The word ‘education’ itself is not inherently colonial, but there are many instances in history where education has been imposed on a population with complete disregard for indigenous sensitivities. Lakshadweep is one of the most literate Union Territories, ranking only after Kerala in terms of literacy rate in the country. Lakshadweep Administration’s recent decision to discontinue the Kerala syllabus in both English and Malayalam, and to migrate all students to the Central Board of Secondary Education pattern, has reopened the age-old debate on an indigenous curriculum in Lakshadweep.
From a literacy rate of 18.33% in 1951 to 70.04% in 2011, India has made significant progress on this front. However, this mission of educating the masses has failed to address cultural and geographical sensitivities across the country, including Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep, and tribal areas in Kerala. They all received education with the same mainland curriculum. In Lakshadweep, education currently means adopting a syllabus borrowed from Kerala, with no separate curriculum for Lakshadweep students.
The official website of Lakshadweep provides a concise history of formal education in the region. The first government school in Amini was established in 1904, and the first person graduated from Lakshadweep in 1942. The first two high schools were set up in the 1960s in Amini and Kalpeni, respectively. Now, all the islands, except Bitra, have secondary-level schools, showcasing robust infrastructure with good buildings and adequate teachers. Bitra also has schools up to the 8th standard. As a UT, Lakshadweep has received ample funding for educational infrastructure, supported by central government schemes like Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SMSA).
However, higher education in Lakshadweep has not been a focus area for the administration. Even though two Calicut University centres were established in Androth and Kadamath, most students in Lakshadweep depend on Kerala for higher studies. Calicut University has reserved one seat for one subject in every college in Kerala. Since 2020, when former Gujarat home minister Praful Patel took charge as the Administrator of Lakshadweep, changes in the education sector have been notable. The administration closed down Calicut University centres and started government colleges under Pondicherry University in Kadamath and Androth. Additionally, a government Polytechnic College in Minicoy and a government Nursing College in Kavaratti were established. However, the infrastructure and functioning of these colleges have been controversial.
Student protests erupted in 2022, with students from the Colleges in Kadamath and Minicoy going on an indefinite strike. Instead of improving infrastructure, the administration banned protests in the colleges. Many students are still suffering from the migration to Pondicherry University from Calicut University. According to Iqbal, a student leader from the Kadamath campus, nearly hundreds of students have lost a year as proper certificates have not been distributed to them after completing the course from Pondicherry University. They are planning to file a writ petition at the Kerala high court against the administration.
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Over the past year, the administration has attempted to shut down many schools. While the decision to close Junior Basic Schools in Kadamath and Chetlath was stayed by the Kerala high court, some schools such as the Southern Junior Basic School and Northern Junior Basic School in Kiltan have already closed. Both schools have been merged into one Junior Basic School, as the existing Senior Basic School has been merged with the high school. Recent decisions without planning or preparation have resulted in public outrage and student protests.
Amid the uproar over shifting students and school closures, the department of education issued an order to migrate all Lakshadweep students to the CBSE pattern within two years. Implementing this order will end the more than 70-year-old educational system in Lakshadweep.
The Kerala-based syllabus uses Malayalam as a medium of instruction. While CBSE is already taught in schools, students currently have a choice between the Kerala curriculum and that of the CBSE. When this order is implemented, this choice will cease to exist.
MP Mohammed Faizal wrote to the education minister as well as the home minister, seeking the withdrawal of the decision. Kerala education minister, V. Sivankutty, also wrote to the Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, seeking the same. He questioned the National Education Policy (NEP) and, in a video posted on his Facebook page, said that while the NEP talks about increasing options, bureaucrats in Lakshadweep have denied this choice to students by discontinuing the Kerala pattern of education.
The debate between CBSE and the Kerala pattern will continue, but the problem in the education sector from the perspective of the people of Lakshadweep is complicated and goes beyond this debate.
There are two languages spoken in Lakshadweep – one is Jasari, spoken in nine inhabited islands, and the other is Diwehi which is spoken in only one island, Minicoy. Jasari has no script and its similarity to the Dravidian languages made it vulnerable. The language almost lost its identity due to the islands’ long encounter with the Kerala pattern of education which uses Malayalam.
Recently, native writers started writing back to assert the identity of Jasari as the language of Lakshadweep. The first novel written by Thakiyudheen from Kiltan island in Jasari, named Fadappurappad, using the Malayalam script, has already been published. Ironically, this book has been published years after the publishing of Kolodam, the first Malayalam novel from Lakshadweep written by Ismath Hussain.
Diwehi is a dialect of Mahal, a language spoken in the Maldives. As far as people from Minicoy are concerned, every language is a foreign language; we, the 10,000+ people in the country, speak this language. We are more familiar with Hindi than Malayalam. “Studying Malayalam as a language will also help us as nowadays ships are connected only to Kerala,” said F.G. Mohammed, a retired government servant from the Department of Information and Public Relations.
Fousiya, a post doctoral student at IIT Kanpur who hails from Minicoy, said, “We prefer English as a medium of study over Malayalam, but studying it as a language will help students learn one more language as a choice. Moreover, the need for a localised syllabus is more important than this debate. We study about oceans and the Himalayas in schools; instead, we should include more about our culture and geography in the textbooks so that at least the next generation will be aware of the islands in the perspective of conservation and also in cultural as well as historic.”
In Lakshadweep, we are trying to fit a square peg of democratic decision-making into a bureaucratic round hole. Administration in Lakshadweep is a single line and controlled by the centralised power called Administrator appointed by the President of India.
Unilateral decisions without consultation are a characteristic of a bureaucratic system of governance. Rakesh Dahiya, a Delhi, Andaman, Nicobar Islands, Lakshwadeep, Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman Diu Administrative Service (DANICS) officer, has unilaterally decided the fate of the next generation of the people of Lakshadweep with a single signature.
The decision of migration of all the students was taken without consultation with any of the stakeholders. Students, parents, even the school management committee were not aware of this drastic decision. A system that accommodates people’s views and is open to wide consultation and deliberation is the only solution.
Any decision – whether it is closing down schools or migration of students to CBSE – must be based on the opinion of the people. Being a democratic country, we cannot legislate or decide the fate of a group of people without their consent. Unfortunately, that is what is happening in the islands.
Salahuddin is a researcher.
