Tag: Sugata Bose

Sugata Bose speaks in LS regarding an enabling regulatory architecture in higher education institutions (Full Transcript)

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Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is sad to read the annexure that has been provided by the Hon’ble minister as part of his reply. There are no institutions of higher education in India that figure in the top 250 on the list and there are no universities that figure in the top 500 of the list that he has provided. It is a matter of only small satisfaction for me that the university that figures at the top as it war is Jadavpur University from West Bengal which is in the 500-600 range of the world rankings of the TIME’s higher education supplement.

Of course, it will not be right only to bemoan the fact that we don’t figure on this list. But we have to device a proper strategy to make sure that our institutions of higher educations are globally competitive.

I want to ask a very specific question. Five months ago in his budget speech the Finance Minister had declared that the government will set up an enabling regulatory architecture for the emergence of  ten public and ten private institutions as world class centers of excellence in teaching and research.

What specific progress has been made to set up such an enabling architecture and what criteria will the government use to select these 20 institutions? Will they pay attention to state universities which are poorly funded and yet do better than many central universities?

We have Jadavpur University & University of Calcutta in top 800 of the list you provided; they are state universities & not central universities. So, will you give special attention to state universities when you select these top 20 institutions for global competition?  

Sugata Bose speaks on the National Institute of Technology, Science Education and Research (Amendment) Bill, 2016

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Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, may I at the outset express my appreciation to our new hon. Minister for Human Resource Development for felicitating all the teacher MPs on the occasion of ‘Guru Purnima’ a couple of days ago? That was a very fine symbolic gesture on his part and we on our part wish him all the best in discharging the onerous responsibility that he has been given to improve our educational system for our younger generation.

On the face of it, this is a very simple and straightforward amendment to the NIT Act.

It only adds one more NIT in Andhra Pradesh consequent on the bifurcation of the old State between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. But this apparently small amendment raises some very deep questions about our educational policy and the future direction of the younger generation in our country.

Some of the concerns that I had wished to express have already been anticipated by my colleague, Shri Shashi Tharoor, who, by virtue of belonging to a marginally larger party in this Lok Sabha, has the right to speak before me. I wish he had stayed to listen to at least the next speaker who had his views to express on this important subject.

I agree with many of the concerns about polity that had been expressed by my good friend, Shri Shashi Tharoor, but I think he made one very unfair comparison. Harvard University is a private university in the world and its endowment is larger than the GDP of many countries in this world. So, that comparison should not really be made.

Now what are these National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research? We started out with eight regional engineering colleges and now, we have many more but the 20 of them are upgradations from the status of regional engineering colleges. Subsequently, 10 more NITs have been added and today, we are about to welcome in this Parliament the birth of a new NIT in Andhra Pradesh. We will, of course, support that move and we wish the people of Andhra Pradesh all the best for the future. I would, however, like to raise some questions about the kind of education that we wish to give to our younger generation. Shri Javadekar was absolutely right in saying that even in the nomenclature of these institutes, we have the word ‘technology’ but also the phrases ‘science education and research’.

Now we have to have a fine balance between teaching and research in all of our educational institutes including our universities both central and State in addition to the IITs, the NITs and the IISERs. Unfortunately, the NIT in Andhra Pradesh and also some of the new NITs that have been approved by this Parliament do not have capacity for carrying out the kind of cutting edge research and innovation that we need in this country.

When we go ahead and announce the establishment of new institutions, first of all, it takes a lot of time to build a new campus. Even this NIT is currently functioning out of a temporary campus but at least when it comes to physical infrastructure, when it comes to bricks and mortar, for a number of years after the announcement of these new institutes, money is spent and many contractors make money but do we give adequate attention to human resources? Do we actually anticipate the faculty requirements for these new institutes? Do we actually make sure that the students who will join these new institutes will, in fact, get the best instruction possible? I think we need to pay very close attention to these issues.

I would also like to add that we have a large number of institutes of national importance which are devoted to technology of one kind or another.

The IITs, the NITs and also the Institutes of Information Technology run into scores in terms of the numbers of Institutes of Technology of one kind or another that we have. But do we pay adequate attention to institutes for the Humanities and the Arts? What is happening in our Institutes of Technology, particularly the NITs is that we are not producing well-rounded citizens. Even in Institutes of Technology there should be arrangements to teach subjects in the field of Arts and Humanities. If you consider the best Institute of Technology in the world today, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a very fine Philosophy Department. It has a superb History Department. They are small but the students who are training to be engineers are given an opportunity to also study the Arts and the Humanities. Otherwise, in this craze for Information Technology in particular, we will be creating very one dimensional young citizens of India.

