Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 741: Criticism

5th June 1661

In a large village on the outskirts of Dhaka

"Hey, have you heard? The government school in our town is going to be privatized. It is said that the whole school and its land will be sold to anyone who is willing to take over and grow it from there."

"What? How can that be?" The man who exclaimed immediately became worried. "Why did the government do this? If the school falls into the hands of private entities, wouldn’t they increase the tuition fee?"

"How can I afford it?"

"Haha, you don’t have to worry. The prime minister and his majesty have already taken this matter into consideration. In all the schools and colleges that will be taken over by private entities, fees will remain affordable to the people without much change in the tuition fee structure."

"It is said that the Ministry of Education is formulating a few restrictions on private entities to avoid schools and colleges becoming businesses instead of noble organizations providing education."

’Phew’, "I was scared for a second. My son will be taking the high school examination in a few months. If the fee structure suddenly changed, I don’t know what I would have done."

The news about the government preparing to privatize the government schools and colleges had spread throughout the empire, and it had become the talk of the town for many people.

The first reaction of the citizens and the people involved in the education sector, when the news was first made public, was not so welcoming or cordial. Instead, it was filled with worry and panic. Even articles were written in all prominent newspapers about this matter, criticizing the government.

Abhijit Kumar Sen, a prominent media personality known for his articles in the economic and business field, also got involved in the policy and put forward his opinion, which was very sharp.

"Education is the actual flame of our Bharatiya Civilization. His majesty, with his enlightened mind, made it the core philosophy of the empire and our civilization that everyone has to be educated. For this, the public schools and colleges played a very big role. Everybody can agree that there are some problems with the public schools and colleges, but the strategic role they play made them irreplaceable despite their troubles."

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"But now, there is reliable news from the Ministry of Education that the ministry is planning to privatize all the schools and colleges within the Bharatiya Empire."

"In my opinion, this is a disaster waiting to happen. It will push us back to the dark and chaotic era we just came out of a decade ago. Are we willing to go back to those days when our whole life will be constrained to a single village and a small plot of land? No, never—especially not now after we have seen such a beautiful and empowering side of education."

"So we must resist this bill from passing, no matter the price. This cannot and must not happen."

The emotions of Abhijit Kumar Sen could be seen like looking into a mirror after reading the article. But people who knew him wouldn’t find it too surprising because he came from Mughal-occupied Bengal in a very poor family where the only source of income was doing some menial labour from day to day. From this position, Abhijit rose the ladder with his own ability and hard work—all because of education and knowledge. He knew better than anyone how important these two things were. So, despite writing the article for a newspaper owned by the royal family, he did not hold back his words.

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Seeing Abhijit Kumar Sen criticizing the government so sharply, other newspapers also stopped holding back. In theory, according to the constitution, they have every right to speak their mind, but it has never been tested to an extent where a newspaper wanted to criticize the government and its policy. No one wanted to be the first person to test it out. So when Abhijit Kumar Sen—the person they had least expected to make a move—made the move, their bravery was ignited. The very next day reports in newspapers criticizing the government’s policies only became sharper.

- "New Education Policy: A Plan to Bleed the People Dry? Insights from Indira Nagar Jayanti Public College Principal Padmanabhan" – *Times of Bharat*

- "Privatization of Education: Will It Be Society’s Downfall?" – *The Observer*

- "Privatizing Public Education Is the Biggest Threat to Equality, Says Solankipuri MP Narasimha Modi" – *Gujarati Varta*

Thankfully, seeing that the news was getting out of control, Raghavendra personally gave an interview to the *Bharatham Daily* newspaper and explained that even though the schools and colleges would be privatized, a bill would be brought forward that would not allow private entities who had bought the institution to increase the tuition fee without any limit.

Also, he went on to mention that most school students would not be affected by this change because they would be included in the Bharatiya Empire Population Growth and Cultural Expansion Bill, of 1661, which would allow them to study for free as a benefit of the government policy.

The only people who would be affected are the college students, but that’s not a big problem too since their tuition fee would naturally not exceed the currently existing ones.

