PM cuts short Arjun-RSS debate on education

Cutting through the Arjun Singh-RSS debate on ‘‘detoxification’’ of the education system, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ...

Cutting through the Arjun Singh-RSS debate on ‘‘detoxification’’ of the education system, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said higher education should not be made ‘‘a prisoner of either bureaucracy or ideology’’.

In his maiden Independence Day speech this morning, the Prime Minister stressed the need to ‘‘integrate science and technology into all our development processes’’ and said, ‘‘The promotion of scientific temper must truly become a massive national movement’’.

‘‘We cannot make higher education a prisoner of either bureaucracy or ideology. It must develop on the foundations of professional excellence and intellectual integrity. The pursuit of excellence and concern for social equity must inform all our educational processes,’’ Singh said.

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His statement is of particular significance because HRD Minister Arjun Singh has been running a crusade against the infiltration of the ‘‘Hindutva worldview’’ into the syllabus and bureaucracy and is determined to replace it with a ‘‘secular’’ approach.

But by speaking against ‘‘ideology’’ entirely, the Prime Minister appears to be saying that one set of ideological hardliners should not be replaced by another at the cost of academic excellence and intellectual integrity. In other words, professional qualifications rather than ideological leanings must be the touchstone.

It is also significant that the Prime Minister made no mention of Hindutva or even communalism, preferring the terms ‘‘scientific temper’’ and ‘‘social equity’’ as the guiding principles of education instead.