Now, a couple of years ago Shri Anil Madhav Dave had asked a very pertinent question from the Ministry of Human Resource Development. He had asked whether the condition of learning in the subjects of Humanities and Arts is poor and he had also asked whether the Government is making any action plan for new institutes and incentives in the field of Arts, Commerce, Culture and Humanities. I am sorry to have to say that in the written reply that was provided by the Ministry of Human Resource Development there were very misleading statements. I will you why. It was stated that up to 20/11 there were 4677 institutions only for science and technology and there were 4315 institutions offering courses only on Arts and Humanities in that same year. But that was not the question. The question was how many institutes of national importance we have in the field of humanities compared to the number of institutes of national importance in the field of science and technology. Two years ago, in his Budget Speech, Shri Arun Jaitley had announced that there was going to be a national institute of Humanities named after none other than our great iconic leader the late Jaiprakash Narain in Madhya Pradesh. But this Parliament and the general public in India have not heard very much more since then about the progress in the creation of this one national institute for the Humanities that had been announced by this Government more than two years ago. Even if we are not able to set up very many national institutes of importance in the field of Humanities and Arts, there are other ways in which Humanities and Arts can be supported in our universities and colleges. For example, in the United States of America there is a National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts which provide funding for the finest research and new innovation and creativity in the field of Humanities and Arts. So, there are ways in which we can provide a more balanced education for our younger generation.

Sir, there are a few more things to be said about our Educational Policy, but today as you can see we are rather diminished in terms of the benches on this side of the House because in West Bengal today we are observing Martyrs Day. Twenty-three years ago 13 young men had been killed in police firing while our leader Ms. Mamata Banerjee led demonstration for the restoration of democratic rights for the people of West Bengal. I will have an opportunity to speak once more when the Indian Institute of Technology (Amendment) Bill is brought before us.

I will not extend my discourse any further at the moment excepting to say that when this Parliament which has the sole prerogative to assign the nomenclature institutes of national importance takes this momentous decision, let us make sure that these institutes are truly of national importance. Let us set ourselves a goal that in the foreseeable future, say, within the next three to five years, at least a few of our National Institutes of Technology, Science Education and Research will be able to break into the top 500 of world rankings because we should not be satisfied with rankings within our own country. We have a global role to play. We must compete with the rest of the world and make sure that our students and younger generation are getting the best education possible whether in the field of science education or in the field of arts and humanities.

Thank you very much, Mr. Deputy-Speaker Sir.

Sugata Bose speaks on General Budget discussion in Lok Sabha

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For the third time, my esteemed friend Mr Arun Jaitley, a distinguished lawyer, has presented a dissertation on macroeconomic management in the form of the Union Budget, and for the third time I rise in this august House to offer my critique, a constructive one I hope, on his budget proposals.

Mr Arun Jaitley’s third Budget is better than his first two, but is it good enough for our toiling millions? Mounting evidence of agrarian distress combined with electoral setback in Bihar has ensured that this Government does not wish to be seen any more as a ‘suit boot ki sarkar.’ The ‘sarkar’ now wishes to appear in a simple farmer’s garb. But does the attire – putting on a farmer’s clothes – signal a real change of heart? To answer this question, we must closely examine the budgetary allocations. It would appear that a shift in rhetoric has run far ahead of any real shift in any economic priorities.

The Honourable Finance Minister could not bring himself to utter the phrase ‘farmers’ suicides’ in his lengthy Budget speech, yet the spectre of an agrarian crisis in Bharat has made him foreground agriculture and farmers’ welfare together with the rural sector as two of the nine pillars on which his budgetary edifice is constructed. There is a belated recognition that irrigation, agricultural extension services and rural roads count as infrastructure and require enhanced public investment. A long-term irrigation fund with an initial corpus of Rs 20,000 crore is a small beginning that has to be welcomed. It must be targeted towards those about whom Rabindranath Tagore had written, “Ora mathe mathe beej boney, paka dhan katey, ora kaaj korey’ (‘they sow seeds in our fields, they reap the harvest, they work’).
Mr Jaitley has resorted to a conjuror’s trick to claim a massive increase in the Ministry of Agriculture’s allocation. If you look at the figures, at first sight it appears that he has almost doubled the allocation for the Ministry of Agriculture, but a close look at the numbers reveal that as much as Rs 15,000 crore of this amount, the interest subsidy for extending credit to farmers, has simply been shifted from the head of the Finance Ministry to that of the Agriculture Ministry. If we discount for this sleight of hand, total spending on agriculture rises from a paltry 0.17% of GDP to 0.19% of GDP, not enough to make a material difference in the lives of those who work in our farms and fields.

Mr Jaitley has congratulated himself for providing the highest-ever allocation of Rs 38,500 crore for MGNREGA, a programme that had earlier been scorned by the Prime Minister. I do not want to enter into the quibble that we had between Shashi Tharoor and the Honourable Finance Minister as to whether it was in fact the highest-ever allocation that he had announced. I will simply say this that the rural employment programme is demand-driven and the Government is required by law to fund it. The State Government of West Bengal, led by Mamata Banerjee, has efficiently administered this programme, yet it is one of at least fourteen States that suffer from the slow and late disbursement of MGNREGA funds by the Central Government.

