Education and Social Justice in the Era of Globalisation

Perspectives from India and the UK

Marie Lall, Geetha B. Nambissan, Marie Lall, Geetha B. Nambissan

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000365740
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The book discusses the implications of globalization on education from the perspective of social justice. It looks at two countries — India and the UK — to look at how global economic and cultural processes are mediated through nation states, institutional structures and the aspirations of different social groups. It seeks to resituate the debates around education and social justice in policy, research and public discourse byhighlighting the need for a more nuanced understanding ofglobalization and education.

It also demonstrates the effects of economic dimensions — the politics of neoliberalism, and how this has shifted the understanding of state responsibilitiesand marginalized issues pertaining to the agenda of social justice.

1
Revisiting the Equality Debate in India and the UK: Caste, Race and Class Intersections in Education

Marie Lall and S. Srinivasa Rao

The transition from the post-War welfare state to the neoliberal modes of governance has been accompanied by changing and contested discourses as to what constitutes ‘equality’ in different societies. Though there have always been disagreements over the definitions and focus of equality, today new groups are demanding inclusion, and developing strategies and demands to define and expand the bases of equality. This has resulted in direct confrontations between beneficiary groups and non-beneficiary groups, which in turn have implications for the way equality is interpreted. This essay thus aims to discuss the shifts and discourses in the way issues of equality are perceived in the realm of education in the United Kingdom and India within the larger backdrop of globalisation and the rise of neoliberal policies. The essay will address the issue of formal labelling and how labels have often subsumed and camouflaged emerging inequalities. Whilst there are differences in the labelling processes and the remedial policies in the UK and in India, there are still notable and interesting similarities in both contexts. The focus here is on how the effects of globalisation, mainly driven by neoliberal forces of privatisation, have caused changes to policies and institutions and to the labelled groups themselves exacerbating the existing inequalities or introducing claims of new inequalities, and how the issues of caste, race and class intersect to further these new claims as well as the persisting inequalities in both school and higher education (HE) in both the countries.

Globalisation is associated with the increasing adoption of market forms for the delivery of services which were once organised by the state and financed through taxation (for example, education, health and other welfare provisions). Many writers such as Ball (2004), Apple (2001), etc., point to the increasing ‘commodification’ of these services and their penetration by a private sector ethos, either in provision or in sponsorship, or through the organisation of services according to market principles by the introduction of consumer choice. Globalisation has led to the restructuring of the education system at a global level, with the state increasingly taking a back seat, acting more as a regulator rather than a provider (Carnoy 2000). Governments attempt to justify opening up education to corporate capital on the grounds that private sector management methods are best, and that business people are needed to ‘modernise’ education for a ‘knowledge economy’ based on information technologies.

There is increased ‘policy borrowing’ across countries (Halpin and Barry 1995), even if the policies promoted have little relevance to the new context they are being applied to. In this light both India and the UK have experienced increased market logic in their education systems, where results have to be measured and efficiency and effectiveness are the buzzwords of the day. However, many scholars have pointed out that globalisation has led to greater economic and social inequality (UNDP 1999; Apple 2001; Rikowski 2002, etc.). Though educational access has expanded, it has become unequal in quality. As Martin Carnoy (2000) argues, greater decentralisation and privatisation has generally not increased the quality of educational services and has produced more educational inequality. Beyond this we argue here that the effects of globalisation have caused changes to policies, institutions and to the labelled groups themselves exacerbating the existing inequalities.

Caste and Race: Are they Comparable?

Caste and race are both socially constructed systems/institutions of inequality. Caste is the most pervasive dimension of social stratification in India. Estimated to be more than 2000 years old, the caste system has undergone several transformations. It is a hereditary, endogamous, usually localised group, having a traditional association with an occupation, and a particular position in the local hierarchy of castes. Relations between castes are governed, among other things, by concepts of ‘purity-pollution’, ‘division of labour’, ‘segregation’, etc. Those at the top are said to be the most clean and pure such as Brahmins and those at the bottom of the hierarchy are most impure or unclean, like the ex-untouchables.¹ Lower castes are denied equal opportunities in all aspects of social life, including education. However, the recent assertions of dalit identity have raised the level of awareness and consciousness among these groups (Bhambri 2005) to claim their rights as equal members of the democratic society.

Race, like caste is a socially constructed difference, whereby physical and cultural characteristics are used to distinguish one group from another. Whilst the apprtenance to a particular caste group cannot generally be deduced from physical characteristics, race focuses largely on skin colour. The social construction of race has underpinned regimes of domination and control throughout history and across the globe, epitomised by the colonial system. Today critical race theory (CRT) looks at how racism has become a part of society and underpins the domination of the White ruling classes. As Britain undergoes demographic changes with increased migration from different ethnic groups, the question of racism and racial equality has become politically salient.

Berreman (1960) suggests that the two systems are structurally similar though they differ in content and origin. He compares the relationship between ‘touchable’, especially ‘twice-born’ and ex-untouchable castes in India with that between African-Americans and Whites in the southern United States. According to him, in both the systems, ‘there are rigid rules of avoidance and certain types of contacts are defined as contaminating, while others are non-contaminating’ (Berreman 1960: 122). He argues that the ideological justification for the rules differs in the two cultures, as do the definitions of the acts themselves, but these are cultural details. The essential similarity lies in the fact that the function of the rules in both cases is to maintain the system with institutionalised inequality as its fundamental feature. Institutional inequalities are furthermore entrenched through the education system. As Berreman (1960) points out, colour is a conspicuous mark of caste in the west, while in India there are complex religious features which do not appear in the west, but in both cases, dwelling area, occupation, place of worship, and cultural behaviour and so on are important symbols associated with caste status and race. Some other scholars do argue that, ‘while the categories of caste and race may not be exactly equatable, nevertheless there can be notable parallels between racism and casteism, both based in ideologies about birth groups, involving notions of purity, and often resulting in social and occupational segregation’ (Jenkins 2004: 748).

