P. Sainath: Highlighting 'Politics of Education' 

By VANDANA MAKKER
India-West Staff Reporter
BERKELEY, Calif. - "We can't ignore the effects of politics and poverty on education," announced journalist P. Sainath, addressing a packed auditorium at the ASHA-10 conference here May 26.

Sainath, who was the first journalist to win Amnesty International's Global Human Rights Journalism prize, was the keynote speaker at the event. He seemed to be telling the assembled crowd that, unfortunately, idealism and high spirits alone will not create lasting changes in India's educational system.

Sainath commented on the political forces behind the "rewriting" of Indian textbooks. "A false history is being created," he said. "You can't remain indifferent to what's happening."

While Sainath clearly supported and admired ASHA volunteers for their commitment and optimism, he warned them that it is impossible to ignore the many factors that affect India's educational system.

Out of the 70 percent of Indian children who are enrolled in the first standard, Sainath said, only five percent will graduate from high school. Eighty-five percent of India's poor are farmers or landless agricultural workers. In Haryana, there are only 821 females to every 1,000 males.

These statistics are not merely numbers, Sainath warned. "You have to deal with the linkages and politics of the educational system whether you like it or not. Sex ratios, casteism, and public health do impact education."

Sainath noted that "if [a person's] economic circumstances are changed, the entire system changes." He described the situation in Kerala, in which the life expectancy of women and the infant mortality rate are comparable to the U.S.

He cited a village in which landless female farmworkers were given control of the land they worked on, thus changing the economic makeup of the village.

"The 1990s were the decade of the fastest growing disparity between classes in India. The policies of the past ten years have destroyed the purchasing power of the poor," Sainath said.

Again and again he seemed to reiterate the idea that India's educational system cannot be separated from the rest of the country; its politics, its poverty, or its economy.

"The system was designed for 'us,' not 'them,'" he said. "You have to make the government play its role. When you're fighting for education, you're fighting for rights."