With the logic of supply-side economics having finally impacted itself upon the collective wind of the Congress-led UPA government in New Delhi, the decks are being cleared to permit reputable foreign universities to establish campuses in India. A draft Foreign Education Providers Regulation Bill emanating from the Union ministry of human resource development is already doing the rounds in Delhi in restricted circles. Although die-hard socialist Union HRD minister Arjun Singh is dead opposed to the proposition and has therefore inserted severe entry conditions in the draft Bill — including clearance of tuition fee structures by the HRD ministry and quotas for SCs, STs (scheduled tribes and scheduled tribes) and OBCs (other backward classes) which all self-respecting offshore universities are likely to reject — commerce minister Kamal Nath who is leading India’s WTO (World Trade Organisation) and GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) negotiations seems to have prevailed.

And with the winds of liberalisation and deregulation belatedly beginning to waft over the higher education sector, several high-profile indigenous industry heavyweights are reportedly drawing up detailed plans to promote private universities. Among them is the London-based copper and ferrous metals tycoon of Vedanta Resources, Anil Agarwal, who has already committed himself — although he is reportedly having second thoughts — to establishing a private sector state-of-the-art $5 billion Vedanta University in Orissa.

Now according to the corporate grapevine in Mumbai, the latest entrant into the race to promote India’s first internationally benchmarked private university is Mukesh Ambani, chairman of India’s largest private sector company Reliance Industries (annual sales: Rs.93,000 crore). With the Hyderabad-based private sector Indian School of Business in the promotion of which the now estranged Ambani brothers had played a major role, and the Dhirubhai Ambani International School in Mumbai promoted in 2003 by wife Neeta going great guns, Mukesh is reportedly determined to promote India’s first private, internationally benchmarked university.

Which means that the Agarwal-Ambani contest has become a one horse race. As has been proven time and again, there isn’t a businessman in India who can match the project execution skills of the Ambanis — en famille or solo.

Looming legal war

With his target of an additional 27 percent quota for OBCs in over 100 Central government sponsored institutions of higher education having been attained — albeit at a heavy cost of Rs.17,000 crore to the public exchequer — septuagenarian Union HRD minister Arjun Singh has set his sights on the country’s 85 deemed universities to make them fall in line.

Deemed universities are private institutions of higher learning which provide high quality tertiary education and as such have been reluctantly (because under the canons of neta-babu socialism higher education is a government preserve) accorded the seal of approval by the apex-level, Delhi-based University Grants Comission (UGC). Inevitably granted substantial freedom to administer themselves without excessive interference from education ministry bureaucrats, some deemed universities have succeeded in establishing international reputations for themselves.

A case in point is the Manipal-based MAHE (Manipal Academy of Higher Education, estb.1953) which was granted deemed university status in 1993. Internationally reputed for providing high quality professional (medical, engineering, business management, communi-cations etc) education, MAHE attracts students from over 51 countries and earns over Rs.70 crore annually in foreign exchange. Morever in all courtroom battles to assert the constitutional rights of private educationists, MAHE has been in the vanguard.

At a recent meeting in New Delhi to which the vice chancellors of all deemed universities were summoned, Singh presented written proposals for introducing SC, ST and OBC quotas in deemed universities as well. Even as the vice chancellors were perusing the proposals, Singh departed for a pre-arranged press conference at which he announced that the vice chancellors — and particularly Dr. H.S. Ballal, vice chancellor of MAHE — had in principle accepted reservation in their institutions. The very next day this “in-principle agreement” made headline news across the country.

According to participants, at the meeting with the minister, the hapless Ballal hadn’t uttered a single word to that or any other effect and has learned a bitter lesson in politics. Although first blood has been drawn by the wily minister, stand by for a Mahabharata in the courts.

Ides of March

It is one of the poignant ironies of the Indian education scene that the segment of the population classified as OBC (other backward classes/ castes) which values quality education the most as the passport to upward mobility, is served by political leaders and parties who value it least.

In particular at the tertiary education level, caste-based parties seem determined to destroy education institutions and/ or dumb down teaching-learning standards. A case in point is the Samajwadi Party (SP) — the quintessential OBC party led by Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav, a former wrestler and teacher turned politician. Under four years of SP rule in Lucknow, the city’s ancient (estb. 1920) and once-venerated Lucknow University (LU) has degenerated into a haven for hardened criminals and anti-socials (posing as student leaders) enjoying top-level SP support. And when in mid-December vice chancellor Ram Prakash Singh made a determined effort to conduct LU student elections as per the norms (all candidates must be below 25, untainted by criminal charges, have 75 percent classroom attendance records etc as recommended by the J.M. Lyndogh Committee and approved by the Supreme Court), instead of supporting the vice chancellor, the SP government slapped “financial irregularities” charges against him. 

And with goons and goondas running amok in education institutions across the state, the worst hit are OBC students who reposed great faith in the SP and Mulayam. But with state assembly elections due to be held soon, the ides of March don’t bode well for this self-styled messiah of OBCs and minorities.