Soon the social media was full of comments that connected the earlier controversies on the JNU campus (alleged anti-nationalism) to the current protest and arguments have started to fly around everywhere. So while there are valid arguments on both side - however most arguments tend to miss the big picture. Like it often happens in the recent history of our country - many of these arguments are irrelevant, hypocritical or they miss the big picture. Let us try and cut the clutter and try to understand the issue for what it is. Long post warning.
What Exactly is the Hike like?
Here it is in summary - the old fee, the one announce and then the new structure after a small rollback. (source : India Today)
| Rent | Old fee | Fee announced earlier | New Revised fee |
| Single room seater | Rs 20 | Rs 600 | Rs 200 |
| Double room seater | Rs 10 | Rs 300 | Rs 100 |
| Security deposit for mess | Rs 0 | Rs 5,500 | Rs 5,500 |
| Utility charges | Rs 0 | Rs 1,700 | Rs 1,700 |
So obviously the revised fee was probably announced to calm down tempers.
The original levels of fee obviously seem ridiculously low and belongs to an earlier era when engineering graduate like us paid a total four year fee of about Rs. 5000. One must consider this fee hike modest by all standards. So then why so much noise around the issue.
Let's take a couple of arguments flying around
It's taxpayer's money
The Big picture.
For last decade or so budgeted figure for education in expenditure 2.7% of GDP - almost stagnant below 3%. This is woefully inadequate for a young country like India. Close to 12 lakh (1.2 million) students appear for JEE the engineering exam every year - it would be safe to say that almost double that number must be appearing for non technical courses. Even this amount is not fully utilised every year. Yes !! you will be surprised to know that the Government collects more money from education cess (approx 95,000 cr.) than it actually allocates (approx 85,000 cr.). It is a fact the money that is collected under the consolidated fund head does not get utilised fully every year (which is other words means cess collected under various heads get spent on other wasteful heads).
If we compare it to other countries - Zimbabwe, Bhutan, Sweden & finland etc spend some 7 to 7.5% of their GDP on education, South Africa & Brazil spend about 6% of their GDP, UK/Netherland about 5.5% Malaysia, kenya, US etc spend 5%. The point is this - we do not really spend enough on education of our youth.
The JNU figures
JNU spends close to 550 crores every year at an overall student strength of about 8000 students. Out of this approx 350 crores is contributed by the government. Thats approx 4.4 lakh per student per year. This is largely in synch with what government spends on most top universities and institutes.
Is the spend justified ??
According to 2019 budget figures we spend more than education on Home affairs, Rural development, agriculture and allied activities and, hold your breath, tax administration. Yes - this is also taxpayers' money. If we add many small expenditures in the budget that basically serves to keep many departments alive - we may find expense on education just peanuts. Remember Modiji's promise of "minimum government, maximum governance" - had he implemented that promise - he would have much more to spend on education making it easy for more people to get education.
We spend much more money subsidising other more questionable expenditure.
For Eg.
** Do you know that government spends approx Rs 2.7 lakhs per month on subsidising various perquisites to every Member of Parliament,
one can similarly compare more apples with such oranges - For eg. the
** Government is going to pay the bills of incompetence in
PSU banks (the NPA crisis),
the cooperative banking systems (many banks like that of PMC bank,
the Non Banking Financial companies (NBFCs) (After the ILFS meltdown - just today the DHFL board has been overtaken by the SEBI),
** It is investing thousands of crores to revive real estate projects that are stuck because of their promoters corruption, scams or simply incompetence.
** The Government is also going to foot the bills of carrying on with incompetent, obsolete and corrupt PSUs like BSNL, Air India just to name a few.
** The government is also spending on 3000 crore statue or 4000 crore advertising through various departments. We spend thousands of crores every year on corrupt, leaky public distribution system and many more thousand crores on renaming of cities too.
All this money is taxpayer money.
