The tragic deaths of three civil service aspirants due to flooding in a coaching centre basement in New Delhi’s Old Rajinder Nagar became a contentious issue in Parliament on Monday. The debate featured a heated exchange between the opposition and the ruling benches over the state of education in India.

During the Rajya Sabha session, Vice-President and chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar approved a “short duration discussion”. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan shifted blame to the states for failing to implement the Union government’s advisories. Pradhan accused opposition members questioning the education system of “pseudo-intellectual extremism” and claimed they were “haunted by Macaulay’s ghost.”

Opposition members criticised the speed with which the issue was raised in Parliament, noting that the request came from BJP members rather than the opposition, despite their calls for discussions on other critical issues such as the ethnic strife in Manipur and recent paper leaks in competitive exams like NEET.

Pradhan said that advisories had been sent to state governments in January 2024, as well as in 2017, 2019 and 2020. He argued that adherence to these advisories might have prevented the tragic incident, adding that responsibility rests with the states.

Addressing concerns about the education system, particularly in Rajasthan’s Kota where suicide rates among students have surged, Pradhan said, “There is pseudo-intellectualism in the mind of some people…Some people are still being haunted by the ghost of [Thomas] Macauley. That is why they think they have the capacity to think. There is no answer to this pseudo intellectualism extremism.”

Macaulayism pertains to the imposition of the English education system on British colonies.

BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi, who initiated the discussion, condemned the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is in power in the national capital, for what he described as “criminal negligence.” He highlighted that several complaints had been filed before the incident, including one on June 26, and criticised the current administration for failing to act.

“Those who are in power for such a long time…earlier they would say, ‘We don’t have this, we don’t have that.’ But today you are in power in the government as well as the MCD [Municipal Corporation of Delhi]. Those who had promised to bring a new form of politics…people’s lives have been endangered but they are only putting out political statements and nothing else,” Trivedi added.

AAP MP Sanjay Singh accused the BJP of obstructing progress in Delhi and referred to the ongoing conflict over the control of services in the city, following the August 2023 amendments to the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill.

“This is not the first time that basement classes are being held in coaching centres. This has been going on for over 20 years and at that time BJP was in power for over 15 years in the MCD. In every work in Delhi you have to create obstructions. And for the first time in history a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court said that the transfer, posting of officers in Delhi should be in the hands of the elected government but you took away that right,” he said.

Congress MP Randeep Surjewala condemned the politics of blame, stressing the need to address other pressing issues such as China’s occupation of Indian territory, NEET’s impact on students, and the situation in Manipur.

TMC MP Derek O’Brien expressed hope that notices from other opposition parties would be considered with similar urgency in the future. He questioned whether Parliament had shown the same speed in addressing other critical matters such as railway accidents and unemployment.

CPI(M) MP John Brittas criticised the “rampant commercialisation of exams” and suggested that Union Home Minister Amit Shah, rather than Pradhan, should address the matter, questioning who truly controls Delhi.

RJD MP Manoj Jha spoke on the need to address the “political economy” of coaching institutes, calling for a focus on the broader issues rather than the AAP versus BJP debate.