Foreign varsities to set up campuses in India: A new phase of tranquillity

The proposal that foreign universities be allowed to establish campuses in India was opposed by RSS affiliates until recently. However, they seem to be reviewing their position

The University Grants Commission, on January 5, announced new regulations for foreign universities proposing to come to India. The draft policy —Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023 — says these universities will have the freedom to devise their admission process and fee structure, which should be transparent and reasonable. They will not be allowed to hold online classes. Consultations will close on January 18.

“We are still studying the proposal,” says Ashwani Mahajan, national co-convener, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), when asked about the draft policy.

“We vigorously opposed the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government’s proposal to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India. It was our opposition to it that forced the government to withdraw the policy. But a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then. We are studying the (current) proposal with an open mind,” he adds.

This is quite a change in position. As recently as 2020, when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in the 2020-21 Union Budget that the education sector, including higher education, would be open to foreign direct investment (FDI), the SJM let its disappointment be known. At the time, Mahajan had said: “It is not a good idea to allow foreigners. Our people can do a much better job.”

He had explained then that “the government must have thought about this decision as foreign exchange is going out but no good university is going to set up campus here… only teaching shops will come here and take our money, that’s why we are completely against FDI”.

But speaking to Business Standard last week, he said the SJM was reviewing its position on foreign universities in India.

“Hundreds of thousands of students are leaving India to study in foreign countries. We realised this with shock when the Ukraine war broke out and 20,000 students returned from that country. Just imagine the amount of foreign exchange India is losing because students are going to Russia and China to study. What is more, the standards of education are not exactly earth-shattering there. By Indian educational standards, especially medical education, only about 10-11 per cent of those from foreign universities make the grade. So not only is foreign exchange flowing out but the standard of education is also below par. If they (foreign universities) come here to set up campuses, are renowned, conform to our standards, especially in medical education and are not allowed to repatriate profits, we can reconsider our views,” he said.

This is not the only example of an affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and one that has been a bugbear for earlier Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led governments (“in some quarters we were known as ‘pariahs’,” said an SJM member), conceding that their opposition to government policy was and would continue to be qualified.

“A senior RSS functionary told me: ‘Not everything that the Narendra Modi government does is good. But then, one day he emerges from a cave in Kedarnath (2019) or participates in aarti at Varanasi…and we feel kaam toh hamara hi kar rahe hain (he is after all doing our work)’,” confided a leader from the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, a not-for-profit organisation tasked with conducting training classes for volunteers.

This theme — that the Modi-led government is, by and large, meeting the expectations of the RSS and its affiliates — appears to have ushered in a new phase of tranquillity between the RSS affiliates and the ruling BJP. To be sure, there are aberrations.

For instance, Dattatreya Hosabale, RSS general secretary and possibly next in line to chief Mohan Bhagwat, observed in October this year that “poverty in the country is standing like a demon in front of us”.

“That 200 million people are still below the poverty line is a figure that should make us very sad. As many as 230 million people have less than Rs 375 income per day. There are 40 million unemployed people in the country. The labour force survey says we have an unemployment rate of 7.6 per cent,” he said, citing United Nations observers, not the government, as the source for his figures.

RSS supporters note that the Indian government continues to give funds generously to the Afghanistan government which is headed by the Taliban. “Take a look at the annual reports of the Ministry of External Affairs. Surely this is unacceptable,” exclaimed an RSS supporter.

But the government has also bridged the gap between it and the RSS by taking Sangh reservations on board. In the past two years, at least half a dozen ‘suggestions’ made by the RSS and affiliates have made their way to becoming government policy.

For instance, in 2021, during his Vijayadashami address, Bhagwat flagged two issues — Bitcoin and over-the-top (OTT) platforms — for greater government regulation. Within weeks, the government acted on both. The cryptocurrency was subjected to overt regulation in the 2022-23 Union Budget. And the government has said it is committed to regulating OTT, albeit ‘with a light touch’.

Walter K Andersen, an academic and an expert on the RSS, says the relationship between the organisation and its affiliates, including the BJP, has changed over the years, primarily for reasons of self-preservation and growth.

“There (is) growing reliance of the RSS on lobbying, primarily through the affiliates, to play a role in the policy process. Since taking over the leadership position from his predecessor in 2009, Bhagwat has emerged as the most outspoken and most political head of the RSS in its 93-year history. He gave three speeches in 2018 that provided recommendations of extraordinary consequence — and altered the stated RSS mission. No longer was its goal primarily to train young men in the daily shakhas (units) who on their own would engage in a patriotic mission to improve the country. Now the organisation would, itself, lobby for specific policy positions.”

For the moment, at least, the Modi government has managed to avoid that predicament.