Lets not be an ostrich

Sometime around may 2017, Randeep Hooda shared a post on social media which was highly appreciated and made a lot of people smile. The post read:

“If you are Muslim and suddenly start feeling unsafe in country where you lived for more than thousand years..

If you are Dalit and start feeling insulted on every moment of life..

If you are Hindu and suddenly start feeling that cows are being slaughtered everywhere…

If you are a Jain and suddenly start feeling that your religious piety is being compromised…

If you are punjabi and think all the youth are on drugs.

Just do one thing…

– Stay away from social media…

– Don’t watch news…

– Stay away from debates on

religion…

Just look around you at your friends who belong to different castes , communities and religions…

And you will find that you are living in one of the best countries in the world!! “

The post though an old one, was the one I remembered today during a dialogue with my children in English class.

We were discussing a chapter on untouchability in India and its roots in Hinduism. The piece is written by MK Gandhi and is included in class IX Rajasthan board English text book.

For an activity, I was discussing with kids to list the adverse effects practices like untouchability have on people.

We all narrated incidents that we have come across in our own life. I told them how I wasn’t entertained inside a house and made to sit on the porch once the grandfather of my classmate came to know I eat non vegetarian food. Though it is not a direct example of caste based untouchability but the basic idea of “purity” is the same. I also told them about how a few people I know of keep separate utensils and crockery to offer water and snacks when Dalits and Muslims come to their house.

The children were surprised these things happen in the cities as well. To them, villages are the den of social evils and everyone in cities roam around in modern clothes with not a care about outmoded ideas like untouchability in mind.

I told them as much as these social practices shouldn’t be existing anywhere, the fact is, they do exist. In every part of the society in some form or the other.

To sum up my experiences, I further told them about my decision to not go to the house of my acquaintance that disrespects another human being because my acquaintance also believes in untouchability and it wasn’t just about the family and I personally cannot relate to people who don’t believe in equality and cannot respect other people.

After listening to this, a girl in the group told us untouchability is practiced even at her home and narrated an incident when one of her Bhabhis who owns a shop ( aate ki chakki) refused to sell wheat flour to a “Regar”.

To this, a boy in the group who has joined Digantar Vidyalay this year itself smiled and said : Didi, hum “Regar” hain.

My first reaction was of a thousand emotions running through my mind. Ashamed of being part of the society that has such practices, apologetic for co existing with such evils and people and finally, anger.

The discussion from there went to almost every child acknowledging these practices do happen every now and then to if this act was a right one or a wrong to what can be done at our level to stop such practices.

The girl said she had told her Bhabhi such practices were wrong but the Bhabhi doesn’t pay any heed to such talks and is a firm believer of untouchability.

The bell rang and the period got over. Today’s experience occupied my mind even while doing other work throughout the day.

Ultimately what made me smile and helped me in becoming normal was when I realised in retrospect the fact that the boy knows and realises that the environment of the school , the teachers, the system believes in equality, justice and democracy. He believes in us. And knows we believe in him. This space for him is a safe space.

He has known us for a little over 2 months now. Yet, he didn’t feel shy or hesitant or apologetic in speaking aloud his caste which in our society is still very much a taboo. He knows his classmate’s family practices untouchability and he also knows his classmate acknowledges this act is a wrong one. He feels safe and is aware such practices are bad and is confident its not him who has to feel guilty when such incidents happen.

The girl who narrated the story is also a new student. She showed her faith in us by accepting her family members did practice something that is morally wrong. She had confidence in the school environment that she wont be judged for saying the truth here.

To me, these small unsaid subtle expressions of behaviour are a huge step forward.

There are two ways of living in the society. 1. be an ostrich and burry your head deep in the sand whenever you see or hear something wrong and go in denial ( like Mr Hooda) & 2. Acknowledge the wrongs, accept them, think, learn and become better.

