The Blitzkrieg That Turned into a Stalemate (Kapil Sibal’s Tenure)

This chapter describes the extraordinary efforts made by Kapil Sibal to reform almost every aspect of education, and his refreshing courage in advocating polices shunned by the political class such as promotion of private participation, and encouraging reputed foreign institutions to establish campuses in India. It describes the successes he achieved like enactment of the RTE Act, and the heroic failure to enact as many as six acts which would have totally restructured the policy and regulatory framework of higher education. By focusing on the process and politics of policymaking it brings out that the failure was mainly due to strategic and tactical mistakes, and adopting a no-holds barred adversarial approach that is eminently appropriate in a courtroom is utterly inappropriate in policymaking. All in all, Sibal’s achievements and failure offer valuable lessons for policy entrepreneurship. It also describes the failed efforts of the Health Ministry to establish the National Commission for Human Resources for Health as a super-regulator in Medical Education in place of multiple regulatory authorities like the Medical Council, Dental Council and so on.