http://www.iipmthinktank.com/asp/Scrutiny.asp?s_id=4936&pageno=1

Why governance is not taught...

Have you ever heard of a school of governance and politics in India?

Yes and no! Perish the forsaken curiosity. The yes, is for the affirmation that without doubt our political arena has witnessed the entry of many young politicians. And the no, is the answer to the question whether they’ve been able to make any sensible difference to the scenario. One reason is that the number of young politicians in India is still miniscule given the fact that the average age of the 13th Lok Sabha has been around 55 years! But learned that we are, allow us to introduce a proxy reason for this problem. Young and talented individuals today do not understand the nitty-gritty of politico-economic debates and simply perceive politics as a criminal’s exercise in drudgery because, ironically, there exist no known institutions in India that teach politics and governance. Even the young MPs who were there in the Parliament participated only in 7% of the debates. And the less talked about their overall attendance, the better. We ergo question the experience and exposure that our young politicians undergo before entering politics. Clearly, what we require are structured and respected institutions teaching politics and governance on a specialised basis to the literate youth.

Think about it. To match top global examples like the John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University), Bulgarian School of Politics, Matsushita Seikei Juku institute in Japan and Colombo School of Politics, what have we? Hilariously named institutions like Netagiri in Ranchi. Without being deprecating, the fact is that if this school, which has more than 200 students, has produced several state, district and community-level politicians, then imagine what we could end up achieving by setting up well financed and supported institutions across the country that teach politics and governance to our empowered youth. Well, if even a thoroughly non democratic and autocratic country like Kuwait can have a National Democratic Institute, why can’t the world’s largest democracy?