Whenever I see a Hindu discriminating against a Muslim, whenever I see a Dalit being discriminated against, whenever I see a Muslim calling Hindus ungodly and kafirs, I think of the post by Mr Hooda. In the past year or so, i have thought about it a number of times for i desperately wanted to believe in the lines written but the reality again and again makes me realise we cant sugar coat the societal evils any longer. As a country India believes in all the right things but as citizens we all differ on the meaning of those things.

Plush offices, malls, movie halls, fancy phones might help us in ignoring the reality a lot of people face in India but that doesn’t make them disappear. We just cover them with a soft cozy blanket like we hide the slums beneath huge concealers around airports so that people get a good “view” when they land in the city.

Changes in social context dont happen overnight. Shifting mindsets doesn’t happen with a snap of the fingers. It takes time. Years, generations maybe. But once the seed of question and logic is sown, the sapling of reason will sprout. It may remain dormant for a while but rest assured, it will sprout.

Golden Rays ?!!

For children, the course books are like the gospel truth. The words printed in the text books are infallible. They are the basis of knowledge that the education system thinks a child should possess. Ideally, this knowledge should help a person in becoming objective and rational.

While teaching English to children, and I am talking about level 7th,8th,9th and 10th, I come across so many texts, so many chapters and so many intentions that are so far away from the objectives of education that this country believes in.

Adolescent age is the most impressionable. Children are in constant search of understanding the world, looking for answers and forming concepts. Education ideally, should help and support a child in this journey.

Recently, while teaching children a chapter from class X English book of Rajasthan board, I had to pause, think and stop in between the chapter to start a discussion on beliefs, the concepts of good and bad, how to differentiate between the author’s view and their own and how not to consider what is being taught as the ultimate pristine truth for nothing is beyond discussion and doubt.

The chapter’s name is “A discourse on prayer “ which is an extract from M.K Gandhi’s lecture which he delivered to children at Sabarmati Ashram.

“There are some who in their egotism of their reason declare that they have nothing to do with religion. But it is like a man saying that he breathes but that he has no nose. …… the rankest of agnostic or atheist does acknowledge the need for a moral principle , and associates something good with its observance and something bad with its non observance”

The amount of failed logic in this small text is staggering. The assumption that not believing in religion is a sign of superciliousness is I think in fact a sign of egotism from the author’s side. The biggest flaw here is the assumption that the concepts of good and bad or moral principles are not independent of religion. This denies these concepts the purity with which they exist and bring them down to a shallow level and dependent on something other than the beautifully manifested ideas that they are.

“…. prayer is the very core of man’s life as it is the most vital part of religion”

The chapter from there goes to the next step since it has supposedly established the importance and existence of religion and also dismissed a life lived otherwise.

“There is an external struggle raging in man’s breast between the powers of darkness and of light, and he, who has not the sheet anchor of prayer to reply upon, will be a victim to the powers of darkness….. the man who goes about the affairs of the world, without a prayerful heart, will be miserable and will make the world also miserable”

All this coming from who we call the Father of the Nation, someone who believed in freedom of thought, choices and respecting each other, is rather surprising.

“You whose mission in life is service of your fellow men, will go to pieces if you do not impose on yourselves some sort of discipline and prayer is a necessity spiritual discipline. It is discipline and restraints that separate us from the brute”

Again, believing concepts like discipline and self restraint can exist only in the shadows of religion is an erroneous assumption. It is like shutting a bunch of perfectly beautiful flowers in a box for the fear of getting them exposed to fresh air and environment where they might wilt. To introduce the children to a concept is exposing them to different schools of thoughts. To dismiss other schools of thought and teaching a specific one as the ultimate truth is teaching children to be averse to logic and reason.

These texts had been spoken at a religious gathering, imparting religious codes to people who wanted to listen to a specific line of thought. I am questioning these texts because these are being taught to our children with the intention of “educating “ them and making them informed, rational individuals.

This is one such chapter from one book of one class. I would be writing more highlighting more texts that take away the education from the education system.

A little spark would go a long way

An all round education can never be in a setup that is completely formal. For a set up of complete formal nature would probably teach a child how to sit in rows, how to keep quiet, how to behave in an orderly fashion but it would also strip a child of questions, of the ability to raise her voice, to express , to explore her interests and the strength to break the norms.