This Government from the very outset has been reasonably clear-eyed about the investment in roads and railways, ports and airports. The total projected outlay of Rs 2,18,000 crore in 2016-17 on roads and railways is the best that can be expected if the fiscal deficit target of 3.5% of GDP is met. I appreciate the Finance Minister, in his Budget speech frankly acknowledged that he had received two contradictory opinions about the fiscal deficit. In my opinion, an excessive tightening of the fiscal belt is neither necessary nor desirable in the current economic climate. I am therefore in favour of the announcement that he has made in favour of the review of the FRBM Act by an expert committee, as there is need for flexibility in the context of global volatility. The Finance Minister’s two earlier Budgets had grossly neglected health and education. There is a feeble attempt made this year to rectify past mistakes by restoring spending levels on some flagship health and education programmes. A mission to provide LPG connection to women members of poor households will begin to combat health hazards on cooking on open fires. However, the launch of a new health protection scheme comes nowhere close to addressing the looming health crisis facing our country. There is a yawning gap between the slogan of ‘healthcare for all’ and the dismal state of our public hospitals and primary healthcare centres. Women’s and children’s health and education continue to face the cold winds of neglect. The ICDS budget has actually been cut to only Rs 14,000 crore from Rs 15,394 crore, to be spent this year.

Just day before yesterday, we observed Women’s Day in Parliament. Is this the way, Mr Chairman, to treat our anganwadi workers and helpers who take care of our deprived and underprivileged children? The Budget promises to devote a larger share of allocation under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan to the quality of primary education, assuming that the challenge of universalisation has been largely met. Both continued access and quality of school education deserve attention. So far as higher education is concerned, I have repeatedly stated in Parliament that the ritual of announcing a few new IITs, IIMs and AIIMS-like institutions every year does very little to achieve excellence in the field of higher education. It results in spending on brick and mortar for a few years, doing nothing for the improvement of the quality of human resources. Since 2014, I have been calling for investment in 10 of the most promising institutions of higher education to make them truly world-class. That call seems to have been heard in the Finance Minister’s announcement that an enabling regulatory architecture will be provided to 10 public and 10 private institutions to emerge as world-class teaching and research institutions. The formulation of a detailed scheme still lies in the future, and the devil is likely to be in the details. We need to ensure that there is good mix of Central and State institutions in the 10 public institutions that are selected as part of this scheme. I hope that the Honourable Finance Minister, who is sitting here, will, in his reply, give us more information on the kind of enabling regulatory structure that he has in mind for the proposed world-class institutions. I hope very much that at least one or two heritage institutions from West Bengal, a State that has led in the field of higher education in this country historically, will find their place in the final list of 10 public institutions to be selected.

The Honourable Finance Minister constantly reminds us of the Asian norm of a corporate tax rate, pegged at 25%, and has taken tentative steps towards that goal in this Budget. The manifesto of the ruling party had proclaimed that spending on education would be raised from 3% to 6% of GDP, that is the norm in much of Asia. We still await the Finance Minister’s road map towards fulfilling that campaign promise.

As a member of the External Affairs Committee, I share Shashi Tharoor’s dismay that the allocation for this key ministry has been reduced from Rs 15,085 crore in 2015-2016 to Rs 14,662 crore in 2016-2017. Arun Jaitley ji must be more generous to Sushma ji, not just because she is a wonderful colleague but because it is essential for the efficient and imaginative conduct of our foreign policy. We cannot meet our foreign policy objectives by having our Prime Minister flying so low to different destinations. We need a larger and a more capable foreign policy establishment suited to meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

The banking crisis has elicited a few new initiatives from Mr Jaitley in the sphere of financial sector reforms; we welcome them. But I’m sure you will also agree there is much more to be done. Only this morning we had a debate here about a big defaulter who has just escaped from this country.

An area where the Budget falls woefully short is in its response to the jobs emergency. There are various nice-sounding schemes that have been announced but they have not yet helped our youth to stand up. A budgetary provision of Rs 1,000 crore to incentivise employers to hire unemployed persons is a pittance. The youth of this country are becoming increasingly impatient and restive, and see Mr Modi’s promise of remunerative jobs in his campaign as nothing but a mirage. The youth are being alienated for other reasons; you cannot alienate them on the jobs front as well.

Healthy output growth with anaemic job growth will spell political doom for this Government. I say to the Government of this day – you campaigned on hope; don’t dash the hopes of the young.

On the taxation side, we are relieved that the Government has withdrawn its ill-advised proposal to cast covetous eyes on the life savings of our senior citizens. I think your niyath was good, your intention was good. I know that Jayant Sinha has lived in America for many years, you have a chief economic advisor who has international experience. I know that there are advanced countries that require pensioned funds to be taken in the form of annual distributions. In addition to having a comprehensive social security net, the governments and employers of those countries provide a good deal of choice as to where pensioned contributions are invested. India has neither choice nor a proper social security net, and that is why for once I agree with the Prime Minister when he responded to public pressure and directed to the finance ministry to roll back this particular measure. The salaried class, under today’s circumstances, must have full freedom on what to do with their pensions.

I remember being very worried when my mother drew her provident fund as a senior citizen to contest two parliamentary elections in the late 1990s. I had thought then it was a very rash thing to do. But what else could she do as an honest and public-spirited person? When will this Government introduce State funding for elections to root out corruption in our political system? We are much beholden to big business who finance political parties and political candidates.

As before, this year’s Budget relies less on direct taxes (in fact, the finance minister has given away some of the direct taxes that he could have collected) and more on indirect taxes, an imbalance that is inherently regressive. Taking advantage of low global oil prices, the Government has raised revenues by indirectly taxing petroleum products instead of passing on the benefits to consumers.

