What ails Bengal’s higher education?

Nepotism and favoritism are the most thrilling achievements of our wasted Bengal’s system of higher education…and its very easy to point out the culprit, as rudrangshu mukherjee thunders in his article in Anandabazar Patrika, dated 21 June, 2007. Why, the culprit is of course the CPM. Our critics of the left regime are such embodiments of relentless promotion of pure quality and quality alone in their haloed spheres of work, that your first reaction will be an overwhelming feeling of reverence to them and hatred to the left , these critics are holier than cow, and certainly holier than thou..

From a reliable source, I happen to know that a CPI veteran privately carries a statistics with him which shows how many relatives of CPM leaders/ministers got questionable employments at schools/ colleges/ universities… There's no denying that CPM has been doing this systematically for last three decades..

But the fact is, no Left Front partners (or even the oppositions) are exempt from this nexus of nepotism, CPM is more visible at this malpractice because of its massive size, relatively greater power to wield authority, and a strategy to keep this power intact by filling the posts of college/university teachers with their own people as far as possible, because that particular stratum is one of the most vocal/influential section of the Bong middle class.

The fact is, interestingly, every organization/individual (including our very liberal, anti-CPM profs in academics) in a position to exercise influence DOES this here in Bengal. The reason is not very hard to understand. In any backward economy, teaching sector is the most accessible guarantor of jobs…but owing to the fact that Bengal has the highest number of unemployed postgraduates, there have to be some eliminations… and nepotism is a very simple, effective, easy and user-friendly method of elimination/selection.

So, let the Maharashtrian man of influence get his daughter a trade licence, our venerable Bengali Bhadralok will be content to get his favorite female student a job at the newest school of abracadabra studies within the university established with lucrative grants from UGC…

Just stop singling out CPM, or let him cast the first stone at CPM who is influential and yet has never exercised favoritism…