Since education has popped into the discussion, what are the suggestions for an "agenda" for education? There are plenty of issues. GOI has officially declared/proposed/moved towards universal education at least at the starting level. This at long last is a good initiative.
But we may still have a significant representation in the corridors of power from certain "elite" institutions. If these institutions are not integrated into an uniform educational system, we may have a mismatch between expectations and realities. So the vast majority will perhaps be still in a "voting" mode, whereas people from the special-institutions are the ones being voted for or selected for decision making. Such institutions could also be maintaining a disconnect from post-colonial India, by imprinting colonial imagery and memes which the graduates may retain with fondmess long after they pass out.
Here is a reportage I came across about Founder's Day Celebrations in an english-medium school at Kolkata.
http://www.ongardens.com/lamarts/cal2003.htm
Some obesrvations strike immediately, like the holding on to names of colonial masters in places of honour, some with special links to deliberate attempts at destroying what they thought was Indian civilization:
Behind them came boys carrying the house flags Charnock, Hastings, Macaulay and Martin.
The connections to corridors of power and the rashtra are also symbolically present.
Then, unlike in our times, an army bugler from the 11th Regiment of the Gorkha Rifle, who was standing as still in front of the dais as was the bust of our Founder placed at the entrance of the Hall, blew the Retreat and followed it with the Rouse. I think this was organised by the Principal through the good office of Lt Gen John Mukherjee who is the Chief of Staff of HQ, Eastern Command. He too was supposed to attend but has been called to Delhi on a last minute assignment.
Here is how the imagery and memes taught at school retain their influence.
The Canticle, 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men' was sung by the Boys and Girls and it brought back memories of our schooldays. Did we sing better in our days or was the acoustics to be blamed or maybe I am just biased like any old man suffering from the 'the good old days' syndrome. Notwithstanding, it did give a warm glow to the heart and being swamped by memories of my days a warm feel good glow enveloped me. I wonder if someone could enlighten me as to what we used to sing apart from this hymn, where the girls sang the same line in between and raced through it in a most cute way to end the line as we finished. Obviously, for those who are reading this and wondering what my gender would be, it was and still is male; though it was young and merry then but slightly jaded though still young now.
The Lords Prayer was followed by the First Lesson, the First Anthem {I Will Give You Glory O God My King} and the Second Lesson. It was a salute to India's secularist strength to observe that Old Boys of non Christian denominations not only sang the Lord's Prayer with gusto but they had not forgotten in spite of years of having past out of school, the musical intonations that powered the Prayer. This was followed by the School Prayer.
[...]
The Bishop gave his sermon thereafter and providentially it was short since the environment had become stuffy with the overflow of humanity that was attending and were still coming in.
[...]
The Blessing, by the Bishop of Calcutta, was preceded by the Hymn 'All people that on earth do dwell' and then commenced Part 2 of the Programme.
It is interesting to see that the author notes that the school is not
one of the many' school is proved by the fact that we are the only School that has a Founder's Day and a Dinner for all as also by the fact that ex LMC boys and girls still jet in from far corners to Calcutta for just one day to saviour[savour?] the honour and pride of attending the Founder's Day.
We are a proud school and we should take pride in our heritage. The old has to give way to the new, but Traditions should go on if indeed we are to maintain our 'exclusivity' - the 'exclusivity' so ironically mentioned by the Chief Guest, be in Dress, punctuality, discipline or proceedings as laid down by traditions handed over by our predecessors.
Maj. Gen. Claude Martin's history is colourful and an interesting twist to the course of European colonization - how initially a French soldier he ended up "collaborating" (in his own words) with the British (and taking up service under them) in the defeat of Tipu Sultan. The educational institution he left money for (he similarly left money for such in Lucknow and Lyon) in his will was however used by the authorities to actually disallow "native"s and only allowed European Christians. This was of course out of the money he himself acknowledged was made from India. "Natives" were only allowed in 1935. Perhaps this was not part of the "tradition" of "exclusivity" that the author of that article had in mind.
I appreciate the sentiments and straightforward identification with the "school ethos" by the author, and he has written in good faith. But I think the reportage thows up in sharp outline how such institutions affect the lifelong attitudes and thought processes in perhaps many who are placed in rashtra level decision making roles.
Should there be an uniform policy formulated not only on the syllabus, but also on behaviour, code of conduct, structure, form and imagery used in our schools? So that it is a totality of education we are looking at, and not merely at producing skills and ensuring certain world-views?
