Unresolved issues and Inappropriate Celebration

I am amazed at the celebration mode of some DUTA leaders on the news of change in ministry. This news was celebrated as if DUTA has been able to resolve any of the major issues that are concerning and bothering the teachers in general. It is more than clear now that ‘their’ disproportionate sense of achievement would get 'completed' only with the exit of NDA government. The scale and extent of celebration only proved what some of us have often been reiterating in our assessment that DUTA has been derailed from its primary focus. It is lately being used more as a platform for venting out their politically motivated desire and outbursts of opposing and defaming the government at the Centre.

The hard reality is that the present government was greeted by a list of long pending chronic problems that were started and then left unresolved by the UPA government. The problems of unmanageable number of adhoc teachers and the un-implementable nature of API-PBAS scheme both were inherited by this government from the earlier regime.

Yes, the MHRD failed to address these issues effectively and this could be one of the factors that could have led to the change in the ministry. However, it would dishonesty if the efforts made by the MHRD in getting these long-pending problems resolved, are not acknowledged. Although it is true that all the efforts in terms of 3rd, 4th amendments and further clarifications carried out to address the issue were quick like never before but in the final analysis those were proved only to aggravate the problems due to factors that the new minister will face as a challenge. I hope the new minister would be able to take control of the forces working within the system against the government.

Interestingly, even groups active under DUTA can not absolve of from their contribution in getting these two problems to this alarming stage. While AADityans can hardly save themselves from the blame of directly supporting the regimes that created this huge pool of adhoc and un-promoted teachers, DTF also can not wash their hands off from the fact that they did not launch any effective attack despite having DUTA’s functioning under their major control. NDTF, on the other hand, have no such history of helping factors that led towards building up of these problems.

I am a proud NDTF activist who can claim that NDTF, after the present government came into power, actually played a significant role in DUTA to ensure continuation of adhoc teachers in the last few semesters besides getting the permanent appointments started. And after the change of ministry, we will keep our efforts going with a greater hope of resolution of all our problems to the satisfaction of teachers.

Arrogance of Education : In the context of HRD ministry

It is a case of colonial mindset that has established the supremacy of literary knowledge over wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience and the way that you lap up the opportunity you get in your life. We are yet to learn that any education system only helps in getting the opportunity but how to make use of that is never prompted by your acquired degrees. Though slightly less prevalent in Sciences it is somehow commonplace in Social Sciences to count and weigh the bibliography attached to one's statement before even giving it a hearing. Earlier to British invasion we probably never had a tradition of measuring the importance to a saying by weighing its originator. Traditionally we have been otherwise told that true knowledge is what that makes you bow with humility and prepares you to remain open for wisdom that can come from any quarter. The prevalent education started primarily by Britishers and later developed through Left-leaning brand of 'intellectuals' were wary of the vast knowledge and wisdom then existed in this ancient country and just out of fear established a rule to set aside all potential challenges to their fiefdom. They made reading, rote learning, passing exams and acquiring degrees essential for getting heard and noticed.

It is exactly this mind set that rates an English speaking fool better than someone arguing in a regional language. It is exactly this mindset that makes Mani Shankar Aiyar so rude to a 'tea seller' Modi. It is this rotten system of education that has injected arrogance into Maken who wants to stop a Smriti getting a chance to perform fearing that her performance might not give him another chance to raise such doubts. Kapils and Tharoors are the glaring products of this system who acquired arrogance through their degrees and have become completely non-receptive to any idea that has not originated from their school of thoughts. And for those who still doubt in this wisdom should at least learn from the attitude of the students of Harward University and IIM who did not ask Lalu to show his management degrees when he was called to deliver a lecture to share his experience in managing Indian Railways. I just hope that just an 'educated' Vivekananda had to roam around in search for an 'uneducated' Guru Ramkrishna Paramhans for his enlightenment, others do not find it that hard to get one of their own. Sri Aurobindo, a great yogi of Bengal once said: "India became free on the day when arrogant youth (Swamy Vivekananda) who had been to British schools bowed down humbly before the illiterate saint, knowing that he carried within him a greater power." 

Education, in true sense, is a progressive discovery of your own ignorance.