Baroque

1991 is known and celebrated as the year when economic reforms, were introduced in India. Cloaked within the story of the 1991 economic reforms, is the story of decisions taken that would decisively transform the policy and programming landscape of education delivery in India.  From 1992, there is a visible shifting of gears, and a policy commitment to universalise education for every child.  

The story of provision of education to every child, everywhere in India, is the story of State commitment, and public pressure. One of the key organisers, of that public pressure, national convenor of the Right to Education Forum, Ambarish Rai passed away this week. This episode is dedicated to our fellow traveller, Ambarish Rai. RIP. 

1991, is known in the public policy community, as the year, when India took a decisive turn right, on governance and especially economic policy-making. That same year two books were published, both by scholars, with a deep and abiding faith in the transformative, power of education in the lives of children and nations; both were to be successful, yet the two books could not be more different.

This Tale of Two Books audio series will examine the interplay of ideas and interests that were catalysed by these two very different books and the impact they had on India's education planning and the lives of children and their families.

Krishna Kumar, The political Agenda of Education, A Study of Nationalist and Colonial Ideas, 1991  (https://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/pol-agenda-kk.pdf)

Myron Weiner, The Child and the State in India, 1991 

(https://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/stateandchild.doc)

In today's India, institutions are especially important. How should the story of an institution be told? In his wonderful chronicle  of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dr. Batabyal chose to focus on the contest of ideas, and the change processes, which could be seen, and experienced within higher education. In this episode, he talks about the struggles, ideological and professional, in the backdrop of which the Jawaharlal Nehru University was set up as a centre for advanced research. 

In a free-wheeling conversation, he shares the impact of growing up in one of India’s post-Independence centres of excellence, the steel city of Bokaro, then a microcosm of India, where professionals of all states, all communities came together to build a new and different history of modern India and how that sense of Indianness, was honed by the interest taken by his teachers in honing his latent interest in renaissance ideas and ideals. 

He talks about the shift in perspective, from participant to observer and how that played out while researching and writing his well-regarded, book JNU, the Making of A University.

Dr. Rakesh Batabyal is Associate Professor, of Media History, at the Centre for Media Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

A selection of his writings

https://www.amazon.in/Modern-School-1920-Century-Schooling

https://www.amazon.in/JNU-Making-University-Rakesh-Batabyal

https://www.amazon.in/Communalism-Bengal-Noakhali-1943-47-History

How did individuals, and organisations, respond when the first pandemic of the 21st century hit? What happens when an individual life-career pivot sends you on a career path you had not planned? Havovi Wadia, CEO of Save The Children India (STCI) shares what responding to the Covid 19 pandemic, meant, when government decisions and court orders, made lives more vulnerable, the everyday difficulties of ensuring children and women, are helped when they are most in need, has meant and how the organisation is preparing for a future, where many of the assumptions that were the foundation of planning, are no longer relevant. She talks her journey’s milestones about making the best use of available opportunities and how learning and making a job one’s own is the best kept secret of career success. This episode was recorded in the last fortnight of 2020.

Selection of Writings

https://azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/SitePages/pdf/Havovi-Wadia-Confining-childhood-in-India.pdf

https://idronline.org/how-to-use-data-to-improve-decision-making/

In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Resmi Bhaskaran talks about making career choices. She discusses the pleasures of taking the road less travelled, selecting among the many opportunities available and what happens to dreams that get left behind and how it feels, when those dreams come true.

Dr. Resmi Bhaskaran is a development economist, who is able to tell stories through both qualitative and quantitative data, making her rare among the community of data storytellers.

A selection of her writings

https://www.policycircle.org/life/indias-migrant-labour-exodus-and-missing-trade-unions/

http://www.environmentportal.in/files/child%20labour%20in%20delhi%20garment%20factory.pdf

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137377548_8

In the 1990s, India achieved a milestone, which she has never celebrated. She ensured, that for the first time in recorded history, majority of girls were in school and learning. One of the architects of that success, Dr. Vimala Ramachandran, was at the age of 34, the first national director of India’s most influential empowerment through education programme, the exceptional Mahila Samakhya. She reminisces about the changes, she helped pilot, later influenced, and most recently observed in a 40 year career, that has spanned academia, activism, entrepreneurship to improve the lives of girls and women through education.

A selection of her writings

https://zubaanbooks.com/shop/cartographies-of-empowerment-the-story-of-mahila-samakhya/

https://www.india.gov.in/spotlight/digital-gender-atlas-advancing-girls-education

https://www.eruindia.org/publications.asp

Listening, the singular experience on which this podcast is anchored, is taken for granted until we no longer have the ability to hear. Unlike other forms of disability,  deafness the disability is invisible, what is visible are the related educational and social widening gaps.

Arun Shah, the Director, Development of the All India Federation of the Deaf, shares with Baroque his engagement with visibilising the invisible disability. He has been supporting non-profits, in marketing, communications raising resources, both material and human for nearly four decades. 

In the course of the conversation, he discusses growing up as the younger brother, of one of India’s most talented artists, the painter, Prabha Shah, and the journey from being a supportive family member to becoming an advocate for the rights of the deaf, working full time, to bridge the divide between the deafness of those who are reluctant to hear and the difficulties of the hearing impaired who want to live lives of meaning and self-respect.