CPM’s big U-turn: Kerala moves to allow private universities, ‘have to absorb changes to survive’

“This change has happened at this moment. We make decisions in tune with the change and the CPI(M) has a well-defined perspective. At the same time, our stand is against the entry of foreign universities,” she added. The Bill is likely to be introduced in the ongoing Assembly session.

The CPI(M)’s earlier opposition to opening up the state’s higher education sector was best exemplified by the protests it led in 1995, when the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government began a medical college in the co-operative sector in Kannur. Five workers of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the CPI(M)’s youth organisation, were killed in police firing in Koothuparamba in Kannur.

Since then, the CPI(M) has marked this as a historic agitation against the privatisation of education in Kerala. A DYFI worker, then 24 years old, got injured during the protests and became a symbol of the party’s stand against the privatisation of education. He remained bedridden for 30 years and died in September 2024.

When the Congress government that was in power from 2002 to 2006 decided to start self-financing engineering colleges and medical colleges in Kerala to stem the flow of students to other parts of India in search of professional education, the party vehemently opposed the move.

In 2014, when the Congress government decided to confer autonomy to reputed arts and science colleges in the state, the CPI(M) again rose in protest. Two years later, the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), its student wing, manhandled former diplomat and then state higher education council vice-chairman Dr T P Sreenivasan, at a global education summit saying the government’s decision would “accelerate the commercialisation of higher education”.

The SFI also accused CM Oommen Chandy and Education Minister P K Abdu Rabb of receiving kickbacks to allow private universities in Kerala.

Responding to the latest decision, Sreenivasan on Tuesday said, “In 2011 itself we had brought a draft for private universities when students in Kerala were finding it difficult to get admission for higher studies. The Left had always opposed the move. We lost several years. We lost the market. Now there are not enough students in arts and science colleges. It is a wisdom that dawned late. Our Bill had stringent norms. The new one seems to be very liberal.”

Although the CPI(M) opposed the self-financing of education, the party later took a plunge into the sector, opening several ventures.

Before the reforms in higher education, the CPI(M) opposed changes in many arenas. The party in the 1990s opposed computerisation and before that mechanisation in agriculture. After 2000, the party was divided over accepting assistance from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank for various developmental projects. In 2003, when Pinarayi Vijayan was the CPI(M) state secretary, the party opposed ADB loans. The DYFI even roughed up ADB consultants who reached Kerala for deliberations with the Congress government.

After Vijayan became the CM in 2016, the CPI(M) and its allied outfits lowered the flags of protest to pave the way for reforms in every sector and expedite development. The party is now open to availing of resources from all available sources.

In 2019, the Vijayan government became the first state to tap the masala bond market abroad. Vijayan opened the floor for trading at the London Stock Exchange in connection with the issue of Rs 2,150 crore of masala bonds.