Thursday, December 20, 2012

Are we 'Man in a Beast'?

The Delhi gang rape case has shook my soul to its deepest foundations and has filled me with utter shame, regret and sorrow, for being born in this ‘free’ country, for being born as a ‘male’ - supposedly the more powerful of the two sexes, but still being unable to do anything except lie down and think. The incident has forced me to think, why is it that we always need a quake to wake us from our slumber, and why after every quake we are spurred to run hither and thither only for some time, till the quake has subsided or we have found a safe exit out of the old, shaky building we live in. Why we only react and that too for something bad happening in the immediate vicinity, and why we don’t proactively strengthen the foundations and pillars of the building, so that it can save us from any such quakes from slowly destroying our very civilization.

Before I continue, I will take some time to also think about the girl, the victim who endured, and is fighting for her life (whatever has been left of it). I sincerely pray to the almighty forces to give her all the strength, as it seems rest of us hardly have any, or need any.

They are demanding for death penalty for the six accused in this case. This demand, a very natural one in this furious atmosphere, only tells me about limitation of our minds to think what can be done to give justice to the girl and to set things right, for had there been anything more dreadful than death, they would have demanded that too. I am almost sure though, that the demands will not be met, for our penal code doesn’t have any such provision for incrimination for rape, the maximum punishment being 7 years of rigorous imprisonment. Even a change of law, as being demanded, won’t help for the Article 20 of our constitution doesn’t allow retroactive criminal legislation.

Irrespective of the fate of these accused, which I believe would not be better or worse than what they deserve, it is important to decrypt that why do such incidents happen in first place. And then along with the demonstrations and the candle light processions that are being held to demand justice for the girl, we must as well take a resolve to remove the reasons that culminate into such ‘heinous’ incidents.

From the facts about this case that have been disclosed by media till now, it is evident that the six accused had gone out for a joy ride, not premeditated to be a rape ride. It was the rage that one of the ‘eccentrics’ felt after a brawl with the girl’s friend, that they decided to ‘teach a lesson’ to both of them. It was a sense of power that the six felt vis-à-vis two of the victims, that led them to take the first step towards a situation that later went out of control, and up to a level which I am sure they must be regretting at this moment. Under a sense of unabated freedom, to me it appears that an act of violence against any person is bound to end in a similar way. They man-handled the girl to vent out their anger and logically concluded the action by raping her to ‘teach her a lesson’. Had there been one of them with some hormonal imbalance too, apart from psychological sickness, he might have even ended up sodomizing the poor girl’s friend. It is also important to note here the reason why the brawl started in first place. Apparently, the reason was that the accused considered the freedom of the girl to walk in a free country at night hours with a male friend, hurting their patriarchal ego or against their wretched morals.

From the whole incident, as I perceive it, I filtered out three interconnected social-psychological issues that we, as a society, are diseased with. First is anger and violence. Today, we are becoming unendurably intolerants, with our blood always boiling, temper always on fire. Anger, my friends, blocks our humanly senses, leaving no space for rationality, and lets the beastly tendencies overpower us, making us act and react impulsively, often to our regret later. I don’t know if this is because of some ecological changes in our environment, or due to lack of better avenues to channel this energy, but what I know is that the growing anger needs to be controlled. The anger is what I see, when I open daily newspaper, be it in form of communal riots in Assam, shoot-out in US, murder of own parents by a son refused to be given more money, merciless beating of student by teacher leading to death, conflict between Israel-Palestine, diktats of Khap Panchayats or suicide by a distressed lover.

Closely connected to ‘anger’ is a false sense of power. We all feel angry sometime or the other. But we don’t always end up shooting or raping people. We don’t show our anger by trying to mess up with a hungry lion, or some dreaded armed terrorist. We vent out our anger against the weak, who we know won’t or can’t retaliate. So the false sense of power, or superiority or being mightier than the other, be it in status, physical strength, political clout, color, caste, class, age, money or gender, is what is leading to such acts of violence with impunity. We look for easy targets to show our power, by humiliating and mutilating them. Gandhi wrote, “I fail to understand how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings”. So do I. Over and above that how can we, to our convenience, decide who is more powerful? We all are born free and equal human beings. It is just a matter of time that some are apparently strong in the present context. But still they choose to tread over the weaker to reach higher heights, trying to perpetuate their power, but stooping irrecoverably low in the process. The spectacle of a person pulling aside his car to step out and incessantly beat a poor rickshaw wala, only because he failed to hear the haughty honks or the car owner, is both common and heart rending. Some of us may feel bad about the rickshaw wala or some may curse him instead. Neither the former of us would do much to help him, nor the latter take out some time to think of the problems of the rickshaw wala. Perhaps we are so used to such things happening and we are too busy to care. And also we have found it easier to endure this injustice, whether being inflicted upon us or others, than to take the painful path of bringing a change.

