Decline of Nair dominance in education institutions in Kerala

The agitation by students in an academic institution teaching law in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala is entering its fourth week. Student organisations have pointed out several anamolies in the functioning of this premier private law college in Kerala. The institution run by Nairs- Lekshmi Nair, cookery show celebrity,  the principal and its founder is her father Narayanan Nair who headed the institution for a long time. His brother Koliakode Krishnan Nair is a CPM leader.

However, Kerala Law Academy Law Collge, an autonomous institution has nothing to do with the Nair Service Society (NSS) founded by the freedom fighter and visionary Mannathu Padmanabhan. They have a large number of educational institutions from primary school to engineering, medical, arts and science colleges and hospitals in the State.

The NSS was started in 1914 with the objective of uplifting the Nair community that was facing a crisis due to outmoded customs, beliefs  and loss of their supremacy in land ownership due to lack of hard work and education. Nairs were the warrior tribe in erstwhile Travancore and they occupied high positions in administration. Some Nair families by virtue of their land holdings also kept slaves. . Their extravagant life style, ceremonies and lack of education contributed to their decline.

The classic work, The Decline of Nair Dominance: Society and Politics in Travancore 1847-1908 by Robin Jeffrey gives a description of the changes that occurred to the Nair community during this period.

Meanwhile, the Kerala politics witnessed the dominance of caste in elections since late 1940’s before the formation of Kerala State along linguistic lines. The early dominance of Nair community gradually gave equal way to Ezhavas, Christians and later Muslims who continue to have pockets of influence. NSS sometimes maintained a principle of equi-distance from the CPM-led Left Democratic Front and Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).

Apart from government institutions, private aided, unaided schools and colleges set up by NSS, Ezhava community, Christians and Muslims have played a stellar role in creating more educational opportunities in the state.

However, in terms of quality of education and training imparted, the Christian institutions seems to have scored over others although in terms of infrastructure NSS. Ezhava and Muslim institutions were equally good.

Having studied for two years in an NSS institution and later in government institutions, I realised the vast difference in standards between the two. Also the better scoring students tended to seek admission to institutions run by Christian organisations.  Examination results also reflected the quality of education provided by NSS institutions. The teachers were recruited more on their financial ability rather than merit.

The Law Academy Crisis

The Law Academy was started in the late 1960’s as a society with the blessings of the CPM led government at that time. However, in due course, it became a private institution with no control of the government except an affiliation with the Kerala University.

The irregularities in the functioning of the Law Academy was known to people in the capital city and I remember in my college days, meritorious candidates usually sought admission to Government Law College while average or lesser performers got into Law Academy.

It was N Narendran covering the education beat for The Indian Express who first chronicled the irregularities in the Academy but no political party or the University took any steps to correct the anamolies in its functioning. The notable alumni list of the institute includes politicians, journalists, magistrates, government pleaders, advocates and therefore nobody took up the issue. No other media organisations seem to have followed up Narendran’s story either.

The Academy also didn’t take any step to improve their functioning and expressed their ire over Narendran’s reports. They didn’t keep ownership and management of the Academy separate. This led Lakshmi Nair, daughter of the founder taking over the reins of Principal of the institution. Serious allegations have been raised against her including calling a Dalit by his caste name apart from showing favouritism in internal assessment for some students.

Although run by Nairs, the Law Academy has nothing to do with NSS but at the height of the crisis, they were reported to have approached NSS leadership to seek their support.

The NSS institutions seem to be requiring a good dose of professionalism just as Mannathu Padmanabhan exhorted the Nair community in early 1900’s to come out of their shells and work hard to be in the forefront.

Media -Time to do away with Q & A interviews and redefining News

Following Jayalalitha’s death, Karan Thapar’s interview with J Jayalalithaa done in 2004 has been shared and discussed in social media and other media. Karan Thapar himself had written about that interview and how some questions just slipped from his tongue and made him miserable. Those who have analysed the interview will understand that the questions were a bit shallow and it was preceded by the statement- the’ press says’, or ‘press alleges’ or ‘the media said.’ This is the way most interviews are conducted on TV and also other media.

Perhaps, it is time to rethink about how to conduct interviews not only for the print media but also for broadcast media and online.

1.Why not stop Q & A: The traditional mode of interview is for the journo to ask questions- it may be factual questions, questions on policy, controversial questions. Although a minister, MLA or MP represents the people and has an upper hand or authority, he or she still is not the single source for all the answers related to an issue.  On the other hand, if it turns into a dialogue where the interviewer uses his knowledge, insight gained from the field to express his comments or allow viewers to send their views and get it aired, it makes sense. Party’s or coalitions views on specific topics can always be send as press release and published if it is so important.

However, this requires considerable reading and research by media and it is not that easy. However, if you go back to the Karan Thapar-Jayalalitha interview- both of them had sheets of paper before them but what was the information or data she wanted to tell. Was there any hard numbers or achievements she wanted to highlight?

