Communists Take a U-turn: Higher education in private sector no more anathem

Chameleon changes colour to match the environment, the Communists in Kerala do so to match the side of the aisle they sit on — Treasury or Opposition Benches. Their approach to the higher education sector in the State testifies to it. 

After coming to power for the second consecutive term in 2021, the CPI(M) held its state conference in Kochi and presented a document on its vision for a new Kerala. Burying its earlier stand against allowing any role for the private sector in Education, the document said: “Kerala higher education sector should be advanced in par with global level. Research institutes should be started in the state sector, co-operative sector, private sector, and in a Private-Public Partner model.” This was probably a prelude to the recent Cabinet decision to open doors to private universities for opening campuses in Kerala.

The Left Democratic Front Government last month decided to roll out the red carpet for private universities – a move opposed by the party with tooth and nail a few years back. Allowing private players to establish varsities in the State is an anathema for them when they in opposition. They see it as a bourgeois move to help the children of the rich to study in elite institutions at the cost of the poor. But they have now given a complete go by to it, by giving a spin to their change of stand.   

Justifying the decision, the CPI(M) leader and State Higher Education Minister, Professor R Bindu, said: “Ours is a globalised society and we have to absorb changes if we want to survive in the highly competitive scenario. The Bill has envisaged social control and regulation of private universities. It was an inevitable decision in tune with the times. We cannot keep away from the changes…..This change has happened at this moment. We make decisions in tune with the changes and the CPI(M) has a well-defined perspective. At the same time, our stand is against the entry of foreign universities.” 

One of the reasons for the party’s U-turn is the ‘outflow’ of as many as 35,000 to 40,000 students every year from Kerala to foreign countries for higher education. This brings out the dismal state of affairs in the education sector in the State. The young generation realizes that the quality of education here will not fetch them a decent job either in India or abroad.  A study by the Kerala State Higher Education Council reveals that nearly 1.32 million students from India went abroad for studies in 2022. According to the Australian Consul General in Chennai, Silai Zaki, there are over 80,000 Malayali students in her country as per the 2021 census. The bottom line is that: Students from Kerala are going abroad in droves for better education and jobs.

Hence, the communist-in-government have realized that “it would be suicidal if they don’t make amends to their approach to the private sector in education. They feel that the ideological rigidity would see the death of what the Washington Post called ‘One of the few places where a communist can still dream.,”

The communist parties have a long past of opposing modernisation and the introduction of technology in any field and then taking a U-turn. It looks ironical that the parties, who are now in the forefront for opening up education to the private sector, had violently opposed the introduction of computers in 1980s when they were in opposition. Their full-throated slogan was ‘Help me keep my job, let’s have computerization afterwards.’

One is reminded of the CPI(M)’s strident opposition to the then Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) Government’s decision to begin a medical college in the cooperative sector in Kannur in north Kerala in the mid-nineties. 

When the A. K. Antony-led UDF government opened the professional education sector to self-financing in 2001, there were huge protests by the CPM and the Students’ Federation of India (SFI). Communists’ antagonism to private sector finds its expression only when they are in opposition. 

In 2014, when the Congress government decided to confer autonomy to reputed arts and science colleges in the State, the CPI (M) workers arose in protest. The communists and their students’ wings had manhandled former diplomat and then state higher education council vice-chairman Dr. T. P. Sreenivasan during a ‘global education summit’ a few years back, claiming that such meets would ‘accelerate help commercialise higher education.’ This ugly development too happened when the CPI(M) was in in opposition. 

It is worth quoting a report that appeared in the New Indian Express in May 2012. Revealing the details about a closed-door meeting the American political counsellor had with top CPM leaders and ministers, the American diplomat said, “CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan opened the meeting, which was held in his office underneath framed pictures of Stalin and Lenin, by telling the political counsellor that “we need your assistance” in drawing US investment to the State.  Vijayan, who is a member of the CPM politburo, added that “we have no problems with American companies, no hesitation at all.”  He explained the change in the Kerala CPM’s position on investment by saying that “the government does not have enough money to adequately develop the state.  We need money from the private sector.”

It is a rightrope walk along ideology and power giving weight to the two in equal measure. But Changes to the core of a political must be posted in changes in society and economy. But the Kerala communist have failed to keep the balance between the two.

As the state monopoly of economy of the communist era failed to deliver, the communist the world over see that economic liberalism is the only way out. Hence the carpet welcome to the private sector, both in education as well as in other sectors of the State economy.