On March 8, as a women’s day special the
documentary ‘He named me Malala’ was aired in NatGeo channel as a tribute to
all the wonderful ladies. Having read the book I waited eagerly to watch it. A
wonderful documentary I must say in its making, the message it sends and
obviously the cause for which it was made! But it did bring up certain thoughts
in my head.
Well, at first I thought God! How lucky we all
are.. for our society is not against
education! Be it girl’s or boy’s. Instead we are going through a situation
which is exact opposite. And I wonder which is worse. In countries like
Pakistan and Syria mostly girls are not send to school while here right when a
child is born parents would start thinking which school to send their kids to!
And by the time the child is reaches two years of age they would have started
the struggle to get him an admission in a high class school. Given the trouble
that parents take to get their kids admitted to decent school its not
surprising that these days schools ask for donation up to (or sometimes more
than) around 1 lakh rupees! And for what ?? For Kindergarten admissions!
Finally all the above average and rich students get into the high class
schools. And then the tution frenzy
begins!!If ur about my age and above you’d think tutions start at around 8th
grade max. But that’s not the case now. Tutions begin at grade 1!
Fourteen years of schooling and the kid passes
class 12 exams with flying colours. And what had they learned in all these
years?? Whichever curriculum whichever board one thing is for definite , that
they would have all learnt of the number
of religions, the sub classes, caste names and of course gender equality!(or
should I say inequality). I’ve always wondered why do they teach of communities
the minorities and castes.. It’s almost as if they are sowing the seeds of
castes and communalism at a young age. After
grade 12 again the admission rush begins! A fight for medicine and engineering
seats ensues later on! In any case, in around 3-5 years our country produce
some lakhs of graduates. All is well till now. N then what happens??
You’d think all these years of education would
have done enough good to build a good citizen in each of these graduates. Well,
have it? If yes then how come there are so many communal riots? How come there
are incidents like that in JNU? If yes, then why did Rohith Vemula, the Dalit
research scholar end his life? If yes,
then how come a single newspaper report ignites so many religious emotions? If yes then.. the list continues..
And then there are kids like Malala and the
Syrian girls who were abducted and the other millions of kids who are deprived
of right to education! I wonder which situation is worse; Raising educated
idiots or raising uneducated kids who but then knows the true meaning of
equality and humanity!
So where did we go wrong?? The problem is to be
solved at the roots. I happened to see this video on Facebook where a group of
science aspirants were asked to name some inventors. All of them answered immediately
naming Einstein, Newton, Graham Bell and so many others! But none, not a single
child were able to name a female inventor! Now how did that happen? Is it because
there are no female inventors?? NO! Then how can it happen? When asked why so,
the kids replied..” They didn’t teach us of any female inventors in textbook!” That’s
a start.. is it not?? For a change, why don’t they quit teaching the different
levels of castes; why don’t they quit teaching of major and minor religious
communities? For a change why don’t they take out all those reservations! I wonder how it would be if the next
generation of students grew up without knowing all this stupid ideologies!
Maybe then then they would end up seeing each and every one as another human,
and not a member of any caste religion or gender. And who knows; maybe then
there would even be no need to celebrate a day like women’s day! No one would
be looked down nor would anyone be looked upon! Only then the true meaning of our constitution
could be achieved!! For only then, there could be unity in diversity!