Vote for Taj!

Yesterday I recieved a forward mail with an appeal to my patriotism - Vote for Taj!

The mail was deleted without any loss of time, but the topic stayed for some time for its irritation-value. The only thought that came to my mind was in form of a picture, a picture of a man taking his wife with him and asking every passer-by, "Isnt my wife beautiful?"

Tajmahal can stand on its own foundation, it doesn't need any support. And Beauty is not a mandate, it doesn't need unanimity. It is not a commodity that needs marketing and market survey. But my fellow Indians have embraced the culture of shopkeepers rather well. Today we see them canvassing for their motherland, tomorrow they may be seen on streets standing with their mothers, "Please taste this. My mom is one of the world's top 7 cooks."

In evening, they will go home and order pizza.

Note: I wonder if someone blunt asks them how many dishes have they really tasted before telling others that it is their mom who cooks the best. Others too love their mothers, don't they?

Artistic Freedom and all that jazz

Caligula: Do you really believe in the gods, Scipio?
Scipio: No.
Caligula: Then I fail to follow. If you don’t believe, why be so keen to scent out blasphemy?
Scipio: One may deny something without feeling called on to besmirch it, or to deprive others to the right of believing in it.

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So much has happened in last few days! I can only imagine how terribly dizzy you must be feeling, dear artist. Everyone is talking about you, and your work – people you know, and people you don’t know.

Your unfortunate detention has caught the attention of the national loudspeakers. Learned men and women have strongly condemned ‘yet another attack on artistic freedom’, administered by the right wing forces ruling in Gujarat. The editorials of prestigious dailies and the discussion forums of TV channels are burning with protests against this ‘flagrant violation of the fundamental right of expression’.

About half of the space of The Hindu's 'Letters to Editor' is seen to be used by its progressive readers to voice their outrage against ‘the return of the Stake’. You’ll surely be delighted to see the awareness of our people and their zeal for modern ideas and values like "Freedom" and "Democracy".

It should be noted though, that the same liberal people hardly felt what they often feel on such occasion – outrage, when works of writers like Salman Rushdie or Tasleema Nasreen were banned in a secular nation. Secular! The same people shed copious tears when the pious 'secular' sentiments were wounded by the mischief of a Danish cartoonist, and even went to the extent of making nation-wide demonstrations against the conviction of a cold-blooded dictator, in a democratic republic! That’s our 'right-handed' left* for you with all their kitsch of modernity!

My convictions are, however, irritated by some other doubts. And I think you are the best person who can help me to find the answers to the questions that disturb my thoughts, as far as your case is concerned. I'll spare you all the rhetorics and all the etiquettes that make disagreements look more awkward than they really are, and talk straight to the point. I have made some effort to acquire an understanding of Social Contract - the framework in which the modern political ideas had been developed (by 18th century French philosophers like Rousseau and Voltaire and many others since then). At the risk of sounding pedantic, I would assert that these ideas, outside this framework, not only make little sense but also deceive and corrupt our thoughts.

Please don't panic. Let’s take a simple case - if I refuse to give up my freedom to swing my hand freely around me, regardless of the fact that it happens to slap the gentleman standing nearby, and if my two free eyes choose to gaze in a manner that offends the shame of his lady, I wonder why should they be reminded of my right of being treated with courtesy when they, in turn, like to exercise their freedom of denying me that (Didn’t I step over their right of dignity first? Was it not I who first broke the social contract between us?).

In the framework of social contract, as we know, a Right is always accompanied by a set of responsibilities; and a right is allowed to an individual only if he agrees to forfeit a part of his freedom, which might be (mis)used, to the extent of his/her capacity, to the detriment of society.

This implies that if I behave with a sense of responsibility then it becomes a duty of the civilized society to ensure me my rights. This is perhaps what they mean by social contract – mutual respect and a sense of responsibility on part of both individual as well as society.

Artistic freedom, I think, is no exception, and an artist has every right to express himself, as long as he doesn’t forsake his responsibilities. Now the next question is – What is the responsibility of an artist?

Well, I am afraid I have no idea of that. I think this is for the intellectuals to ponder upon or for you artists to feel in your heart. But I am sure that there must be some sense of responsibility on part of an artist to deserve artistic freedom. I repeat - there is hardly anything to said and proved here. Rather there is only something to be heard in your heart, when you are alone with yourself.

The letter has become more tedious than I intended. So I’ll wrap it up now. My only concern here is that any irresponsible act on the part of artists like you only helps them - the scavengers - the right and right-handed left, run their business. Both, wanna-be artists and activists of various camps get their share of limelight at the cost of people’s sentiments.

