TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY THROUGH EDUCATION
Posted by bmhegde on 1
“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.”
Cicero.
Does society need transformation? It is a million dollar question that begs more questions than answers at the moment. Some might argue that it is the best of times for humankind what with all the technological innovations that make life easy and the so called economic prosperity that goes with it. What more do we need? What more could we ask for? On the other hand one could see the writing on the wall that all is not well with mankind these days what with man eating man in the name of religion, race, creed, caste, nation, ideology and what have you. We have terrorism of the worst kind making life really unpredictable for the common man coupled with organized state terrorism on the gullible nations and groups, all run by the greed for power and money. Is this not the worst of times, then?
We have thus defined the paradox. Is that the whole story? Is there more to it than what meets the eye? Is there really justice to be found in this unfair world? Is justice really injustice in today’s world? Is justice the convenience of the powerful as it used to be in Socrates’ time in Greece? Much more than all these are the white collar crimes committed by the apparently well meaning segments of society. The root cause of the latter also is proclivity for comfort and greed for money and power. One could be comfortable and enjoy life by hard work and sincerity, but one could never be filthy rich without some kind of subtle crime. Usual methods used by the white collar criminals are the following: 1) managing their tax burden, not paying their due taxes misusing the legal loopholes in the system, 2) covertly over pricing their products and/or, 3) underpaying their employees. All these methods are very ingeniously devised even by the most illustrated of businessmen. That expertise goes by the name business management!
Politicians and bureaucrats are the next perpetrators of the existing sorry state of affairs. Most of them are directly involved in the game, some, not so crafty, aid the criminals to further their ends and milk them later and a few ignore the goings on despite the fact that they owe it to society to police the system. All three categories are anti-social in the true sense of the word. But the most dangerous are the group that masquerade under the guise of scientism. Scientific temper, on the other hand, the curiosity to know the working of this enigmatic nature, is the only way to real human progress. Blind faith in anything from religion, science or tradition could stifle human progress and take man into the valley of irrationalism.
The word science carries an aura of authenticity around it, thanks to the universal acceptance of science as the real cause of human progress in the present set up. It is also supposed to be very rational vis-à-vis superstition and blind faith. If one were to analyse the goings on in the name of science, the hollowness of it all becomes very clear. Scientists have been responsible, indirectly, for some of the most dastardly crimes on society resulting in some instances of mass destruction. Technological development, riding piggy back on scientific inventions, is another double edged sword. While it looks, for all intents and purposes, as the do-gooder, the fall out many a time has not been altruistic. Humanism is the need of the hour in every field.
The murky business of awards and prizes in science, as in any other field, is also shrouded in mystery: criminal activities are not unseen there either. One example would suffice. Recent Nobel Prize in physics has almost caused a dust storm in the Nobel committee with one of the important members resigning citing lobbying and pressure tactics in selecting the right person/persons for the award as the cause of his resignation in an open letter. He was of the opinion that the best had to be left out. This is not the first time that the Nobel body had been caught on the wrong foot, anyway!
The noblest medical profession has taken modern medicine to the market place, thanks to technology again. Naturally market forces of greed and profiteering have now taken root in the system bringing misery to millions of people. Medical care system meant to allay anxiety, the root cause of all human illnesses, has been turned into the medical scare system that enhances society’s anxiety about diseases and death! It also tries to medicalise human life from birth to death. Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, put the scenario mildly thus: “modern medicine, for all its advances, is slightly off balance like the Tower of Pisa.” The truth is that in the USA the medical care system ranked as the first cause of death and disability much above cancer and heart attacks last year! The adverse drug reactions alone fill quarter of the American hospital beds in addition to causing out-patient illnesses for 79 million people in one year!
We have thus defined the problem. Now we have to look for remedies. The latter are not easy to find while the whole society has been systematically corrupted. This social cancer needs radical surgery and not temporary palliation. Any amount of preaching to the already converts will bring in any real change. We need to convert the non-converts, our future generation. The only way to do that would be to recast the educational system in Toto. Laws and rules, even the most stringent ones like the POTA in India to prevent crime and curb criminals, will not even touch the fringe of the problem. They might even aggravate the problem. One could change society by transformation of the heart of people. This needs radical changes in the educational system for lasting benefit.
This could start in India where Mark Twain had once said that all that is needed for mankind’s true growth could only be found in India. Our educational system of yore which existed here for “times out of mind” had all the inbuilt prerequisites for total true education-a process that trains a human being to act “justly, skillfully and magnanimously under all circumstances of war and peace.” Even the great French philosopher Voltaire had opined that “India had universities of excellence that attracted students from all over the world while we in Europe were still hunter-gatherers roaming the forests. It does not behoove us today either to question their authenticity or their antiquity.” Even in the present “so called” scientific progress India played a key role, if we were to believe Albert Einstein who said that “it is India that we have to be grateful to as they taught us how to count, without which there would have been no real scientific progress.”
“Time has come” the Walrus said “to talk of many things” in the field of education. Today’s education, thanks to Macaulay, is one sided in that it only teaches para vidya to the student leaving a vacuum inside the child to yearn for the knowledge of the self, apara vidya. The child does not get to know who he/she is, why is he/she here, where does he/she go from here and what are the societal obligations that go with being human? Unaware of human obligations the child grows to become an earner. With the present environment poised to encourage only the achievers, the child learns quickly to make it big and fast. This is the root cause of all evils inherent in the present society-greed, pride, ego, jealousy, anger and hatred. Bereft of all these negative traits the human being is divine and altruistic.
“Education is the manifestation of the perfection that is already in man,” opined Swami Vivekananda, a truly realized soul who knew that every new born child is bestowed with all that is knowable right in the mother’s womb. Education (e=out; ducare=deliver) has only to be the midwife to deliver the good things from inside to build a divine human personality in every one. Today’s education does anything but that. I wonder who wrote these golden words? “Every new born child is a genius, but schools turn them into idiots.” This is the truth. Even Socrates tried to change that without much success. “Let not my schooling come in the way of education,” was his lamentation. Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore could not tolerate school for more than three years! We need education and not just schooling.
Let our future schools, real Pestolezzis that they could be, be an attraction for the young impressionable minds unlike the hated places that they are today. Parents have to drag their children in the morning to school. The mindless curriculum is so heavy that the child does not have time even to think for a minute. Children do not have their childhood in this atmosphere. They will never get their childhood later even if they paid all the money that they have earned. We must let the child realize that one could buy everything except true happiness with money. True happiness is in giving. That realization could only come with true education. It is our responsibility to see that the future generation at least is put on the right track to reach their goal of universal brotherhood and happiness. Vasudaiva kutumbakam. Sarve jannaaha sukhina bhavathu.
“All men by nature desire to know.”---------Aristotle.