THE PARADOX OF EDUCATION...

my moral awakening was never an issue of concern for me before i realised that i had a certain gift which others woefully lacked or had seen its careful conversion into a vestige.

it is in this light that I sit down to write this piece today. the education system that we all have been exposed has been considered by generations now, to be an extremely sancrosanct subject, one that merits no debate even if one doesnt know how he or she benefits by it or what it does to a person's moral and social dimension.

I shall therefore refrain from calling what I have received this far as education or an intellectual acheivement or the fact that in a few days from now, I shall be a post graduate.

The education that I have so diligently received and followed is woefully inadequate both morally and otherwise when it comes to application.

for instance, let us look at economics per se, it assumes everything that happens is under ceteris paribas or everything staying constant, but then how many things are constant in this world is something that doesnt mandate any research.

then we have this talk of economy of scale that optimises the factors of production and aims at harnessing maximum work by employing the least number of people, while this may make sense in a nation where the mode of work is capital intensive and the population is low, it has been unleashing misery ever since its inception in the indian context where processes have always been labor intensive and very productive too.

we have all been growing up learning how dams are engineering marvels and how the then prime minister of the nation, Mr.Nehru, said that they were the temples of modern india, how many of us today know that the entire damming bussiness has damned the lives of some 50 million indians who have lost homes, fields, entire villages...this is something that our education system doesnt do or may be cant do.

it is accepted without question that whatever the CBSE or the UGC says has to be true but then the essence of any education system is that the current assumptions need to be questioned, in the absence of that what results is that education ends up herding people like cattle who end up belching with every piece that comes their way and hence no growth results.

why would then not people end up being insenstive to the cause of rural india, poor people, malnourished children, sexually abused children, raped women, displaced indigeneous population, submerged villages, custodial deaths of innocent youth, forced disapperances of people whp question the system...... that is a direct outcome of what has been discussed so far


even arundhati roy raises this issue though in a very different tone altogether and this piece doesnt match her angst in any way and rather should be seen as a tactical analysis piece. it is also not that people have absolutely no idea that such problems plague india but then they have faith on the current scheme of events and the academia to settle everything that is going wrong. it is this very faith that needs to be questioned....

people are still stuck and look at the constitution and its preamble with starstruck eyes and are so happy with the very idea of being part of a democracy as the national media and all those endless chapters on civics have taught each one of us. the grandest propaganda and misinformation campaign that is being done lies in our own nation. people are being made to believe that everything is fine with the nation and that there are only a small bunch of miserable people in this country who are so useless that even with free markets they can do nothing and are poor by choice rather than anything else.

slowly instead of citizens of a free nation, we are now only subjects who are being herded and shielded from all that is happening around us, encouraged to conform to the system, the marginalised sections are asked to either shape in or ship out (ship out but where???)

the same education and the way it is presented in front of us since the time we begin this journey is one that lacks objectivity and focus and is aimed at solely finishing off the individuality and the spontaniety amongst us all (most dont realise the process, that's the sinister beauty of the system, it robs your soul yet one feels complete with a paper degree in hand..)

am sounding cynical, am i not, even paranoid but then atleast i know what it is all about or what I am in the first place, i can sense my soul sucked out of my system everyday, the more am a part of it , the more am not a part of myself...its a mortgage all throughout, report cards that tell you what you are capable of, grades that tell you what you are and what not....always a deal, some kind of a barter...

an education that preaches but doesnt have the guts to let children experiment, it binds you down, ties you up and then you are expected to change things....easy said than done, almost 16 years of your life you feel you are getting education, plain and simple but no when it hits you it was nothing but a farce...a deception..some long game which you were always supposed to hide.....a game in which emerging from your hiding place would cost you everything that you thought was yours.....


just give a thought..is it education we receive or indoctrination....