Finance Minister KN Balagopal’s mention in his fourth budget speech that the state government will explore opportunities for establishing private and foreign universities in Kerala has expectedly opened a hornet’s nest. Though the idea is yet to get final approval from the CPI or even the CPI(M)’s Politburo, Balagopal attempted to justify his mention by claiming it was the right step and even urged his critics to move with the times.
He may be right. No ideology, including his party’s, should remain carved in stone forever. It would then be only fit to be preserved in a museum. Nevertheless, Balagopal and the CPI(M) owe a convincing explanation to the public for their changed perspective before asking others to move ahead. Otherwise, it would be yet another dishonest volte-face or a sly operation to smuggle in changes through the backdoor. Scholars John Harriss and Olle Tornquist wrote in 2015 about how neoliberal reforms introduced by the Left Front government of West Bengal through the backdoor eventually proved disastrous to the Left and the state. They also cautioned Kerala not to take the same route.
In fact, unlike most other political parties, the Left has publicly admitted many of its past mistakes and also confessed that its wrong moves often made it lose much popular support. The well-known instances include its stand against the Quit India movement, adopting the Calcutta Thesis in 1948, which called for armed revolt against the nascent Indian state, and the CPI’s support for the Emergency. Though critics thought the corrections came too late, too little, leaders of most other parties seldom had the self-confidence to admit their own mistakes. Today's Left leaders, too, are averse to accepting their flaws.
But the issue of permitting foreign universities bites back not only the CPI(M) but also its political rivals. Congress, which slams the Left in Kerala today for the change of line, was the first in India to open doors for foreign universities in 2010 when the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was in power. The BJP, too, can't claim any moral high ground. They opposed the UPA government’s decision tooth and nail, forcing the Foreign Education Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill of 2010 to lapse. But in 2020, the Narendra Modi government introduced the New Education Policy (NEP), which envisaged permitting foreign universities.
One reason for Balagopal’s changing track now could be that it was only last November that the University Grants Commission (UGC) announced the regulations for establishing and operating campuses by........