Is Marxist volte-face to welcome private universities a decade too late for Kerala?

Kerala’s higher education sector has witnessed a huge unravelling over the past three decades.

When Oommen Chandy first assumed chief ministership of Kerala in 2004, he went on to announce a 100-day programme to provide an impetus to governance. Among his lofty goals was to get big private companies to invest in the state, and just then BMW evinced interest in setting up its factory in Kerala.

The day the bilateral meeting was scheduled, an untimely Hartal came in the way. And when the second appointment too had to be cancelled on account of yet another shutdown, the German automaker swiftly moved on to Tamil Nadu next door.

Such is the notoriety of Kerala’s business-friendliness, or lack thereof, that even today many firms dare not invest in the state. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) – which has taken turns to rule Kerala every five years with the Congress – would take primary responsibility for this sad state of affairs, especially on account of its obstinacy and refusal to come to terms with the era of globalisation.

Marxist Dogma Wrecks Higher Education

And therefore, it was with a sheer sense of disbelief that Malayalis welcomed finance minister KN Balagopal’s budget announcement of rolling the red carpet for foreign universities (as well as private varsities) in the state on February 5, in a clear departure from the past.

Rewind to January 2016.

Outside the venue of Kerala’s Global Education Meet at Kovalam, a bunch of charged cadres of the Students Federation of India (SFI) – affiliated to the CPI (M) – began to heckle State Higher Education Council vice-chairman TP Sreenivasan, throwing the former Indian ambassador off-balance when a juvenile delinquent threw a sucker punch to his face.

The elderly Sreenivasan had to bear the brunt of the Marxist fury simply for being a part of the Chandy government’s plans to facilitate private universities to make a beeline to Kerala. It may not be forgotten that incumbent chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had gone on to rationalise the hooliganism of his student colleagues back then.

The U-Turn since 2016 has been rather quick coming, but the question of Kerala having to pay a huge price for the Marxist dogma over the years looms large.

It’s not just private capital that has been opposed tooth and nail by the Communists but even the advent of computers and tractor had them up in arms, until reality eventually dawned on them. Since the liberalisation era of 1991, Kerala – which blazed a trail in the past – has been held hostage to the Marxist obduracy to resist change, causing Malayalis to pay a heavy price today.

With the scarcity of jobs and the brightest minds migrating overseas at the first opportunity, ‘God’s own country’ is at the risk of becoming a geriatric state today. Unlike the previous generation of students – who eventually made their way back to Kerala from abroad – the current exodus is markedly different in that they are emigrating for good.

For a state with a reputation for making giant strides in education in the not-so-distant past, Kerala’s higher education sector has witnessed a huge unravelling over the past three decades. If the first wave of migration for professional education was witnessed in the 1990s to the neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and undivided Andhra Pradesh (due to the dearth of colleges in the state), the 2000s heralded the flight of students abroad seeking a better future.

Kerala’s Thirty Lost Years

In the meanwhile, Marxists were engaged in pitched battles on Kerala’s streets protesting the opening of professional education to private players, often delegating the job to the SFI and the youth wing, the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI).

How can one forget the Koothuparamba incident of 1994, where a bunch of impassioned DYFI activists lost their lives in police firing when a violent protest got out of hand. In the village of Chokli, near Thrikkarippur dwells Pushpan, a victim of that incident, rendered paralysed, celebrated as a ‘living martyr’ by the Marxist rank-and-file even to this day.

Today people might find it hard to believe that the Koothuparamba protests were a reaction to the cooperative model envisaged at the Pariyaram Medical College. When the AK Antony-led Congress government came up with the 50-50 quota policy while allowing self-financing colleges – to combat students going to neighbouring states to pursue professional courses – on the condition that fifty percentage of the seats be reserved for meritorious students, it was also opposed tooth and nail by the CPI (M).

However, the Marxists had no qualms following the same policy when the VS Achuthananthan-led Left government assumed power. And the present chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan did not find it odd while getting his daughter Veena admitted at the Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, a self-financing college-turned-university in Coimbatore, even as he spearheaded the Marxist protests against these very institutions in Kerala back then.

Not much has changed on the student politics front even today. It was only a couple of weeks ago that SFI state secretary PM Arsho threw the gauntlet down at Kerala governor Arif Mohammed Khan on behalf of his comrades numbering 1.6 million. Would you blame a middle-class Kerala parent mortgaging property to send their ward abroad for an education?

There could have been an added incentive for the CPI(M) to resist changes in education all these years. Unlike the bygone days dominated by trade unions, its assembly line is sustained today by those signing up for the party at the school and college levels. Like moths to the flame, they are consumed by their propensity to mortgage their collective intellect to the CPI(M), trading their own agency in the process.

And when these very students are now leaving the state behind for greener pastures abroad, no wonder the Marxist party too opted for reform. However, it might be a decade too late as the exodus is unlikely to abate and the horse has already bolted. Today, many of Kerala’s prestigious arts colleges cannot fill up their seats and institutions offering professional courses fare much worse.

As the CPI(M) led by CM Vijayan is at the Jantar Mantar today to ostensibly protest against the Centre’s curtailing of its fiscal autonomy and devolutions, the Kerala Marxists not only need to account for their own mismanagement of the state finances, but also deliver an unconditional apology for ruining the educational prospects of its youth over the decades.

Anand Kochukudy is a Kerala-based journalist and columnist. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.