Session 28: The Politics of Education in Contemporary India

Organizer: Peggy Froerer, Brunel University, London

Chair: Christopher J. Fuller, London School of Economics

Discussant: Ann Grodzins Gold, Syracuse University

Our panel explores the way in which nationalism, globalization, gender and language intersect and manifest themselves within the politics of education in contemporary India. Through ethnographic analysis, papers from Banares, Chennai, Chhattisgarh, and Kerala look at how the processes and patterns of school education are being transformed and reconstituted by phenomena as seemingly disparate as the school linguistic medium, the social transformations brought on by globalization, the continuing forays of Hindu Nationalist ideology, and the widespread presence of women in education. In particular, Narasimhan discusses the ways in which globalization becomes a criterion for middle-class parents in Chennai in deciding their children’s school education. Froerer explores how, in light of the growing awareness and spread of the IT industry and English literacy, Hindu nationalist forms of education are gaining credence amongst a wide section of Chhattisgarh’s lower classes. In the context of Kerala’s development achievements, Lukose looks at everyday gendered dynamics of sociality in public and examines the contradictions of young women’s presence in the public spaces of education in Kerala. Focusing on language and the opposition between Hindi and English-medium schooling, LaDousa examines how a school’s medium intersects with perceptions about the nation, one’s political economic trajectory, and people’s motives for school attendance. This panel seeks to offer an analysis of the means by which these phenomena not only manifest themselves within the realm of education, but also shape and are molded by the politics of education in contemporary India.

Saraswati’s Children and the Preference for "Traditional" Hindu Education in Korba, Chhattisgarh

Peggy Froerer, Brunel University, London

One of the most intriguing issues with respect to contemporary Indian education is the continuing appeal of ‘traditional’ Hindu school education in the context of the increasingly pervasive forces of ‘modernity’ and globalisation. In Korba, a growing industrial town in central India, these forces are being manifested through the sudden proliferation of computer stores, internet cafes, and combined IT and English ‘tutorial centres’. This phenomenon is occurring in tandem with rising student enrolment in the Hindu Nationalist, Hindi-medium Saraswati Shishu Mandir school—in spite of the presence of what is locally perceived to be more ‘progressive’, English-medium educational alternatives. Through ethnographic analysis, this paper explores the relationship between these two phenomena. Its specific focus is on how, in light of the growing awareness of ‘globalisation’ and accompanying importance being given to computer education and English literacy, preferences for more ‘traditional’, Hindu-based, Hindi-medium education are growing, particularly amongst Korba’s lower classes. Particular attention will be on the perspectives of children and teachers, and how they express and validate their educational choices. The paper also considers the way in which notions of class and status, along with local views about the ‘value’ of discipline, the role of language (English and Hindi), and broader notions of Hindu nationalism, factor into and shape these preferences.

Fees, Boards, and Uniforms: State Material in North Indian Schooling

Paul Chaise LaDousa, Southern Connecticut State University

This presentation draws upon research conducted in Banaras and Delhi, India in order to focus on schooling through language. There are many types of schools in Banaras, and a school’s medium, most prevalently Hindi or English, intersects with perceptions of students, parents, teachers, or the unschooled about the nation, class and attitudes to schooling. I highlight more mundane aspects of schooling and explore their connections to how language difference, through the distinction between Hindi- and English-medium schools, provides people in Banaras with a ready-made, polarized distinction between different schools and those involved with them. Schools also charge fees, attempt to gain affiliation with a school board, and require students to wear uniforms. Each of these activities helps to underpin and reproduce the salience of Hindi-medium’s opposition to English, but each is most interesting to different groups of people involved with schools: parents, administrators, and students, respectively. Through reflections on recorded conversations, I examine the ways that different practices involved in schooling foreground different sorts of motives and desires particular to these groups, and reflect on the state’s importance in the everyday lives of people in India.

Between Sex and Education: Gender, Violence, and the Public in Kerala, India

Ritty Lukose, University of Pennsylvania

Kerala is world-renowned as a "development miracle" in the areas of healthcare, education, and the basic quality of life of its population. The "Kerala Model of Development" is characterized by high quality of life indicators with low economic growth and per capita income. Education, particularly the education of females, is seen as key to the achievements of this model, given the seeming paradox of low income generation and high quality of life. While much work has been done to correlate educational levels with development achievements, very little research has been conducted on the process and meanings of education for young women who are seen to be so crucial to this model of development.

This paper examines the contradictions of young women’s widespread presence in the public spaces of education in Kerala, focusing on the everyday gendered dynamics of sociality in public, and the terrain of gendered demeanors that structure these public spaces differentially for young women and men. The access that young women have to educational spaces goes hand in hand with widespread practices of sexual harassment. Recently, sexual harassment in public has emerged within public political discourse as an object of law and contestation in the state. In light of two important legal cases highlighting gendered violence against women, the paper explores the role of the law in regulating youthful spaces of sociality, the everyday contexts for the emergence of sexual harassment.

From KG to IT: Middle Class Attitudes to Education in Chennai

Haripriya Narasimhan, London School of Economics

Middle-class parents in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, express great anxiety about their children’s education, from kindergarten onward. The school a child attends, along with the child’s academic performance plays a crucial role in enabling the family to participate in an increasingly modern ‘globalized’ capital city. Where the medium of instruction is English, important factors in this decision-making process include an emphasis on science and technology in the curriculum, and options for a ‘second’ language. There are various ‘boards’ of education in the state. Choosing a school with a specific ‘board’ assumes significance for parents ‘planning’ their children’s future. After-school tuition centers also form a major part of the discourse about ‘competitive’ education in these households. Extra curricular activities encouraged by educational institutions assume significance for parents wanting to inculcate ‘tradition’ in their children. Through interactions with people belonging to a ‘class’ that has hitherto received scant anthropological enquiry, this paper explores how ideas about globalization, tradition and language shape parents’ attitudes toward the education of their children in Chennai.