Bookwatch
BY ANITA JOSHUA
Media in the dock
13 December: The Strange Case of The Attack on the Indian Parliament, A Reader with an Introduction by Arundhati Roy, Penguin, Rs. 200.
AT first glance, 13 December: The Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament represents the other voice. The voice of the persons who chose to stand up and be counted against a system baying for the blood of those who attacked Parliament House.
But, the book — brought out on the fifth anniversary of the attack and amid a raging controversy over the death sentence to Mohammad Afzal and his clemency petition — also doubles up as a very uncharitable portrait of the Indian media. The media stands severely indicted for succumbing to the climate of terror and acting as the handmaiden of the police.
It is not the case of the contributors to this book that Afzal must walk free. Even Arundhati Roy — who has earned for herself a reputation of taking the system head-on — makes that point in the introduction written on December 2, 2006: "Even today Afzal does not claim complete innocence. It is the nature of his involvement that is being contested".
Questions that the media should have asked have been raised in the 20-odd articles included in this book. Most of the articles have seen the light of day in other publications over the five years since the attack, but together they provide a coherent — albeit repetitive — argument against the case presented by the police.
Though the media is held guilty for abdicating its responsibility as a "watchdog", there is an oblique acknowledgement that the other voice would not have carried far but for the Fourth Estate. If not out of conviction, at least out of the sheer necessity of providing their viewers something new in every bulletin, television channels provided the other voice considerable space. And, print followed suit on all counts.
Saving the IITs
The IITs: Slumping or Soaring, Shashi K. Gulhati, Macmillan, Rs. 140.
SHASHI K. GULHATI'S book on the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) could not have come out at a more opportune juncture; coming at a time when the country is preparing to increase intake in IITs and other central educational institutions to provide reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and final touches are being given to the Eleventh Five Year Plan.
Having taught at IIT Delhi for four decades, Gulhati knows the coveted IIT system inside out and has been witness to the manner in which its special status has been diluted over the years since 1973 when the "reservation policy was thrust on the IITs". Soon came the Third Pay Commission which brought the salary scales of faculty in IITs at par with faculty in universities and then came the 1980 decision to trim the five-year undergraduate programme by a year. Tracing the manner in which successive governments have forced their will on the IITs, Gulhati is of the view that the premier institutes are facing the "biggest onslaught" in the form of OBC reservation. His diatribe against the reservation policy apart, the author has called for a new pattern of governance where the Government is a minority shareholder.
Arguing like a true blue IITian who would like to see the IITs remain the islands of excellence they are reputed to be, Gulhati's book serves as a ready reckoner on the IIT system; providing as it does details from various reports, including the report of the IIT Review Committee 2004 which was submitted in 2006.
Mapping distress migration
Locked Homes, Empty Schools: The Impact of Distress Seasonal Migration on the Rural Poor, American India Foundation and Zubaan, Rs. 695.
THE latest statistics available with the Union Human Resource Development Ministry on the number of out-of-school children in the six-to-14 age group puts the figure at 7.05 million as on May 30, 2006. And, field studies cited in Locked Homes, Empty Schools: The Impact of Distress Seasonal Migration on the Rural Poor — brought out by the American India Foundation (AIF) — claim that children from "distress seasonal migrant" families alone could number about six million.
The latter figure is being contested by Ministry officials who insist that the number of migrant children quoted in the AIF publication is way too high. However, they do concede that this is a problem area and migrant children make up a sizable component of the six-to-14 year-olds out of the school system, several years into the Sarva Shiksha Ahiyan (SSA) to universalise elementary education by 2010.
While this book focuses attention on the not-too-well chronicled phenomenon of "distress seasonal migration", it does more than just dwell on the problem; particularly vis-à-vis education. Based on the experience of four NGOs working in different parts of India in different sectors — sugarcane harvesting in Maharashtra, salt pan, roof tile and charcoal making in Gujarat, and brick kiln migrations from Orissa to Andhra Pradesh — it throws light on the efforts being made in remote corners of India to deal with the problem. These small-scale efforts provide an insight into the kind of interventions needed and the workable alternatives available to the Government.
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