This brings me to my third observation, about the incident i.e. accepting the weaker status of women. Whenever any cruelty against women happens, or I must say is taken into mass cognizance, we see men, women, elders, children, cutting across diverse backgrounds, and considering themselves modern enough, calling for a change, a change in laws to be more women friendly, a change in public services towards being more gender sensitive and a change in society as a whole to respect women’s physical and mental integrity. They stage protests, demonstrations, slut walks, candle light processions, shouting slogans to highest pitch and volume and at least, flood facebook and twitter with words of concern. These people include a father, who will go back home to start rechecking his account books to see how much short he is for his daughter’s dowry; and a mother, who will resume making a list of demands from his son’s to-be-life partner’s family; a brother who will go back to hit his younger sister who meddled up his stuff; a son who will go back checking out and eve teasing the girls of his college; a grand-father who will be angry over his daughter-in-law for not covering her head; or a grand-mother who will cuss at her grand-daughter for wearing stylish clothes and going to college rather than staying at home to help her mother. This is bound to happen because we are all hypocrites. And this is what we are to realize and set right. We must start respecting women at our home. We must teach our children and younger siblings about the gender equality, rather than letting them become the baton carriers of this male dominated society to the next generation. And this is not an elusive dream, but already a reality in our own country, in the seven sister states of north-east where dowry is considered a mystery. Unfortunately, however, many of us still consider those of our fellow friends as foreigners. We need to change. But the change must begin at home, not at India Gate or at facebook. Though it is important to voice out our feelings and to tell the girl victim that people do care, what is even more important is to act truthfully for what we stand.

Finally, it is more important to not only keep our focus on this albeit very important but not the sole issue. We must purge ourselves of all evils in and around us. This rape got attention, so many do not. Why not ask the political parties to set up fast-track courts against their members charged with rape, murder, extortions etc. Also, as Justice Katju says, rape is not India’s only problem. We, the people of India, must show a similar unity and fury over corruption, farmer’s suicide, malnourishment, poverty, unemployment, untouchability.

Let us shed our fears and masks and come out together to clean our country, but only when we are clean from within. Then I am sure we will be more capable to deal with the obstinate rest of them.

Monday, December 10, 2012

On Teachers' absenteeism in schools

Following is a practical problem put up for a public discourse by the Collector of a backward district in the state of Uttar Pradesh. This problem is regarding a very major issue within the education system at primary level in most of the government schools in Northern India, especially in rural areas. Apart from lack of proper infrastructure, low student enrollment ratio, huge turnover and absenteeism, the most important prerequisite for learning is lack of good teachers in these schools. Even if teachers are there, in abysmally low numbers, they often do not attend schools except on the pay-day, and are unable to impart any real education to the students. The questions invite implementable solutions at the district level administration:

  1. How to ensure that teachers come to school?
  2. How to ensure that the teacher actually teaches students and learning happens?


Although it is not hard to list down the major reasons for these problems, which include lack of proper qualification, insufficient checks, lack of proper incentives, career progression issues, indifferent parents, government’s apathy, casual culture etc., it is important to address the issue in a multi-pronged manner with both short term and long term solutions.
  • To ensure attendance, install fingerprint based biometric attendance devices in all schools. These devices come at an affordable cost, are easy to maintain, and the feedback can be easily stored in a database that can be checked on a periodic basis. There should be fingerprint attendance at the start and end of every period (or on an hourly basis). This is a coercive method however and will not ensure dedication on part of teachers while in classroom.
  • A corruption proof monitoring team to make periodic surprise visits in schools, to see if the classes are being taken as schedule. This however will require a lot of dedicated personnel.
  • A working Parents Teachers Association should be set up at various regional levels, with defined reporting roles of officials like school principals.
  • The practice of home-coaching by school teachers should be immediately checked as it incentivizes teachers not to attend or teach at school properly, by earning easy tuition money. PTA and feedback from students can be a good way to get reliable information on such practices, as those parents and students who can’t afford private tuitions will be more than ready to divulge the details of such teachers. This is a very serious problem even in urban public schools.
  • Collaborations with NGOs can be done to interact with teachers and understand and address their problems, sensitize them about the importance of their role in nation building, and motivate and train them timely. There is need to bring an attitudinal change in teachers. Issues sexual harrasment, transport facilities, toilets.
  • Introducing teachers to better teaching techniques, use of IT, videos, graphics charts etc. will instill a new spirit in them. However lack of infrastructure can remain an impediment.
  • There is also a need to devolve some important functions like feedback etc. to PRIs and Urban local bodies. It is not only easier to maintain an interface with these legitimate and responsible institutions, but also a good way to improve relations between Local government and District Administration.
  • A number of govt. school teachers are for a significant number of days in a year made to serve for jobs like examination invigilation, surveys, census, elections and other non-teaching jobs. This has serious and adverse effect on their performance as teachers. If possible this should be reduced.
  • The results of schools, in Board examinations at primary, secondary etc. levels can be used as standard parameters to monitor changing standards of teaching in schools. Using this data it will be easier to identify the areas or schools where the above mentioned systems are not functioning well. It may be argued that the performance depends on students’ dedication also. But I believe that differentials introduced in the performance will be proportional to success of the above methods.