By all means, tax the rich merchants. By all means, introduce transparency in their transactions. But the proposed excise tax on gold jewellery may, in fact, adversely impact goldsmith workers who are poor but skilled artisanal workers. So please direct your attention to the merchants who may be avoiding the system but please also take care of the many artisanal workers who rely on employment in this industry. This year’s Budget is littered with cesses and surcharges that will […] of tax revenues, and needless to say, it violates the spirit of cooperative federalism. Already in this financial year, the Centre has collected a larger proportion of the revenues than the Finance Minister had anticipated at the beginning of this year. In conclusion, Mr Chairman, Mr Jaitley’s third Budget is cautious like his earlier ones. Even though it does attempt some course corrections, reacting to changing political and economic circumstances, the discourse remains trapped in the binary between pro-rich versus pro-poor. In his anxiety to being labelled pro-rich, the Honourable Finance Minister has not been bold enough to introduce some pro-market measures that may, in fact, benefit the poor, beyond making them recipients of direct benefits transfers of LPG and fertilizer subsidies.

The expectation that had been raised of big bang economic reforms since 2014 has finally ended with a whimper in 2016. Our farmers and our youth will demand a reckoning in 2019, if not sooner, whether the promises made in the Budget of 2016, backed by inadequate resources so far, have been in fact redeemed or not.

Sugata Bose speaks on the occasion of International Women’s Day

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I appeal to you Madam Speaker, that one way or another please ensure that women have just representation in the Lok Sabha in the future.

Sonia Gandhi ji has already paid tribute to the women who took part in the Gandhian Satyagrahas. Madam Teacher has already mentioned the Rani of Jhansi and the women, very often very poor women working in rubber plantations who fought in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment of the Indian National Army.

I would simply add my tribute to women revolutionaries like Pritilata Waddedar of the Chittagong Armoury Raid and Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay, who went abroad and there, in the United States, she was the first to refuse to give up her seat in a train, long before Rosa Parks did the same thing on a bus.

So, these are the women whom we should remember and take as our inspiration and I wish to tell my women colleagues that because my name ends with an ‘A’, I often get letters addressed to ‘Ms Sugata Bose’ and I never object to that.

And especially on this 8th of March, I want to say that we will stand in solidarity with you and fight shoulder to shoulder with you to end gender discrimination in our country once and for all.

Ten things Sugata Bose said during his speech in Lok Sabha

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Trinamool MP Sugata Bose today earned praises from all quarters for his speech during a discussion on the current situation in universities specially JNU and University of Hyderabad.

Even as he was speaking, he started trending on Twitter with users praising his eloquence and erudition.

During his 20-minute speech, the Trinamool MP quoted several great luminaries and quoted effusively from history, while speaking about nationalism.

Here are ten things Sugata Bose said in Lok Sabha today:

1. We have a heartless government that refuses to listen to the cries of despair coming from the marginalised sections of our society

2. I deplore the brand of nationalism espoused by the members of the treasury benches that I find narrow, selfish and arrogant

3. The idea of India is not so brittle as to crumble at the echo of a few slogans

4. It is not a crime to seek freedom from caste oppression, freedom from class exploitation, freedom from gender discrimination

5. We must give our students and youth the freedom to think, the freedom to speak, the freedom to be idealistic and yes the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them

6. I condemn the acts of vigilantism by self-appointed protectors of the nation which foments a climate of fear. The government must end the witch-hunt for anti-nationals and the shameful scape-goating of university students

7. The nationalism that is being talked about from the other side of the House, represents centralised despotism and it is talking about rigidly imperial State

8. I fear that those who are defining nationalism so narrowly would brand Rabindranath Tagore, the composer of our National Anthem, as anti-national

9. Free our universities. Free our students. Let our youth dream a glorious future for our country

10. Let our freedom be the freedom of the souls and let us remember the admonition of our great sentinel that what is huge is not great and pride not everlasting

 

Click here for the full transcript of his speech 

Sugata Bose speaks on a discussion on current situation in universities

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As someone who has been a teacher at universities for three and a half decades, I hope that my colleagues in this august House will have the patience to listen to me. This is after all a forum for debate and discussion as the President reminded us only yesterday.

Just over a month ago a Dalit research scholar at Hyderabad Central University, Rohith Vemula tragically took his own life. The death of a bright young Dalit scholar is not new in Indian universities. The Thorat Committee that was appointed in 2007 to investigate the growing number of deaths among students in elite institutes discovered that out of the 23 suicide cases, 19 were Dalits, 2 were tribals and 1 was Muslim. This alarming figure should have raised several questions of academic justice and freedom that our nation needed to seriously needed to ponder.

Rohith Vemula left us a poignant message when he chose to leave this unfair world. In the only letter he was going to write, he told us, “I always wanted to be a writer; a writer of science like Carl Sagan. I loved science, stars.” Rohith today is not dead. He lives up in the Heavens, as a star of purest race serene to serve as a beacon light to posterity. Rohith’s tragedy should have stirred our collective conscience, including that of our government. Unfortunately we have a heartless government that refuses to listen to the cries of despair coming from the marginalised sections of our society. Instead of assuring social justice to all, the ruling party wishes to use the student unrest in our universities to claim a monopoly on nationalism and tar all of their critics with the brush of anti-nationalism.

