Articles by A R Vasavi

​Routledge Handbook of Contemporary India edited by Knut A Jacobsen; Oxon: Routledge, 2016; pp 506, £130 (hardback).

Government elementary schools are layered institutions that are affected by a bureaucratic administration, the specificities of local societies, and the agency of teachers. Although promoted as an agency and institution of democracy, modernity and development, these schools are characterised by a thin democracy, both in their everyday culture and in their linkage to local communities. Routinisation of teaching-learning practices, training fatigue among teachers whose agency has been eroded, and programme overload result in learning loss among children. The average government elementary school represents both the promise and the perils of a mass elementary education system. In its effect on society, the government elementary school is neither reproductive nor transformative, but disjunctive.

The revelations of the Karnataka Lokayukta report are symptomatic of a larger story that goes beyond corruption in high places. There has been a neglect of state institutions and decisions by the executive are taken not under consultation with the assembly but as decreed by a new religious math-temple-resort complex that has come to wield power and influence. Democratic processes have been sidelined and people's movements have been corrupted. The uneven growth of the state economy that has accompanied these processes holds out the danger of Karnataka becoming a land of deep inhumanity.

The Bharatiya Janata Party triumphed in Karnataka because it followed up on years of groundwork by cynically combining caste with money power while choosing its candidates. This strategy could mark a new direction in the politics in the state.

Recent debates on caste-based reservations have called attention to the need to fine-tune the process of selection of candidates but have overlooked the deeper problems that confront the average scheduled caste person. Socialisation patterns, sanskritisation, experiences in the public sphere and the educational institutions compound the subjection of dalit personhoods, leading to the loss of agency, orientation and sense of self-worth. Recognising this is imperative for the public and for all institutions so as to enable, integrate and scaffold the talents, skills and worth of scheduled community members.