LITERATURE-LIGHT AND DELIGHT
It is difficult to talk of literary culture- indeed any culture- in the current scenario, where anything goes in the name of literature or culture! Words seem to have lost their plain meaning. Words are merely employed now like money, to make even more.
Culture used to be associated with the cultivation of character. The values held high by a society served as the foundation for that culture. Literature served both as the repository and vehicle of that culture, making subsequent generations familiar with those ideas and ideals. People endowed with a fairly good knowledge of and firm adherence to such values served as the very bedrock of the system. Cynics and critics may point out the hypocrisy, ambivalence, double standards, duplicity. Reformers often talked of how narrowly exclusive it was. But such people missed the essence, and merely operated as the gutter inspectors.
No society has been completely pure or totally perfect. For every five Pandavas, we have had a hundred Kauravas. But whom does the society admire,take as its models and heroes, even when it is unable to follow them fully? This is the index of the cultural state of the society. It is where all the old societies scored, and present societies fail.
Take a field like sports. A generation ago, big sports like Tennis were amateur events. The prize money was nominal, almost symbolic. But the participants were great champions of the game, and competed for the mere honours. Come a man like Kramer, the sport is turned into a professional circus, with great money at stake. There have been great champions in both eras. But are they comparable at all? Who can we hold equal to a Rod Laver? Or Pancho Gonzales though he never won at Wimbledon? Can we forget our own Ramanathan Krishnan and his 'touch' artistry, though he had a weak serve and never won a big championship? Win or lose, their very presence and participation lent grace and charm to the event and made the game more than mere sports event. Have we felt such elation of spirit in all the subsequent events, through all the great names of subsequent champions? Do we value them by the number of championships they won, or the mere prize money earned? I would say Roger Federer alone of all the modern players of the professional era deserves to be mentioned along with Rod Laver. The man is so simple, unassuming and genuine. Yes, he is a man.
It is the glamour, and the money, and the glitter, gossip and scandals that have corrupted the system. I mentioned Tennis because it is still an individual game, and one can leave one's stamp on it. The other games like cricket, football are so money-soaked , they are simply forms of business now, no more sports events. So we generally see how sports culture declines with the infusion of money culture.
It has been so in academics too. In India, formal education is highly valued, but not for its educational value, but for its money-making potential for the managements of schools, and money-earning potential for the students. For both then it is plain business. It has become incredibly costly, almost unaffordable for most, right from the pre-nursery stage ( which is a scandal by itself). There is a govt schooling arrangement which is cheap, but also in quality. Govt. has promoted the idea of universal education, but by its plainly silly policies made it both impractical and stupidly costly. No govt can run a simple educational system in India that is both effective and affordable.
The only consideration which weighs with parents in selecting a school or course is its potential to make money! English medium becomes the only choice of all sane parents, for all subjects and schools. Some state govts like the ones in Karnataka resisted it, and put all impediments on the way of English medium schools for over 30 years. But it could not stop the tide of rising popular demand for English medium, which no more remained the idea or privilege of the elite, and only made it costly, thus making it a plain business proposition. It bred corruption, as the govt machinery had to be bribed at all levels , repeatedly, to get the approvals, or more often, to make them wink at the violations. People , through the private school managements, had to finally get the clearance from the Supreme Court, but the plain crooked politicians are still resisting it- even while every one of them, without exception, is sending his own children to the choice English medium schools, and while even the ordinary daily wage earner and rickshaw driver prefers the English medium schools. The govt. is supposedly elected by the people, but whose will does it represent,really?
There is an ironical situation in higher education, which increasingly means professional courses ( or curses?) like medicine, engineering, commerce, business studies, etc. Through a system of reservation for large sections of society, which fancy themselves as 'backward', most of the seats in govt. run institutions which are subsidised through public taxation are given to these sections, for whom the eligibility standards are also relaxed. The others have to go to the private institutions, for the open quota, for which the competition is fierce, and where the fee is also very high. The govt. tries to dictate the fee structure, but the managements are too ingenious to be blunted by the bureaucrats.
What the whole system means in the end is that it is not academic, literary culture that prevails but money culture which pervades and triumphs. At no stage is there any visible sign of academic excellence, despite appearances. The IITs which started in the 60s with foreign collaboration to international standards are the only ones which still maintain some standards, but there are attempts to dilute them, and strict deans have been hounded out.
We also have another scandal in the so called teacher training institutions. Formal qualification is laid down for the profession, so the courses are in demand.. The standards are appalling, if you know. The point is, only the mediocre students enter these institutions, since the high-scoring ones invariably prefer the professional courses. What happens if you are a brilliant medical or engineering or law graduate and want to become a teacher? No, in India they cannot get into a teacher training course! They are not eligible for admission to such courses!
What is the kind of academic atmosphere that prevails in these educational institutions? How does the faculty deal with our questions and tackle our doubts and difficulties? I will give some instances from personal experience, over the last 50 years .