Every human being is born with a spark. It is our responsibility to see that the spark is kept alive and nurtured with care and not put out with the burden of rules and norms and systems.

So many children are taught and shown a path that adults are comfortable in. Paths of customs, traditions and should bes and should-nots. This is not helping a child in any way to become a responsible, rational being. If questions are suppressed, if systems are not challenged, if dialogues are not encouraged,a child would forever be depended on what has been handed down to her on a platter as the gospel truth and fail completely to tap her own potential.

By guiding and nudging children in the direction of the much taken, beaten down path, I think us adults showcase two things. One, our own limitations and lack of confidence and two, our fear of knowing the unknown which again might be because most of us are products of the system that is rigid and closed.

I remember an incident from my childhood. I had studied in a non formal alternative school before joining the main stream. My adjustment with the switch was okayish mainly because of the excellent class teacher I had at the time who understood me and also because I was from an alternative background, I had the confidence and an attitude that I knew would make me feel okay eventually. Before the year ended, I had adjusted, made friends and started showing my interests in things i liked.

One day, there was a construction work going on in the school and one of the kids of the labourers’ entered our class corridor. I was in grade 5 at the time. I bent down, touched his cheeks and walked away. A friend of mine looked horrified and came rushing to me and asked me to wash my hands because the kid was “not one of our own”. Of course, I was too young at that time to figure out what exactly was wrong with this statement but I knew deep within that something was wrong with the statement and more so, something was wrong with the sentiment behind the statement.

How many of children who believe in “us” and “they” have since grown up and are adults and believe in this divide? So, should we blame people or the system? And that again is a complex issue since systems are made by people and hence to some extent are people’s reflection.

Another aspect that every adult and child should have is, to have opinions. The world right now is either luxurious for some or a challenge for some. Things are either easily available or not available at all. For those who have got access to resources, it becomes a responsibility to utilise the resources to gain knowledge. Not in the click bait manner which a lot of us are getting used to. But, an in-depth one.

Being aware is the least we can do to show our respect to the life we have got and the senses that we have as gifts. We need to honour them.

I have the opportunity to interact with a range of kids of different ages and it is a delight to take one period each week in every class on different issues. The questions like what is below in the ground? How are volcanos made? What is pangae land? What is the meaning of the term Hindustan? Was it coined after a religion or does this signify something else? What are stars? What are planets and galaxies? Who works more mom or dad? Are men and women equal? etc are discussed and thought about. Also, I get so much stereotypical texts in the course books that I need to every now and then close the books and remind the children to learn to differentiate between the views of the writer of a chapter and their own. Because, that is important. To realise that views can be formed and they might differ from the popular ones.

We need to do this regularly with kids. We need to do this with our kids or kids that we interact with. We need to nurture the unbiased and loving nature that children have and need to work hard to stop it from being poisoned by us adults.

Kids see, they understand, learn and enact what they see. The way i hold my pen and my handwriting is the carbon copy of how at least 3 members of my family write. Because subconsciously i picked up the style. This is just an example and I am sure each one of us has at least a few traits that are a ditto of someone that we have been closely associated with.

Those who can, must work to change the world. One positively effected life would go a long long way. We need rational beings and not fanatics and bigots. The world we are leaving behind for our children is not ideal and is probably worse than the world that was handed to us by our parents. A small effort or a big effort is not a parameter when we speak about touching lives. Each one of us needs to do whatever we can. And that doesn’t mean we impose ideas and principles because freedom and rational thinking can never be imposed. All we need to do is, consistently remind the kids to be informed and rational. That is, if we truly love and respect them. Otherwise, its easy to slap them while they are young and tell them asking questions is bad and traditions and norms are the gospel truths from the “god’s own mouth”. So that the child can question neither the traditions nor the norms or God or the gospel.

We all have wings. Its time we learned how to fly and soar high with our thoughts.

Its time we made a choice.