Madam Speaker, I am not a communist; in fact I won the seat in the Lok Sabha by defeating a prominent communist candidate. But I stand today in support to the right to freedom of expression by young students who maybe inspired by Marx as well as Ambedkar.

Madam Speaker, I am a nationalist. I believe in a kind of nationalism that instils a feeling of selfless service in our people and inspires their creative efforts. But I know that nationalism can be a truly Janus faced phenomenon and I deplore the brand of nationalism espoused by the members of the treasury benches that I find narrow, selfish and arrogant.

Following the unrest in Hyderabad, there were incidents that took place in Jawaharlal Nehru University, a university named after our great first Prime Minister. Earlier this month, at one or two events on that campus very disturbing slogans were raised and deeply troubling posters were put up. We unequivocally condemn those slogans and posters.

However we strongly oppose the attempts being made to portray an entire university as a hub as anti-national activities and the onslaught of state forces on academic freedom. We are horrified to witness the scenes of students, teachers and journalists being assaulted within the court premises of Patiala House. It was not the students madam speaker but the black-coated storm troopers affiliated to the ruling party defiled and desecrated the image of Mother India.

The reverberations of the JNU incidents where felt in my home state, especially in Jadavpur University. There too unfortunate slogans were heard in the streets around the campus but by contrast with what happened in the nation’s capital, the West Bengal state administration led by Mamata Banerjee and the University administration knew how to defuse tension and to not unnecessarily escalate the crisis.

After all, the idea of India is not so brittle as to crumble at the echo of a few slogans. You cannot be a true nationalist if you are opposed to freedom. It is not a crime to seek freedom from caste oppression, freedom from class exploitation, freedom from gender discrimination.

We must give our students and youth the freedom to think, the freedom to speak, the freedom to be idealistic and yes the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them. What must be avoided at all costs is the criminalisation of dissent.

I heard the speech given by Kanhaiya Kumar on YouTube. I agreed with many things that he said and I disagreed with some of things that he said. I agreed with him when he extolled Ambedkar’s commitments to constitutional rights and constitutional morality. I agreed with him when he expressed admiration for our great revolutionaries Bhagat Singh, Ashfaqullah, Sukhdeb and Rajguru.

He of course said that the RSS took no part in our freedom struggle; there too, he was right. But as a teacher I would have liked to have a discussion with him about history and I would have pointed out to him that even the Communists had actually not taken part in the freedom struggle and also betrayed the freedom struggle at crucial moments – as in 1942 and the Azad Hind Movement led by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

I condemn the acts of vigilantism by self-appointed protectors of the nation which foments a climate of fear. I believe that students, teachers, university personnel – all be permitted to express opinions freely, without fear, even if they conflict with the government’s political stances. The government must end the witch-hunt for anti-nationals and the shameful scapegoating of university students. We believe, this witch-hunt is meant to distract the nation from issues necessary to the nation’s development such as employment opportunities and poverty alleviation. We insist no group within the Indian polity or the diaspora is the univocal spokesperson for the nation.

History shows us that state-sponsored or state-condoned campaigns against so-called anti-nationals leads to authoritarian rule and destruction of democratic principles. If universities and students are attacked the legacy of anti-colonial freedom struggle and of democratic reconstruction is gravely undermined.

Madam Speaker, we learnt our lessons in nationalism from great figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose. Those of us, who are from Bengal, are also inspired by what we have been taught about patriotism and nationalism by figures like Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, Bipin Chandra Pal, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das and Aurobindo Ghosh.

I was just wondering whose definition of nationalism would be acceptable to my friends in the treasury benches. I thought I would at least try by citing before them the example of Aurobindo.

The issue of Kashmir kept coming up in the speech of Anurag Thakur. Now, it is incumbent on all of us, who are elected representatives of this House, to give a greater sense of belonging to the Union of India among the people of Jammu & Kashmir and all of our far-flung States.

The issue is about what kind of Indian Union do we want? What did Aurobindo say about this? He touched upon the secret of the difficulty of unifying ancient India and he cited ancient texts. He said that the Rishis from the Vedic age onwards propounded the ideal of Chakravarti, a uniting imperial rule, uniting without destroying the autonomy of India’s many kingdoms and peoples from sea to sea. The ruler was expected to establish suzerainty, and the full flowering of this ideal Aurobindo saw in the great epics. The Mahabharata narrates this legendary and quasi-historical pursuit of this ideal of empire which even the turbulent Shishupala is represented as accepting in his attendance at Yudhisthira’s dharmic Rajasuya sacrifice.

The Ramayana too presents such an idealised picture of such a dharma rajya – a settled, universal empire. And it is, in Aurobindo’s words, “not an autocratic despotism but a universal monarchy supported by a free assembly of city and provinces and of all the classes which are held as ideal”. He goes on to say, “According to this ideal, unification ought not to be secured at the expense of free life of the regional peoples or of the communal liberties and not therefore by a centralised monarchy or a rigidly unitarian imperial State.”