I was 17 and in the first year of college. We were studying world history, learning about renaissance, reformation, etc. It was a Catholic college, noted for strict discipline. One day the regular lecturer did not come and the Principal, an English priest, with Oxford qualifications himself came to substitute. He gave some general talks and asked us to raise any questions. I stood up and in a class of 80, openly asked him about 'the sale of indulgences'. He kept silent for a few seconds, looked at me, and started explaining. The matter was forgotten then.
Years after leaving college, when I took up detailed study of the period on my own, I realised with great shock the dire foolishness of what I had done: 'sale of indulgences' was one of the acts of the Pope which had provoked the reaction against Catholicism, called the Reformation. ( The regular lecturer had perhaps deliberately omitted discussing the topic!) My raising the question, about an objectionable act of the Pope, with a Catholic priest in the open class, had been an act of thoughtless rashness; it could have been taken as a provocation and the Principal had the power to 'punish' me. Yet he had spared me! Even now, when I think about it, I feel uneasy and feel so grateful for the grace and magnanimity he had shown me!
About 30 years later, my son was in school, in the 7th grade. The teacher had given some home work on English idiom and proverb, which he was doing. I liked this subject and so saw what he was doing. I found that the teacher had misquoted the proverb, and taken liberties with the idiom. Now, you know that idiom of any language is peculiar, may sound odd, but we cannot change it. Likewise, a proverb is also sacrosanct, and it has to be used as it is. I therefore corrected what my son had done, made him rewrite it. The next day in class, the teacher had chided him and he came home crying, blaming me for the incident. I was sure of my ground, knew the teacher to be wrong. So, I sent her a note, and sent for her information and return, a copy of the famous idiom book by William McMordie ( published by OUP years earlier, which I had kept since my college days), and another book on English proverbs, also OUP publication. The teacher took even more offence, sent for me the next day and questioned my credentials to question her, saying,"Who is the teacher here- you or me?". I explained to her as politely and patiently as possible the correct position and told her that knowledge was such a thing that we should welcome it from all quarters. I pointed out to her how the great Rt.Hon'ble Srinivasa Sastri had corrected even Churchill's wrong use of an English word, and I was but quoting English authorities to support correct English usage. She was not reconciled, and refused to return my books. In the next few days, my son told me how the 'miss' was troubling him. I then took my son off that school though it was mid-term. This is how small teachers display big egos!
And my rub with school managements! This happened quite recently, about 5 years ago. My relative's daughter was studying in 9th std. in an English medium 'Matriculation' school in a Tamil Nad town. I had gone there for a holiday and happened to see the school prospectus. It had a section containing many prayers in English and Tamil, for recital in the assembly. And every one of them contained mistakes- even the Tamil ones. I patiently corrected them. The prospectus as a whole contained many errors- a total disgrace for a so called English medium school, charging high fees. The next day, the girl came home in mid-school crying, saying the HM had scolded her severely in the open class for the corrections, saying no one had the authority to correct the school prospectus! The prospectus was seized, she was fined, and made to purchase another! This time I knew better than arguing, and kept quiet, simply praying that no harm should be done to the girl. Strangely, the HM herself was changed shortly afterward. But I saw last month that the same errors persist-another relative's child is studying in the same school now!
Genuine spirit of academic enquiry and freedom does not prevail anywhere. Every one is so touchy about his 'position' and hierarchy, power and prestige. Earlier teachers simply commanded our respect, now they demand it and we have to bow before even a worthless chair.
Our academic system has been so bureaucratic. I used to study a lot of books in the library, much beyond the prescribed portions. I had so much material, I often found it difficult to complete my answers within the prescribed time. Finally, before the final degree exam, my professor advised me not to study so much, and write so much, as the person evaluating the paper might not like it. He asked me to confine myself to the prescribed book. Why do you want to be smart? Answer the paper, and pass the exam, he would say. Later, in the post-graduate classes the same problem cropped up. At the MA level, there were no text-books as such; only books for reference and consultation. Those days, nothing was considered 'out of syllabus'. We had to compose the answer to suit the question, out of all the material we had. And it had to be done within the 3 hours given. It was good exercise.
But the great irony of life is that all this learning is useless in one's career: much of literature, history, economics, political science, philosophy, logic, etc is of no use at all. I first landed in Delhi in my job; I found that the people only spoke Hindi in the office, even while notings were made in English. I was directly recruited as officer, against which the employees' unions were protesting; it would provoke them further if I talked in English: they would say: 'see this born officer, he is showing off', or some such thing. So, for many years I could not even talk in proper English! I also found that my superiors, who had risen from the ranks, would resent anything sensed by them in any noting, as indicating any literary flair! So much about 'academic' spirit in the offices! Later, I realised the truth of the Peter Principle: "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence! " Obviously, the system will make you one, if you are not, to begin with! You now know why bureaucracies are what they are. What can you say of the efficiency of the govt which depends on such bureaucracies! How can academic culture thrive in such surroundings? No wonder Indian engineers are going to the US to slog there as bonded labour!
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