After this statement was put forward, the direction of public opinion completely reversed, and people began to realize that the government had already considered the implications of their actions, which satisfied many people.

Abhijit Kumar Sen wrote in the very next article, "With the interests of middle-class and aspirational-class people guaranteed, the privatization of schools and colleges might be a big boon to the Bharatiya Empire because, with privatization, more private capital will be invested in the education sector, constructing more schools and colleges. Also, with the competition between different schools and colleges, the quality of education is only bound to increase."

"In conclusion, this is an excellent initiative implemented with His Majesty’s future vision of educating as many people, if not all the people in the empire, in mind. I can’t wait for this day to arrive quickly, dear readers, we can all look forward to such a day, and in my opinion, we don’t have to wait for too long."

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Vijay is very satisfied with how the people are taking the news. The thing he was most happy about was that the media finally dared to criticize the government. This had never happened in the Bharatiya Empire before because the awe and respect for the superiors were still present in most newspaper owners’ minds. But with the first step taken by the *Bharatham Daily* newspaper, owned by his family itself, there are no longer any constraints holding the newspaper companies back from criticizing policies that they do not agree with.

*’Knock!’ ’Knock!’*

Suddenly, a knock was heard at the door.

"Come in," he said.

It was unsurprisingly Ganesh.

"What’s up?"

"Your Majesty, the Ministry of External Affairs has just received an invitation from all the Southeast Asian countries In ASEAN to send our diplomats to their capitals and establish an embassy."

"Also, they have requested our empire to allow them to set up their embassies in the capital."

Vijay’s eyes lit up. It has been nearly a year since the ASEAN summit took place, and finally, bridges are being built and connections are being made.

’The day is finally here,’ he said to himself in his heart, overjoyed.

"I agree with their requests and proposal. Have Jaishankar handle the specifics of the matter."

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Embassy street

In the blink of an eye, a week passed, and the exchange of diplomats commenced.

The European diplomats—be it Simeon Brezhnev, Pedro Santiago, Oscar Anderson, Jan Kowalski, or Heinrich Muller—were all surprised when suddenly construction began to take place on Embassy Street in the capital.

They looked at each other, surprised and curious.

"Has the Bharatiya Empire established diplomatic ties with other countries? I wonder which countries they are?" Heinrich Muller asked out loud.

Pedro Santos and Pedro Santiago both had some guesses about this, especially after seeing so many buildings being built at the same time, but they did not voice their opinions and waited to see the actual news for themselves.

As expected, a few days later, when the flags of different Southeast Asian countries were hung up on the poles in front of the embassies, the European diplomats immediately realized that these were the embassies of Southeast Asian countries. They immediately lost interest and did not even try to build connections with these neighbors from Southeast Asia.

This kind of treatment was mainly because they were not able to obtain many benefits from Southeast Asia. Trade in Europe in this era was basically an exploitative business where the Europeans directly bought thousands of acres of land for a simple liquor or an industrial product. In such a case, they were constrained in doing business in Southeast Asia, where they could not be exploitative under the watchful eyes of the Bharatiya Empire.

They knew that there were a lot of rich resources and minerals in several regions of Southeast Asia, but unfortunately, all of those had to be bought at market prices, Now, which European merchant would come all the way across the globe in order to buy raw materials at market price, even if that price was several times cheaper? Practically no one. So despite the Europeans being allowed to trade with Southeast Asian countries, apart from making a little money and having one more market, Southeast Asia was not of big strategic importance to the Europeans.

However, the large naval countries and empires like the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire were very interested in these neighbors because they knew that the Bharatiya Empire wanted to develop the Pacific trade route. Being countries with a lot of interest in the Americas, resources from Southeast Asia were of great importance to them.

Simeon Brezhnev did not know the plan of Archduke Peter. If he did, maybe he would be interested too, but the deal between Vijay and Peter was a secret, one that only the two of them were involved in, so he did not show much interest in the Southeast Asian diplomats either.