We are not a monarchy anymore but a democracy. But the nationalism that is being talked about from the other side of the House, represents centralised despotism and it is talking about rigidly imperial State.

I mentioned Rabindranth Tagore. He composed our national anthem. He was also a powerful critic of nationalism. He knew nationalism could be both a boon and a curse. He wrote beautiful patriotic songs during our Swadeshi movement. But then he also saw that nationalism could lead to the carnage of war, during the First World War in Europe. And that is why when he travelled around the world in 1916 – he first went to Japan and then the United States of America – he gave lectures on nationalism; it was a powerful critique of nationalism which were later on published by Macmillan as a book titled ‘Nationalism’.

Sometimes I fear that those who are defining nationalism so narrowly would brand Rabindranath Tagore, the composer of our National Anthem, as anti-national.

We have always have had different visions of nationhood. It is a matter of debate of what would be the ideal form of the Union of India that has animated the ideals of all the great figures I have talked about. Chittaranjan Das had his debates with Rabindranath Tagore but they were respectful towards each other. Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das felt you could have a form of nationalism where you would be very proud of Bengal, your region, but you can be a very proud Indian nationalist. And all this has to flower, of course, in the garden of internationalism.

I know, Anurag Thakur tried to quote Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, but he confused two great Bengali luminaries – Netaji and Rabindranath Tagore, the patriot and the poet. When I said the nationalism they (the government) represent is narrow, selfish and arrogant, I was in fact quoting from Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. When did he utter these words? He spent a number of years in exile from 1933 to 1936 in Europe. As he was leaving Europe and coming back to India to be imprisoned here, he pointed out that the new German nationalism he had witnessed in Europe was “narrow, selfish and arrogant”.

And then in 1937, when Japan invaded China – at that time the Indian National Congress sent a medical mission to China – Netaji said we must pursue national self-fulfilment in every direction but not at the cost of imperialism and not at the cost of self-aggrandisement. We must understand that nationalism must have a liberating aspect and that is what inspired generations of our freedom fighters. But, nationalism in its narrow form can also be extremely oppressive. And this is a topic and concept on which we ought to be able to have healthy debates.

The President speaking to us yesterday pointed out that this government is trying to repeal many obsolete laws. There are many colonial era laws that need to be done away with from our statute books and I venture to suggest that the law on sedition is one of them.

This was the law that was used to persecute our freedom fighters. We ought to be able to have a discussion with our children, with our students, with our youth. We ought not to be subjecting them trumped-up charges of sedition based on morphed visual evidence. We ought not to be doing this to our students and our youth today.

I have said what I wanted to, because it is not always necessary to make a long speech in order to stand for academic freedom. Free our universities. Free our students. Let our youth dream a glorious future for our country. I had mentioned that Tagore wrote this beautiful little book on nationalism. And at the end of the book he printed an English rendering of a Bengali poem that he had composed on the last day of the 19th Century:

The last sun of the century sets amidst the blood-red clouds of the West

and the whirlwind of hatred.

The naked passion of self-love of Nations, in its drunken delirium of greed,

 Is dancing to the clash of steel and the howling verses of vengeance.

Keep watch, India.

Let your crown be of humility, your freedom the freedom of the soul.

Build God’s throne daily upon the ample bareness of your poverty

And know that what is huge is not great and pride is not everlasting.

 

From this poem, I would simply like to underline three phrases:

Let us not be deluded by the naked passion of self-love of Nations. Let our freedom be the freedom of the souls and let us remember the admonition of our great sentinel that what is huge is not great and pride not everlasting.

Thank you.

Trinamool MP’s speech in Parliament receives praise from all quarters

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Twitter broke into thunderous applause for Trinamool MP from Jadavpur, Sugata Bose, and praises poured in from all quarters after his eloquent and hard-hitting intervention on the issue of recent incidents at universities.

While some users praised Trinamool for fielding Sugata Bose for the debate, others praised the oratory skills of the Harvard professor and thanked him for taking the debate to the next level.

What he said

Speaking on the subject, Sugata Bose condemned the government heartless reaction to the death of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad. “Rohith Vemula left us a poignant message when he chose to leave this world. Rohith is not dead, he lives in the heaven above like a star,” he said.

Accusing the government of living under the impression that it has a monopoly over nationalism, the Trinamool MP went on to say, “The idea of India is not so brittle as to crumble at the echo of a few slogans.” In contrast to the Central government, West Bengal government knew how to defuse tension in Jadavpur University and not overreact, he added.

The Jadavpur MP contended that students freedom to think, speak, make mistakes & learn from them. He condemned the vigilantism of self-appointed custodians and urged the government to end the witch-hunt for anti-nationals and scapegoating of university students.

Here are some reactions from Twitter to Sugata Bose’s speech:

Sugata Bose speaks on the intolerance debate

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The word ‘intolerence’ is a mere euphemism for a wave of unreason, injustice and inhumanity that has been unleashed across our country during the last few months. My friend, Mr Venugopal has already given a comprehensive catalogue of the incidents that have taken place, so I will not repeat that catalogue. In order to confront the challenges that confront our country today a powerful message needs to go out from this Lok Sabha, the House of the People, that reason (or akal) will be our only torch, justice (or insaaf) our only worship and humanity (or insaniyat) our only religion.