The debate over comparability of race with caste and racism with casteism took place in the context of the United Nation’s World Congress on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in 2001. Scholars such as Béteille (2001) argued that racism was based on false science and there are no genetically and biologically different races among human beings. They maintain that caste has nothing to do with race and therefore to include caste in a discussion of racism was erroneous (Béteille 2 001). But this view is severely contested by scholars like Gail Omvedt (2001). For her, neither caste as a social system nor racism is based on actual biological differences among human beings. Both, though, are systems of discrimination that attribute natural or essential qualities to people born in specific social groups (Omvedt 2001). She argues that while caste may have nothing to do with race, the justifications of caste discrimination have a lot to do with the social phenomenon of racism.

In both India and the UK the state officially has developed policies to address the discrimination and inequalities vis-à-vis these marginalised caste and racial groups. The paradox of labelling remains as the state tries to overcome discrimination through policies targeted at the labelled groups. Whilst the labelling process is in itself a discriminatory act, it also emerges that certain discrimination and disadvantage falls ‘through the policy gaps’ whilst simultaneously raising consciousness among the other new groups who aspire to be included into the special state protection regime.

Background to Caste and Race Labelling

In India, the state-sponsored formal labelling process began during the colonial period. The British in India formally introduced the principle of equality of all citizens before law through the Caste Disabilities Act of 1850. As far back as in 1885, the provincial Madras government made a provision for education of children from disadvantaged sections. Later, as a consequence of the non-Brahmin movement, the Madras government reserved positions for the non-Brahmins in government services. Another significant development in the early part of the 20th century was the appointment of a committee (1918) by the Maharaja of Mysore for the upliftment of the non-Brahmin sections of the society under the chairmanship of Sir Lislie Miller.² Further, the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms (1919) envisaged representation of deprived sections in several local self-governments and public bodies. Further, the Government of India Act (1935) provided for reservation to the depressed castes in the legislative assemblies of different provinces.³

At independence, in India, the caste system and the practice of untouchability was officially abolished and the idea of ‘casteless’ society was advocated by the newly adopted Constitution. However, the ex-untouchables were formally labelled as ‘Scheduled Castes’ by the state by incorporating these groups in a Schedule of the Indian Constitution and identifying them on the basis of their economic exploitation, social segregation, occupational stratification and hierarchy based on ritual purity and pollution and socio-cultural oppression. Scheduled Castes are a large and important segment of the total Indian population (around 17 per cent in 2001), which is heterogeneous and whose problems differ from region to region, from urban to rural, and among various sub-castes.

The middle-class intelligentsia from among these groups prefer to describe themselves by the label ‘dalit’ (depressed), indicating their depressed position as a marker of a new identity. The newly emerging dalit consciousness is complex and encapsulates deprivations stemming from the inhuman conditions of material existence, powerlessness, and ideological hegemony (Oommen 1984: 47).⁴ One manifestation of such labelling by the group itself has led to the consolidation of the group internally and emerges as a single unit that could withstand the previous exclusions. A case in point is the emergence of a dalit party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), as a ruling party in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Despite such achievements of dalits in the political arena, the practice of untouchability is reported even today in certain parts of the country.

Another social group formally labelled by the state is the Scheduled Tribes, which constitutes around 8 per cent of the total country’s population. However, the problems of STs are different from those of SCs. Scheduled Tribes have been traditionally separated in terms of territorial communities. Some of the tribes still live in geographic isolation and are wandering communities, though in recent times, there appears to be an effort at cooption of STs into the fold of settled village social structure and Hindu society.⁵ Today, the Scheduled Tribes in certain forest and hilly areas face serious threats of displacement from the mining industry promoted by the neoliberal state. As a result, there has been a huge migration of tribals from their habitat into the urban metropolitan cities, leading a life of misery and deprivation in strange socio-cultural settings.

The early categorisations of SCs/STs were largely used to differentiate broad categories from each other; however, the policies were unable to address the diverse needs of these heterogeneous groups. As the economic livelihood of certain small sections of SCs/STs have improved, new, economically less fortunate groups (but not pertaining to the SC/ST categories) have become more vocal, demanding reservations for themselves. This is particularly the case for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), who are slightly above the SCs and below some of the intermediary peasant castes and are artisan castes such as blacksmiths, barbers, cow herders, washermen, etc. These artisan castes are labelled by the Constitution as ‘educationally and socially’ backward classes, re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Education Globalisation and Social Justice
• 1. Revisiting the Equality Debate in India and the UK: Caste, Race and Class Intersections in Education
• 2. The Educational Strategies of the Middle Classes in England and India
• 3. Globalisation, Economic Reforms and the Lives of Urban, Middle-class Women in India
• 4. Disability, Policy and Education: Contrasting Perspectives from India and England
• 5. Globalisation, Funding and Access to Higher Education: Perspectives from India and the UK
• 6. Advocacy Networks, Choice and Private Schooling of the Poor in India
• About the Editors
• Notes on Contributors
• Index