In The Greater Common Good, Roy makes the
comparison between Big Dams and Nuclear Bombs.
She says, “They’re both weapons of mass destruction…weapons the
Government uses to control its own people…both malignant indications of a
civilization turning upon itself. They
represent the severing of the link… the understanding – between human beings
and the planet they live on.” The
analogy can be extended to factory schools, by building upon Roy’s criticisms
of development and applying them to the education system of India:
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Both
dams and schools are propagated as “symbols of progress,” such that increasing
their quantity receive praise from those seeking a so-called modern India.
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Both
are heavily financed and advocated by international donor institutions, like
the World Bank or other multilateral and bilateral development agencies.
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Both
are supported by huge industries with seriously vested interests – politicians,
bureaucrats, and corporations – each has its own manifestation of what Roy
labels the “Iron Triangle”.
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Both
dams and schools are said to benefit all affected by them, and in fact, both rely
on a type of social engineering (the belief that we can control others’
behaviors to conform to particular ends).
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Very
few (if any) evaluations are conducted to assess the short- or long-term impact
of either dams or schools.
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Neither
value the lifestyles, knowledges, or cultures of the traditional/rural-affected
as worth preserving or protecting or growing or contributing to the quest for a
so-called modern India.
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The
negative effects of both dams and schools, when even acknowledged,
disproportionately affect the poor and marginalized (adivasi and dalit
communities) and create new kinds of structures of oppression and
disempowerment.
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Simultaneously,
when inadequacies or detrimental failures are acknowledged, the beneficiaries
of both attempt piecemeal solutions to “mend” the problems, rather than
undertaking a serious, systemic, and systematic evaluation of the project.
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Those
who benefit from each project also manage to look away and both implicitly and
explicitly condone the sufferings of those harmed by them, thus reinforcing the
20-80 divide (20% of the population benefiting on the backs of the other 80%).
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Both
are commanded and controlled by Government authorities, from their design and
planning to the details of their implementation. Rarely are the voices of the
“served” heard in any stage of the process; in fact, only a few experts are
said to be able to manage and understand the systems. For example, contractors/builders can be compared to teachers
(the expert facilitators of the project), sophisticated, engineering plans to
Government curriculum, and displaced tribal communities to enrolled children (since
neither have much say in their participation/compliance with the project).
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Both
dams and schools try to operate in an inherently confusing and contradictory
system of conflicting interests and purposes – i.e. dams as sources of power,
tools for irrigation, mechanisms for flood-control, and reservoirs of drinking
water, and schools as places for authentic learning, for completing MLLs, for
preparing for examinations, for developing cultivating creativity and civic
participation, etc.
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Finally,
both try to posit a “take it-or-leave it” stance. That is, they claim that despite the problems with dams and
schools, we have to take them as they are; otherwise, our only other choice
will be to revert backwards to some romanticized, traditional lifestyle, which is
unfeasible in our quest for progress and development. Never are any third, fourth, or fifth options presented in this
dichotomy.