Naysaying won’t do

And now it is the human resource development minister’s turn to make known his aversion to foreign and even NRI money in education. Granted, education is not a highway, though the BJP is sensitive to the colour of money even in that sector. But this fear psychosis has to be challenged.

Apt as this newspaper is to disagree with Murli Manohar Joshi’s musculareconomic nationalism, the minister may have a point about foreign-controlled education even if it is only that the priorities of education controlled by foreign money may differ from the government’s or from privately but domestically funded education. Perhaps the BJP’s concern with inculcating a sense of national pride through education would not be best served by such money. Nor is this an objectionable objective for a government to have, providing that it does not become such an obsession that factual accuracy, and seeing education as the end, are not subordinated to it.

But is the observation valid that such money will come with “strings attached”, in the sense that Joshi perceives them? Certainly there are strings attached to foreign money which seek to ensure that it gets a good return on capital. Yet that is not what worries Joshi. His concerns are cultural and national. It is not exactly clear why foreign money should have a problem with these concerns unless Indians are to persuade themselves –like the RSS that its very purpose would be to colonise native minds.

The real issues are two. It is legitimate for the government to reflect on the kind of education foreign money would provide, assuming that, left to itself, it would be qualitatively different from that provided by domestic money. Yet the government is at full liberty to attach strings of its own.

It is free and welcome to spell out exactly what it will not allow foreign-funded education to do, and to act against violations. Spell it out, then welcome such money. India needs it. That is the second point. If India were France — rich as well as obsessed with national identity — it could have afforded the luxury of keeping out foreign money. But it manifestly is not rich though it is obsessed with national identity.

So it must devise ways to get foreign money but prevent it from doing whatever pernicious things this government imagines it might do. A last word. Foreign investors are not fools. They have proved themselves equal to thetask of adapting culturally to foreign markets: it is the only way to find acceptability. A McDonald’s Tikki burger would be ridiculous anywhere but here, but here it exists. Mr Joshi, please note.