The advent of
globalization since the mid-twentieth century in India saw the rise of
privatization in almost every sphere of commerce and even such resources as
human intellectual capital is now being exploited as trained labor in the form
of outsourcing and prospects being developed very deliberately in the field of
engineering and medicine. As a parallel to that we have institutions that cater
to the needs of the globalizing trend to keep up their market value such as the
various engineering and medical institutes which are seen as the most
prestigious colleges some among them being All India Institute of Medical
Sciences and Indian Institute of Technology or commerce colleges such as the
Indian Institute of Management. The complete professionalization of education
in these branches has led to a never-ending demand manufactured by the
corporations and reflected in the society by the manufactured aspirations of
the mainstream population. This curbs the progressive forces which try to build
themselves from within the society as the general consensus among the masses
becomes that competition is the best self-checking and sieving mechanism that
picks a few good men from a batch of rotten apples and even though the
generalization is often crude and illogical, the critique of competition is
never voiced in proper terms. The problem with competition lies in its very
nature, being the driving force behind capitalism which again leads to globalization
turning India towards a path of Western development creating the same illusions
of egalitarianism through equal chances at competition turning the whole arena
of varied social space divided by ethnicity, caste, race, gender and other
forms of inequalities and creating an open market system at the risk of
marginalizing the already oppressed classes. But the whole illusion of
development is somehow preserved in the hearts and minds of the aspiring
students through preservation of institutes such as those aforementioned with
adequate autonomy. As we take a deeper look into this supposed autonomy, we
come to realize that the autonomy that is so flagrantly proclaimed by the
institutions and by which they earn their present reputation is actually only
limited to the academia. Even less, as the idea of fruition in engineering
courses is to get a proper placement in a private corporation along with a
proper degree and the students are led to believe that the two come in
combination and are inseparable from one another. If one is separated from
another, for instance, if the degree is attained by a student but not an
internship, all he sees before him is a market where his skills and all that he
has learnt are inefficient in order for him to be productive to that market.
Herein we witness the context to question the totality of study given in these
forms of professional education to which completion is only attained when a
proper place is accorded to each student as though he were a cog in a machine
and leads to the regression of a utilitarian society. This framework is
justified by the economical basis of capitalism and corporate concepts of
supply and demand but what is really amusing to observe is the manipulation of
culture and consent by forces of capitalism to such an extent that their sole
basis of education becomes a market which only seems open to better
opportunities and prospects but are constantly rigged by those with huge
amassed capital. It is in this form of an analysis that we cease to see the
society as stratified into various strata like that of a totem pole but divided
into two classes which is the working class and the ruling class. The
intellectual grounds or places of study set by the ruling classes are only to
reap and harvest the intellectual labor of the working classes and in this
manner even the spaces of universities are governed by the dynamics of open
spaces where a direct master and slave servitude is seen if viewed properly
especially the professional ones even the ones that are government regulated.
This form of an education tends to alienate the student from his field of study
as he is oriented not in his field of study as a virtue but in his field of
study by virtue of market and hence is alienated from his labor in the same way
a worker is alienated from his labor by the policy of minimum wages.
On the one hand
are these universities where market forces reign supreme, and on the other hand
there are Universities that teach sciences and humanities such as the
University of Delhi, University of Calcutta, Jawaharlal Nehru University to
name a few. But even in these universities we have a wave of opportunism that
seeps in from the general economic percept of the society which has already
been characterized earlier. This force creates the same hegemony over
intellectual labor controlled by the ruling classes that jeopardize the space
for organic growth of intellectuals. This form of hegemony is imposed not just
on the students but also upon the teachers by the forces through the tool of
administration that is given the sole function to control and regulate the
intellectual production and oversee the development of proper products out of
their machinery. For the most part, the teachers and students rely most upon
the administration which again is regulated by the bureaucratic University
Grants Commission which levels out systems of study and syllabus that have to
be taught in the universities and the teachers have little say in it unless the
hardly voice their opinion through unions. Even lesser regard in the
formulation of courses and syllabi is given to students for they are seen as
too imprudent to be considered for an opinion. This is how hegemony is imposed
upon the students and teachers and is regulated by the administration.
Now we move on to
describe what a crisis inherently is and how the crisis is different in this
case and why one must apprehend all previous connotations attached to the word
crisis in this specific case. When we talk about crisis in general, we talk of
it with regard to a system. But here, as we have analyzed, the cause of the
crisis is the very extension of system into university space. That being stated,
to deal with such a crisis, one must not rely on a higher force which is the
general protocol for dealing with a crisis. In this case, the solution to the
crisis needs to emerge from within the working classes itself because it is
their space that is being distorted by market forces and conventional dogmas.
What is being stated here might seem as a superfluous extrapolation of class
identity in university and to some it might even seem a futility but even as
they might not agree with the class identity as mentioned above, the idea of
the consumer culture and its negative impact on education ought to be
intelligible to them.
Before moving on
to solutions, we ought to take a deeper look into the various complex forms
that this crisis has raised upon the life of an individual student from more
personal perspectives. The first and most important point to tackle is the
disillusionment faced by the students when they indirectly confront such a
reality but never get the grasp of its actuality. Most common students do not
properly know the difference between proper knowledge and commoditized
knowledge but as an instinctual unconscious act can understand the difference
between the two. When he begins to connect the proverbial dots and makes the
conclusion that the knowledge is indeed for a specific purpose rather than for
a general holistic purpose, he would immediately, in order to not just succeed
but excel in his field of study would conform to that specificity. This will
reduce his scope and consequently his capability to gather proper amounts of
knowledge and rather than treating it as an idea of the mind to be meditated
at, one would think of it as matter that is to be used not in terms of
theoretical understanding and then moving to practical application but treating
his acquired knowledge as a form of commodity to exploit or reap the benefits
of. This would surely lead to his personal productivity but it would at the
same time derail the effect of study on him. This creates a certain sense of
nihilism and negations of certain forms of thought that are generally not
permissible in the university space are legitimized such as desensitization
towards gender and race and practice of class hierarchy in a socio-economic
manner. In such a case, only due to a minor flaw in the system of education,
which is just one of the aspects of the crisis, creates a huge impact on the
complete secularity and sovereignty of the university.
The problems
mentioned above and the System in which these problems exist is the very crises
we should seek to resolve. A progressive refueling of students is needed to
bring them to the necessary social consciousness required for them to fully
understand their role not as a material cog but an entity capable of proper
human thought and action. With the realization of this new role, they will seek
to break free from their pre-existing roles in that they, as the working class
would want to take ownership of the means of production, so would the students
and teachers.
