Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank in India
150+ Deponents 50+ Organizations 4 Days of Testimony 700 Attendees
September 2007

Citizens, activists, and experts gathered to document the human cost of development policies.

Witness. Document.
Challenge Power.

This site catalogues presentations, testimonies, and media from the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank held at Jawaharlal Nehru University in September 2007. It was the first People's Tribunal in India which brought together a broad spectrum of society to look at the damage caused by the World Bank to the country as a whole. Affected communities and concerned groups presented testimonies across four days in order share experiences and to inject a sense of responsibility for people's rights into the discourse about the Bank.

Read the Jury Findings (PDF) The Edited Volume (PDF)
The Tribunal process quickly inspired similar events in The Hague, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Current issueEducation

What the Tribunal recorded on education

Education is again at the centre of public argument in India. The Tribunal devoted a day of its September 2007 sittings to the subject, hearing a principal paper by the educationist Anil Sadgopal alongside testimony on higher education, on West Bengal, and on tribal schooling in Maharashtra. The account given there was not that Indian education was failing through neglect. It was that a specific policy framework, shaped in large part by the World Bank and allied agencies, was being put in place, and that its consequences could be set out in advance.

From the record, September 2007

  • Government schools would be left to deteriorate so that their failure could be used to justify privatisation, then closed as “unviable” in a process officially described as “rationalisation”.
  • Regular teachers would be displaced by “para-teachers” on short-term contracts, without the qualifications, training or pay of the cadre they replaced.
  • Following the Jomtien Declaration, education would be reduced to “observable and measurable targets”, narrowing curriculum and pedagogy into testing.
  • Access beyond school would be rationed by screening and by the ability to pay, with private higher education reachable, for most families, only through bank loans.
  • Public funding for higher education would continue to fall as private provision expanded. Unaided private institutions already accounted for over half of post-secondary enrolment by 2005–6.
  • The purpose of education would shift away from building a democratic and egalitarian society, towards producing people who are “useful” to global capital.
Those who manage to cross the barrier of senior secondary education will be able to access higher and technical/professional education in private institutions only with bank loans… the high ‘performers’ or ‘achievers’ from among the poor could be identified by screening and then honed for the global market. For the rest, access will be confined to vocational skills.
Anil Sadgopal, ‘The Neo-liberal Assault on India’s Education System’, Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank in India, New Delhi, September 2007

The chapter and the three testimonies that accompany it are reproduced in full below. Readers can judge for themselves how the account of 2007 reads against the situation in Indian education today.

Read the Education Chapter (PDF) Education Testimony & Papers

World Bank Lending: Then & Now

World Bank lending and outstanding debt in India over time
International Debt Statistics: India — Outstanding Debt to the World Bank (US$ billions), 1990–Present. World Bank Group.

At the time of the Tribunal in 2009, World Bank engagement in India was at a historic high, with 106 active projects and outstanding debt of just over $34 billion. Today, despite a sharp reduction to only 15 active or pipeline lending projects, India continues to carry approximately $38 billion in World Bank debt—underscoring how the financial obligations of development lending persist long after projects end.

The Edited Volume: World Bank in India

Published by Orient Blackswan

World Bank in India: Undermining Sovereignty, Distorting Development

Bringing together academic analysis and the lived experiences of communities across India, this edited volume examines contemporary development policy through essays by leading scholars. Originating from testimonies presented at the Independent People’s Tribunal on the World Bank in New Delhi, the book critiques the dominance of free-market ideology and documents how World Bank–driven policies of marketisation, trade liberalisation, and reduced public spending have shaped India’s economy, democracy, and environment. It contributes to an emerging global debate on alternatives to the prevailing economic order.

500 pages • PDF • 2010
Read the Education Chapter (PDF) Education Testimony & Papers