Ultimately, a politician’s success should not be just confined to analyzing their victory, defeats in elections or even how people view them but by what changes they made to the State or the country. Is Tamilnadu better off than it was in the 1980’ and early 1990’s? Was Amma’s popularity due to the free sarees or subsidized rice she provided?  Has there been real industrial and economic growth and do investors feel happy with the State Administration? If the media has hard numbers or evidence related to this, it would have given any Chief Minister-whether it is Jayalalitha or Karunanidhi facing the camera a really tough time.

2. Going for TRP and popularity

Media being another business, news has also become a branded commodity. Each programme or a section in a news page may be designed in such a way as to attract maximum readership or TRP rating.

Thus Hard Talk may have a particular pattern of tough questions and answers that may put some leaders in a spot but most often as Jayalalitha says it doesn’t add any value to the viewer.

3.Looking at unusual patterns

The media makes news by pointing out something unusual somebody does. It has to find something unusual in people, events, leaders whether it is negative or positive. The doc who popularized ‘lateral thinking’, Edward de Bono,has pointed out this uniqueness of the media. That perhaps make them celebrate successes rather than find out why the majority fail.

4. Redifining News: News is not the traditional North-East-West-South concept of information coming from different directions. But it should try to answer questions that are relevant to the common man-whether it concerns the banking system, utilities, economic growth, performance of a government or a minister.

Who’s a Sports expert- a minister or someone who loves Sport?

I was prompted to write this piece after seeing bombarding of trolls against Kerala Sports Minister E P Jayarajan’s comment on boxer Mohammed Ali. How come the Minister didn’t know about Mohammed Ali? Or what was the need for Manorama News to elicit the views of our sports minister on Mohammed Ali? Wouldn’t it have been easier to find a person knowledgeable in boxing, a boxer or someone who has observed Mohammed Ali’s career to comment? How many of us are eager to hear what Sports Minister E P Jayarajan has to say on Mohammed Ali unless he is a boxer himself or known to be knowledgeable about boxing?

I think there should be a serious rethink in channels on how to identify experts in various field to talk on a news break or development. I remember Narottam Puri, the ace cricket commentator of 1970’s and 1980’s who was a friendly figure in both Doordarshan and AIR. He had statistics at the tip of his tongue and knew the game well. He was not a cricketer but a practicing ENT Surgeon who found spare time to indulge in his favourite hobby. His father was also a commentator, Devraj Puri and his father was his role model in commentary. What distinguished him from an average commentator was his passion for the game and his job.

In my childhood,when there was no TV or cable, we were glued to our radios to hear cricket updates . For a complete story of what happened we had to rely on the likes of R Mohan of The Hindu, Rajan Bala of the  Indian Express whose writing was interspersed with quotes from literature and most often they so graphic in their writing that we used to read and re-read it. They were not mere reporters but had a passion for the game and its rules.

Similarly I have found lot of people who closely follow global football and cricket and whose knowledge of the game has astounded me.  Manorama News or other leading channels will never take the pains to identify them or project them. It is always better to go behind popular names and titles- who is going to question them.

By the same yardstick, if something happens to Bill Gates our news anchors will ring up our Industry Minister and ask his views which I am sure would be another big disaster unless he is an IT expert himself. This is not journalism. As a former journo, I am pained to see the depths to which our journos are falling. Journos are also not infallible. Sometimes they learn through trial and error. I was once stumped when a senior businessmen in travel industry asked me who are the people who have done something for Kerala’s Tourism? I didn’t have a clear answer and the names I gave were all wrong. Then he talked about Late Minister PS Srinivasan, Jose Dominic (CGH), E Chandrasekharan Nair and so on.  Later on, I interviewed Jose Dominic for a story on Commodity Tourism thanks to  K C Chandrahasan  of Kerala Travels who opened my eyes.

Later doing agri- commodity stories, I understood that the most knowledgeable people were farmers and not scientists and researchers in our universities who drew fat salaries.  There was no one who knew cardamom and pepper in India as much as Sebastian Joseph, who developed the high yielding njallani variety that revolutionized cardamom cultivation in Idukki. I had the good fortune to meet him and was instrumental in getting him a Life Time Achievement Award from Spices Board. How many channels or newspapers have gone to him for his views on spices cultivation in his life time? He was not a PhD holder but stopped studies in 4^th standard.

This is the age of specialization. If you ask an IT specialist any topic related to IT he may not be able to answer. It’s not their fault. Also if you ask a physician or a surgeon a query, he may not be able to help unless it is his field of specialization. A cardiologist is not likely to know the latest advances in ortho surgery or opthamology.

The duty of a journalist is not to just expose some wrong doing or go behind gossip but do something that creates value to society. A journo is not a specialist but most often a generalist but that doesn’t prevent them from finding experts in an area and do stories with them. That is the minimum they can do to minimize their own lack of knowledge being transferred to hapless readers.

The E P Jayarajan incident or Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan incidents are all eye openers to not only journos but to the public as well- don’t laugh over the ignorance of someone but search for experts who can enlighten you!