As the minorities face the cold winds of exclusion from the powers-that-be today, it is pertinent to recall what Dr Ambedkar said on the question of minority protection while introducing the draft Constitution on November 4, 1948. I will quote only one, the most important, sentence, from that historic speech: “It is for the majority to realise its duty not to discriminate against minorities.”

Whatever might be Mr Rajnath Singh ji’s reservations about the term ‘secularism,’ its use or misuse, will he as Home Minister at least perform this duty enjoined on us by the architect of our Constitution? If we wish to truly honour the lead author of our Constitution on his 125th birth anniversary, let us pledge today collectively never to let our minorities feel insecure in this great land of ours.

Had the honourable Speaker allowed this humble historian to say a few words in the discussion on the Constitution, I would have just said something about the concept of constitutional morality that our Home Minister referred to towards the end of his speech.

Dr Ambedkar invoked the concept of constitutional morality described by Grote, the historian of Greece, as “a paramount reverence for the forms of the Constitution enforcing obedience to authority acting under and within this forms yet combined with the habit of open speech and unrestrained censure of those very authorities as to all their public acts.”

Constitutional morality, Dr Ambedkar told us, is not a natural sentiment; it has to be cultivated and the people have to learn it. And he followed up this contention with a rather debatable contention: he said, democracy in India is only a top dressing of the Indian soil which is essentially undemocratic. Now in today’s climate, who knows, someone would probably label him unpatriotic, anti-national for having said so. But if we are a mature democracy we will ponder over his remark and embrace the value of constitutional morality as respect for forms and processes that enable us to negotiate and then rise above differences, difference which Grote described, are characterised by the bitterness of party contests. This Lok Sabha needs to transcend this bitterness of party contests.

In the course of the Constituent Assembly debates, Zairul Hassan Lari pointed out that constitutional morality was a value that not just citizens should learn but also the government must learn; the spirit underlying the Constitution and not just the words must guide the Government. When will this Government begin to appreciate that it can learn much more from the criticism of its opponents than from the eulogy of its supporters? I urge this Government to listen to the voices of our most brilliant thinkers and writers, historians and scientists, artists and activists, and not let loose their hounds in the social media on them whenever they express their anguish or concern. Don’t be sarcastic about them by calling them “our wonderful intellectuals.”

To be absolutely clear, we are not saying that India is intolerant. We are saying, followers, supporters and even some members of this Government are spreading a virulent form of prejudice and bigotry. The refusal to unequivocally condemn and take exemplary action against the offenders on the part of the leader of this Government must be seen as out of sync with the concept and the value of constitutional morality.

Our poet, Kazi Nazrul Islam had sung, “Hindu na ora Muslim oi jigyase kon jon/ Kandari bolo dubiche manush, sontan mor maa’r.” The duty of the captain of a ship is to treat his passengers in crisis equally as human beings, as children of the mother.

Intolerence is bad, Madam Speaker, but tolerance is not good enough. I agree with Supriya Sule that should we just be tolerating one another? That is not my idea of India; we have to aspire for something much higher. We must cultivate the value of cultural intimacy, ‘sanskritik sannidhya’, among our diverse communities, that was the foundation of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s political philosophy. He said to the Maharashtra Provincial Conference as early as 1928, that democracy is by no means a western institution, it is a human institution. He wanted to see a federal republic of India after independence, and he warned Indians not to become a queer mixture of political democrats and social conservatives, and he spoke in unequivocal terms about building political democracy on the pedestal of a democratic society; and he spoke about not just the depressed classes, the working classes, but also the women of India. He regretted that the different communities in India were too exclusive.

Fanaticism is the greatest thorn in the part of cultural intimacy, he told his audience, and there is no better remedy for fanaticism than secular and scientific education. That was the first occasion on which Subhas Chandra Bose used the term ‘secular.’ For him, secularism was not hostile to religion or religiously informed cultural differences, but he felt it could help foster cultural intimacy, ‘sanskritik sannidhya’ among India’s diverse religious communities.

Madam speaker, a few days ago I saw a beautiful photograph of our Prime Minister paying homage to Netaji and the noble martyrs of the Indian National Army in Singapore. Our Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee paid her tribute during her visit to Singapore last year. Who were these martyrs? They were Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian soldiers who dined together before they went to war together, and their blood mingled in the battlefields around Imphal and Kohima so that India maybe free. The original martyrs’ memorial had been blown up by Mountbatten’s forces. The Singapore Government very generously built a new memorial fifty years later in 1995.

