In his first innings as a politician, Dr Manmohan Singh liberated our economy. In his second, as prime minister, he brought about a paradigm shift in not only our foreign policy, but also our entire worldview. In each case, he persisted with change at great risk to his neck, and reputation. So what will be the change in his third stint in public office? Or, rather, what should he?

Our guess, and wish, is that he now does to our higher education what he did to our economy and foreign policy in 1991 and 2008, respectively. It is fashionable in India now to talk of our demographic dividend. By 2020, we will be probably the youngest nation in the world with an average age of 29. Our dependency ratio, the number of healthy breadwinners for each dependent — someone too old (above 65) or too young (below 15) to earn — is already near a healthy 1.8. By 2030, at 2.1, it will be nearly the highest in the world. (China’s will have declined steeply to about 1.7 by then.) Unless our totally moribund system of higher, technical and vocational education is totally revolutionised, this dividend will become a curse. India would then end up having the largest population of angry, unemployable young lumpens in the history of mankind. Even a society as resilient as India will not survive that calamity. On the other hand, if he can now revolutionise our education, the same young India will be a qualified, productive, creative and joyful pride of the global community. If 1991 unleashed Indian entrepreneurship and 2008 liberated us from a six-decade fear of Westoxification, this is a real opportunity to take a crack at discrimination, deprivation, inequality and even at caste and communalism.

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