The point being :
Now, don't get me wrong. These figures are presented not necessarily to support the protest at JNU but to point out at the futility of the argument of it all being taxpayer's money. If we are really worried about how the government is using the taxpayer's money - education is probably the last head to look at. We must first ask our government about the list mentioned above - or we should ask them about why the Government keeps asking LIC to foot the bill for disinvestment that they are unable to sell to private players because they don't want to let go management controls from PSUs.
The taxpayer money is a sham argument in my view.
40 Year old students enjoy life at JNU on government subsidies
There is a classic folly in statics and argumenting - that often "we treat anecdotal evidence as data" or "we make the exception the rule" simply because it supports our narrative or our belief. The IT Cell wallahs use this folly in public thinking, to the hilt. That's why such arguments look compelling and strong. Let's start with some data digging.At JNU there are close to 8000 students out which an overwhelming 72% are from social sciences, language, literature& arts and International studies. 55% of the total students are pursuing M Phil and pHD. This kind of explains the overall higher age profile of the JNU students. There maybe a few students in the age group of 40 plus (I could not get any data on that and so I say this on gut observation) - which although asynchronous but isn't something to be worried about. There are large number of people who decide to pursue their pHDs and masters a little later in their lives.
What should matter to us is the average number of years they spend on the campus - for which again their is no data but for a pHD student 5-7 years of stay is normal. If this is a real worry for administrators - all they have to do is define a maximum number of years on campus for each course. This as justification to fee hike or for that matter a case against subsidies on education is a very poor argument.
Another data - more than 40% of students at the JNU are from families that have a an income of Rs 10,000 per month. This may give us an idea of the fact that the spend in the JNU is actually being spent on education of very poor students.
The age angle adds more to the subsidy debate. Most pHD students in the best of institutes of the world (including India) are not made to pay for their education - in fact they often get a stipend at the institute for pursuing research.
BTW - the anecdotal evidence converted into data is also true of the "tukde tukde gang/anti-national" argument. First the entire episode is a story of concocted truths, morphed videos and the likes. Even if we assume that there were students involved in the sloganeering - they obviously do not represent the entire GNU student crowd. It is generalising the exception to form a rule because it supports a narrative.
The point being
The age argument is raised to generate passion among youth but has really no basis. Most probably there aren't so many middle aged students in JNU (or other universities), secondly the few who are there should not be a cause of concern and finally JNU is expected to have higher average age than other universities because of its course mix.
So is the fee hike not justified ??
I don't think so. However, it is more complicated than just a fee hike.
As the table at the start of this piece shows - the old fee levels are ridiculously low - they probably would not even cover the expenses of administering the fee collection at today's rate. So a fee hike is ok.
On the other hand - education is a individual right as well as an investment for the country. It generates its own return for the economy, country and its people in the decades/centuries that follow. This is why most democracies are actually moving towards making education free. In Gujarat modi ji made education free for all females. It was a great move in the right direction. So, fee subsidies are also justified because at least poverty should not deprive people of basic needs and education.
However, for a country like India with its huge population and innumerable challenges - free education for everybody is a very far off goal. In the meantime - it is my view, that at least top institutes where students reach based on merit should provide free or highly affordable education. The graduates in non-technical education have historically not been huge earners and it is important to keep the cost of their education low so that the ROI on this investment is justified. Thankfully now non-technical education also has started looking up as a means to better earning employment.
In short, at least in the area of education how much to subsidise and what not to, is a thin balancing act and so it is better to err on this side of divide instead of letting the aim of education be defeated to save some money.
To put it more crudely I would subsidise education expense of lazy incompetent students rather than draining it on corrupt incompetent bureaucrats, politicians and their NGOs and PSUs.
in my view, in today's India we need to focus on improving and ensuring school education more and should focus on self financing of higher education. In higher education we should gradually move to a model of Government funding capital and infrastructure of education while running and maintaining education should largely be managed by the institute through its academic, consulting and research activities. Thus I favour gradual reduction and final elimination of subsidising institute's operations.