Don’t take me otherwise. I am not one of those whose faith is made and broken by others’ conviction in that; and I am not paranoid about cultural invasion either. I don't have to be. You can hardly better Kamasutra and Khajuraho that way. If you think you have to say something good, go ahead, and say it artistically. But please decide your responsibilities and bear them in mind, for freedom is nobody's birthright.

*No reference to any political party.

The Fetish of Results, Ranks and Remunerations

I wonder why I have never written anything on this topic, as it is so close to my heart. Read on, the sentiment is mine, and the words are of the principal of Doon School - Kanti Bajpai.

This is a right time to write about 'the economics of propaganda' feeding on the middle-class superstition and insecurity, which makes a fetish of education, results and so-called ranks of students (and institutes). After the maddening chaos of boards results and the marketing of minimum cut-offs, we see the magazine stalls littered with annual surveys of Top 10 institutes of India, which believe me is absolute nonsense. Read on.

Why do top results -- in boards, JEE or UPSC -- matter to us so much?

Judging by the hoopla surrounding the board examination results, Indian school education is in decline. What we are witnessing is a kind of decadence. The media is only helping construct this decadence. It has little or no understanding of education, focuses on the most sensational and trivial aspects of school life, and is fetishising learning. Unfortunately, it is not just the media. The government, the examining boards, school managements, teachers, and, yes, parents have combined to bring Indian education to this pass.

We think that Indian schools are world-class institutions in the making, that our science and mathematics are the envy of others, and that Indian students are smarter and harder working than anyone else. None of this is true. Indian schools are in a shambles; our science and mathematics teaching are appalling; and our students, while intelligent and diligent, are of the same genetic material as other human beings and, given the burden of our curriculum, are in danger of losing their creativity and energy by the time they "succeed" in school examinations.

Our annual board results, IIT results and civil service examination results are feeding the frenzy over the search for the smartest and the most likely to succeed. This year, the frenzy over who "topped" the exams, which school produced the best results, how many students got into engineering colleges or got the best SAT results (the US college entrance test which is a 10th standard exam, at best!), and who headed the IIT entrance lists has been worse than ever.

The question is: how can it possibly be interesting educationally that student X got 95.6 per cent and was at the top of an examination list when it is likely that the next person, who never features in the public adulation, got 95.5 per cent? Does anyone seriously think that there can be any difference intellectually and in terms of life chances and attainments based on these infinitesimal differences? Indeed, is there much difference between someone who scored 95 per cent and 89 per cent? Has anyone bothered to track all these "toppers"? Where do they end up on the scales of life—income, professional satisfaction, social status, personal happiness? What do they contribute to the good of society around them?

This is not to denigrate those who have topped. It is to ask what this frenzy of interest is about. It is not about education, whatever else it is about. It is a circus, without a circus master. Each of us helps make this spectacle, though some are more responsible than others. For instance, why does the CBSE, the most reported board, splash the name of the toppers around and feed media comparisons relating to this year's average as against last year's, how many passed and how many did not, and so on? Why do school principals like me and school managements tell the media who amongst our students topped the results and what our averages are? Why do school managements base their judgement of their school's success so massively on the board results? Why do parents, most of whom did not do particularly well themselves in the board examination in their own day, and who know that school examination results do not count for much in the game of life, become so drunken over the results, losing all sense of proportion?

One reason for this fetish relating to marks and averages is scarcity. In a country of scarcities, even a marginal difference, we conclude, can make an enormous difference to our children: that extra mark will mean extra consideration when colleges admit (somewhat true, at least in India) and when employers hire (largely not true).

Another reason for the fetish of results is our paranoia. We are convinced that people out there are conspiring to deny our meritorious children what they rightly deserve.What can stop them from doing so except a marksheet in front of them? After all, who can quarrel with the numbers? It is another matter that the numbers we fetishise are only one indication of the quality of a student's mind, and no one, with any sense, would go only by numbers, at least for the purpose of hiring.

Finally, we urban, "educated", middle-class Indians have made the board results into a fetish because we need a clear, simple and apparently unassailable index of success. So much in India seems second-rate and bleak (it is not, but we have persuaded ourselves that our country is a collective failure) that we must have some golden eggs. It does not matter that the eggs are in someone else's basket, that someone else's son or daughter has topped. We hunger for an affirmation that there are "successes" amongst us capable of transcending the "mediocrity" around. We are in search of supermen so that we can feel better.