What was the name of the INA officer who built the martyr’s monument? His name was Cyril John Stracey, a wonderful Christian, an Anglo Indian officer of the INA, and the motto of the INA ‘Ittehad, Itmad aur Qurbani’ was emblazoned on it.  On the 16th, 17th January of 2016, we in Kolkata will be observing the 75th anniversary of Netaji’s Great Escape from India. Sisir kumar bose drove him out of Calcutta. But who received him in Peshawar? His name was Mian Akbar Shah a great freedom fighter of the North West Frontier Province. Who was Netaji’s only Indian companion on the perilous submarine voyage from Europe to Asia that took ninety days? His name was Abid Hasan from the Hyderabad Deccan. Who was the commander of the first division of the INA that fought in India’s North East? His name was Mohammad Zaman Kiani. Who hoisted the Indian tricolor in Moirang, near Imphal in 1944? His name was Shaukat Malik. And who was Netaji’s only Indian on his final flight in 1945? His name was Habibur Rahman. And what were the names of the three officers who were put on trial at the Red Fort 70 years ago? Their names were Prem Kumar Sahgal, Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon and Shahnawaz Khan.

We have observed an anniversary of the Constitution, the birth anniversary of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. I think we ought to be observing the 70th anniversary of the Red Fort Trials that began on the 5th of November 1945 and ended on the 31st of December 1945, and these three men were sentenced to deportation for life, but the British could not implement that sentence. The older generation will certainly remember that there was a slogan ‘Lal Quile se aye awaz Sahgal Dhillion Shahnawaz’. Mahatma Gandhi visited the INA armies in the Red Fort and he was told that in the INA, ‘we do not recognise any differences of creed and religion. But here, the British are serving us ‘Hindu Tea’ and ‘Muslim Tea’ separately. So Mahatma Gandhi asked, ‘Why do you suffer it?’ So the reply came, ‘no we don’t, we mix Hindu tea and Muslim Tea half and half and then serve the same with food’. We have to rekindle that spirit of the winter of 1945 in India Today.

Madam Speaker, our fight against intolerance is essentially a fight against on reason in justice and inhumanity.

In conclusion let me make a fervent appeal concerning a sensitive issue that has led to a tragic loss of lives in recent months. We do of course have Article 48 as part of the many directive principle of the state and the subject of agriculture and animal husbandry urging steps for prohibiting the slaughter of cows.

Now Smt Lekhi yesterday made reference to this detective principle to the course of fiery speech, but it cannot under any circumstances be used as a sordid pretext to take precious human life. Dr Ambedkar would have been horrified to see this happen.

In my maiden speech delivered in June 2014 I had mourned the death of Mohsin Sheikh, the computer engineer in Pune. The incident had happened just days after the new government took power. Today I mourned the death of Mohammad Akhlaq and others who have been victims in recent months of the poison of religious hatred.

In the name of by gone generations that have built the Indian people into a nation I invoke the noble meaning of word ‘Akhlaq’. What does ‘Akhlaq’ mean? It means ‘ethics’. And I urge those who holds the reins of power in our country today, especially our Prime Minister and our Home Minister Rajnath Singh ji, to uphold the fundamental right to lives & liberty of all our citizens and abide by ‘Akhlaq’, the ethics of good governance that have informed the very best of Indian political heart and practice through the ages.

Thank you Madam Speaker.

Expect to sign over 20 MoUs in UK: Mamata

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Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said she was expecting to sign over 20 MoUs during her five-day visit to the United Kingdom.

Mamata Banerjee, who left for UK on Sunday, told media persons: “We hope to attract investment to make West Bengal an ideal destination.”

“In all, around 100 people are going to London. We will sign 22 to 23 MoUs, which will be good for business. We will focus on areas such as infrastructure development, education, health and tourism,” said the CM.

The meetings are scheduled to begin with a conference of British CEOs at the UK India Business Council meet on July 27. She would also attend a meeting of UKIBC and FICCI to discuss various issues related to business opportunities in the state on the same day.

The CM would also meet the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, at the Buckingham Palace. Ms Banerjee would meet British Employment Minister Priti Patel at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office where several MoUs would be signed.

On July 28, she would meet several business delegates, secretaries and partners who would also sign some MoUs. She would pay floral tributes at the statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.

There would also be a cultural event in the evening at the Natural History Museum.

Mamata Banerjee arrives in London for five-day visit

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee arrived in London, UK late Sunday night on a five-day tour heading an over 90-member entourage in a bid to attract investment to the state.

The team consists of Finance and Industry Minister Dr Amit Mitra, nearly 50-member business delegation, three Trinamool Congress MPs Derek O’Brien, Sugato Bose and actor Deepak Adhikari (Deb), Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee and several officials.

ITC chairman Y C Deveshwar, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group chairman Sanjiv Goenka and Ambuja Neotia Group chairman Harsh Neotia are there in the business delegation.

Industrialist Sanjay Budhia, who is also in the delegation, said he is hopeful that the trip would bring investment in tourism, health and infrastructure sectors.

Mamata Banerjee’s trip to London was finalised following an invitation of British Prime Minister David Cameron. The six-day trip, which will project West Bengal as an ideal destination for investment, would begin with a conference of British CEOs at the UK India Business Council meet on July 27.

She would also attend a meeting of UKIBC and FICCI to discuss various issues related to business opportunities in the state on the same day.

The CM would also meet the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, at the Buckingham Palace. Ms Banerjee would meet British Employment Minister Priti Patel at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office where several MoUs would be signed.

On July 28, she would meet several business delegates, secretaries and partners who would also sign some MoUs. She would pay floral tributes at the statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.

There would also be a cultural event in the evening at the Natural History Museum.