Many Institutes in India have hiked fee successfully to various extents. I did my engineering from a State Level Institute for less than 5000 rs between 1989 and 1993. However the same institute now charges close to 5 lakhs for the same course. I took an educational loan of Rs. 83,000 to do my Post Graduation in Management from IIM Lucknow. My seniors paid half that amount - their seniors probably paid about 10,000-15,000 for the same course. Today IIMs charge between 18 to 25 Lakhs for the same course. The same happened to the IITs and many such institutes. Education loans are easily available for such courses - I got one recently for my son who joined an IIT. Let me also point out that the process has been going on since the days of P V Narsimha Rao, Dr. Manmohan singh, Atalji and now. Never have we seen such acrimony.
Then why such shrill noise on the JNU fee hike
That is the million dollar question to answer. There are multiple answers to this question - one word for which is politics
One, JNU is unlike many other universities. It has been a politically active campus. It has always questioned the power of governments. Even in days of emergency it has fought the powers tooth and nail - politicians like Arun Jaitley and N Sitharaman are JNU products of the same time. In an earlier era this campus used to be hub of the yippe culture in an orthodox and conservative India. Today that culture has travelled to corners of the country. Student protests are nothing new - In fact they are good for the society and country. If they are protesting it needs to be handled better. Crushing a student protest using brutal police force is a strict no-no.
Two, Not that such institutes never had protests - but those protests were managed better by the administration. They created dialogues with students (unlike the VC of JNU who did not even meet the students), they discussed, debated and continued diligently. I agree JNU is a tougher nut to crack because of its legacy but using force to handle the situation is obviously not a solution. Government has raised fee across IITs, NITs and many other institutes in their post graduate and pHD departments - students have felt the pinch of it and have protested in their small little ways.
Remember the first long protest under modiji at another such institute - The FTTI - where students were up in arms against the newly appointed director - Mr. Gajendra. Now honestly students were right - the appointment of Gajendra on the post was a complete misfit. However in a show of nerves the administration and the students pitched against each other and gradually the administration tired the agitation down without use of lathi charge or such things.
Three, Delhi being the location of the institute is what attracts so much attention to these protests. On a single call media and cameras from all national/regional/local channels stand outside the gate for any sensational byte. Some of them actually egg such students on. It gets discussed on national TV. Social media adds fuel to the fire. I am sure if this fee hike would have happened in Timbuktu - no flutter would have happened.
Four, JNU is a left bastion. Current government and its student wing has been trying to capture the local politics of the place and have not been very successful till now. This campus asks very uncomfortable questions to the powers that be. That seems to be a single biggest reason. Anyone who has closely watched this dispensation on how they react to any criticism or opposition whether it be avenging by letting the central investigations agencies like CBI, IT, or ED to pursue cases against opposition or the way they react to media persons who critiques its work or the way target student union leaders who criticises them, makes one feels that the handling of the JNU crisis is far beyond the fee hike issue. It is naked, brazen politics being played to warn everybody that dissent will be handled with a strong hand by the state.
Modiji would remember long back when he was a part of a student protest in Gujarat in which the great JP became a star. Modiji himself influenced by JP contributed to the movement that spread so wide that Congress was thrown out of power in the state. This is available on his own site - narendramodi.in The same police that was revolting against the state for mishandling of their personnel by the lawyers whereas they did not take enough steps to control the law and order, is now treating the student unions at JNU with a iron hand. If this is not politics what is.
JNU like many other universities is a monument of the immense diversity that we are a collection of as a country. A simple fee hike needs to be managed as an internal affair and be given less air time. Not everything in India needs to be seen with political prism. The Government & its supporters should soon learn to accept that there will always be criticism and that avenging every person, institution or critique is foolhardy, arrogant and in the end useless.The JNU drama on the national level is probably sceptical politics at its worst.
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