP has emerged
developments here, is more direct Tacademics apart, West Bengal’s as West Bengal’s premier opposition
in his criticism of NEP 2020. “It is a powerful students unions are also party wing after winning 18 of Ben-
charter for an authoritarian, ultra- dissatisfied with NEP 2020. On July gal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in General
nationalistic agenda. The policy is 31, the Students’ Federation of India Election 2019, restricting TMC to
dangerous because it totally rejects (SFI) described the new policy as 22 (cf. 34 in 2014). In recent years,
India’s cultural and historical diver- “anti-student”. It has held demon- Banerjee has been mending fences
sity and enforces conformity. It will strations across the state to demand with Kolkata’s influential bhadralok
brainwash children into believing withdrawal of the NEP and was (cultured middle class) by placing
India is a unified, centrally governed busy collecting its targeted 100,000 education high on her reforms agenda.
country. Although there is insuffi- protest letters to be sent to the Union The calculation is that given the
cient attention to the language issue, education ministry by August 15. premium that the middle class places
I discern a clear intent to impose However, it’s pertinent to note on high-quality education, bhadralok
Hindi and Hinduism on the coun- that SFI is the student wing of the will back TMC rather than the BJP
try. This is clearly an RSS dictated CPM (Communist Party of India- whose ministers at the Centre have
policy,” says Banerjee. Marxist). Despite the utter rout of the acquired a notorious reputation for
Adds Sabyasachi Basu Ray CPM and allied parties in the legisla- harping on the glories of ancient
Chaudhury, vice chancellor of tive assembly elections of 2011 and India, rather than on addressing
Rabindra Bharati University: “NEP 2015, SFI has retained its popularity the more pressing economic issues,
2020 paves the way for centralising in West Bengal’s premier universi- especially unemployment, spreading
the entire higher education system. ties, including the state’s showpiece across the country.
It has erased the UGC model cur- Jadavpur and Presidency universi- Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

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