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Bridging the gap
A picture of easy affability, Feroze Varun Gandhi, Member of Parliament representing the Sultanpur constituency for the BJP, created a flutter as he walked into the sprawling Durbar Hall.
A picture of easy affability, Feroze Varun Gandhi, Member of Parliament representing the Sultanpur constituency for the BJP, created a flutter as he walked into the sprawling Durbar Hall. He graciously greeted educators and acquaintances; before leaving he even gamely helped those seeking selfies with him by shooting them himself – “I’m taller, I’ll do it.” A politician blessed with intelligence, humour, and a desire to truly improve the country’s circumstances, Varun Gandhi is a symbol of hope for new India.
His address dwelt on The Road Ahead: Opportunities And Challenges. He started off pointing out that the incredible journey that India has undertaken to move forward from medievalism to post-modernism under a century is no small feat. However, the momentum generated by this trajectory, while throwing up aspiration and remarkable achievements, has also created visible fault lines which are both challenges as well as deterrents in the road going forward. In the course of his address, Varun, who is also a poet and writer, detailed the expanding role of the citizen in harnessing these opportunities and mitigating the severity of these threats going ahead.
He pointed out that the youth today is used to the prescribed curriculum and education. However, education is the result of the innovative process where new ideas and values are implemented in the present dynamic times.
He stated the examples of Amazon and Alibaba applications and the reasons for their success, namely detailed research of the market, understanding the economic structure, mutual dialogue and understanding with the trade communities and establishing a connection with circumstances and environment.
Varun Gandhi also presented a detailed and interesting data comparison of Indian and foreign communities such as China, Libya, Japan, Jordan and America. He believes that there is a lack of basic awareness and patience in the Indian community that makes the innovations fail. India has the second largest number of start-ups in the world but 91% of them are failures.
Discussing the statistics, he said India has 700 universities whereas America has 91,000 PhDs only for the science faculty. Practical experience with a good salary is provided; approximately $125,000 dollars a year. In comparison, India has only 1000 PhDs with a stipend that comes to as little as Rs.3 lakh a year. In addition, there are not many facilities for research in India, which is why all big scientists have done their research abroad.
Stating the example of Vasco da Gama, he said, “India was called 'The Golden Bird' because of its richness in textiles. At that time the Indian market had 42% of the textile business which is now reduced to 2% because now foreigners copy the stuff and sell it at half the price. The main cause is the delay in the patent process which results in red-tapism.” He pointed out that in India 900 patents are given per year and 90% are given to foreigners. America grants about 9000 patents per year to safeguard its economy.
He touched upon the fact that in India, 13 crores of the population between the age of 16 to 29 are uneducated, unemployed, unskilled and school dropouts after 15 years of age. Of the educated, 60% are self-employed, 30% are casual employees and only 10% are regular employees.
He added, “It’s the third year in a row that IT jobs in India have declined and only 4% of students out of 60,000 students can do basic coding because institutes are only scaling, not teaching skills.”
Relating to the principle of privilege perpetuating privilege, he made an interesting comparison between America and India. He pointed out that 60% of American students have medium family income whereas in India 84% of Indian IAS officials are from higher to upper-middle-class families.
On the use of technology, he maintained, though educational applications are the second most downloaded applications in India only 19% of rural India is mobile literate.
He suggested interesting approaches to remove hunger, for health insurance and environmental justice and for protection against deadly diseases like cancer. However, the involvement and awareness of people at large is needed. He remarked, “When you mess with nature, nature messes with you.”
Discussing the future of education, he said that the need of Indian society is to build a civic society. All of us are educated in one way or another, we should spread it. Citing the example of Africa, he said free education should be imparted. “Let everyone study for free, let everyone teach for free and those who have learned teach five people for free. Eventually, the literacy would be 100%.”
He also made a few key suggestions such as that privileged parliamentarians should give up their salaries, the election commission should be more empowered, and expert advice and education should be provided in accordance with the process of parliament. He also noted that representatives should be answerable, and election expenses should be brought down in real.
Peppering his speech with several light moments as well, he ended with the statement, “India has moved from the medieval period to post modernisation very fast and we have to bridge this gap by education based on understanding simple things to make a great nation.”