32 SOCIAL SCIENTIST whose decisions, curiously enough, would be mandatory for everyone except the government itself. Strikes are banned 'during the period of pendency of any proceeding in connection with any grievance*—i.e., a petition by a single employee pending before the redressal mechanism would presumably be sufficient to make any strike in that institution illegal, even if it is on totally unrelated issues. And draconian minimum punishments are laid down for illegal strikes, ranging up to six months' jail and a Rs. 10,000 fine. No one can deny that our educational system needs thorough reforms: standards vary widely, and are often frankly abysmal. Existing teachers' movements, too, suffer from numerous deficiencies and limitations—though it is worth remembering that teachers proved capable of transcending all manner of differences in a month-long strike, providing an example of national integration at a time of acute communal and regional tension. The point, however, is that the remedies being enforced are far worse than the disease. The new model is one of isolated, oligarchically-controlled units, integrated only via bureaucratic linkages like the proposed National Test for the recruitment of teachers (which is to be independent even of the otherwise so powerful Accreditation Council). The 1986 National Policy of Education has already proclaimed as an ultimate aim 'the establishment of the Indian Education Service as an all-India service', obviously government-controlled. Teacher-politics, it may be added, is not likely to be ended under the new dispensation. Rather, politics would tend to get reduced to politicking, narrow factional squabbles within small confines, with departmental heads and principals favouring their own caste, religious community or language-group at the expense of others. Enforced servility to petty bosses for survival and advancement is hardly the royal road to healthy accademic life and improved standards. Educational standards, in fact, are likely to become far more uneven—the imagination boggles at the thought of literally thousands of autonomous colleges, all 'deemed to be universities', busy churning out degrees. They will also decline, for a whole series of disincentives are being provided for bright potential entrants to the teaching profession: an additional qualifying test (likely to be of highly dubious quality, if the test for UGC research fellowships is any guide), two years probation in place of one, bureaucratic screening procedures for promotions, an absurd time-schedule, long years spent in total subordination to elderly oligarchs. Students are bound to be the worst sufferers, with diverse and declining teaching standards, higher fees, and the prospect of many colleges closing down. It seems all too likely that relatively deprived groups and regions may find the doors of higher education and related jobs •progressively restricted—the most fertile soil imaginable for any number of sectional or even separatist movements.