Saturday, December 8, 2012

Who are we trying to hide from?

India is a “great” nation. What Indian will not accept this? I certainly do. I accept that our greatness lies in our people, our visionary political leaders, our dynamic youth, our vibrant media, and our strengthened civil society. But, with a heavy heart I have to accept that the greatness also lies in their hypocrisy. We, today, are concerned about everything, ranging from the marriage of a superstar couple, century of a cricketer, illegitimate son scandal of a politician, elections in US. We would know, what happened in the popular TV soap operas, or who abused whom in Bigg Boss, or why did the fight start between a husband and his wife next door, we would know everything. But we either fail to observe, either intentionally, or due to extremely underdeveloped or degraded mental faculties, what happens in our own house, to our friends, brethren and people who really matter.

The recent tragedy of a Punjab Police ASI, trying to protect his daughter from being harassed by goons, being shot dead cold-bloodedly in wide day-light, with people looking at the heroic feat of the murderer, a general secretary of the ruling party is a blatant example of the anarchy that exists in our country, and our souls. If that was not enough, I feel deeply pained to see the lack of customary ‘hullabaloo’ created, amongst public, as is witnessed on other rather unworthy instances. Neither has any senior politician, taken a trouble in trying to issue a trustworthy, or even consolatory statement to look into the matter expeditiously, since it hardly affects any locker of their vote bank, nor has any of our otherwise intellectual columnists, taken effort to pen down their comments on this utter disregard for law and order. Perhaps they are justified, because there is nothing special about what has happened. People always die, due to all reasons in a billion plus country, because ‘that’s what people do’.

On the contrary, the smart and proactive journalists of one of the national dailies hardly wasted time to come back with a biographical note on the ‘disturbed’ background of the accused, detailing about his short and easy path to riches and success in politics, his parentless childhood, and his drinking habits, in an attempt to decode his ‘sickness’ that led to the murder. Of course a dash of spicy bites from his acquaintances, to shed further light on his character – “Did you ever think that he would one day kill someone?” to sensationalize the incident was not missed. Finally a picture of dejected 'murderer' lying in a hospital bed (I don't know why), admitting his folly by saying, "I regret what I did", does nothing but downplays the murder. The story would sell won’t it? Certainly it would, as it is backed by the studies on the psychology of people- They always love to know what is happening the next door. That is why Facebook earns, which has become a multibillion dollar company, and also an easy forum for people to share the photo of the slain ASI’s wailing daughter and to vent out the ‘fury’ that people are ‘feeling’ over the incident.

This is certainly not a unique incident, at least not in India. However it certainly does once again highlight some very basic facts about us.

  • ·         It reminds us of the very reasons, why we are so easy to be dominated by others. Just like a few thousand British were able to slowly, but slyly, able to dominate and then rule over 300 million of us; I am sure it won’t be harder for the history to repeat itself. This is because we still lack the ‘unity in diversity’ that we are so proud of. I will not bother myself if someone’s daughter is being raped, or someone’s father is being murdered, in front of my eyes, if that ‘someone’ is not ‘me’ , which can always be. I believe that this is hardly because I am weak, but because I am indifferent and I don’t care. I will remain a part of the hugely ‘populous’ mob, a silent spectator of the cruelties of ‘few’, watch the street show, and leave after it ends with perhaps a teary eye, to tell others an eye-witness account of what happened, debate on why it happened, curse the administration, feel bad, and then forget it. I shall be more than happy, however, to become a part of any ‘peaceful’ procession to protest against what happened, to demand for better Police administration, to protest against the political parties, or for that matter to protest against anything or anyone.
  • ·         We are an emerging superpower in the world order. We are ready to become the new leader of the nations. Are we? This incident also shows the underdevelopment of our political landscape. It is strange and worrying to see the level of responsibility shown by the veterans to choose the younger generation of leaders. The fact that the accused is a district Gen. Sec. of the ruling party shows what type of leaders lead us. Or perhaps it is just a glimpse of the internal dynamics of our political parties, which raise such goons to perpetuate their ‘goondaraj’.
  • ·         The incident also shows that we have not yet learnt to handle power, be it money power or fire power. This is a very serious social problem that needs to be acknowledged by the policy makers and think tanks of the country. We are taking big strides towards our spectacular economic growth, riding on a huge wave of new economic environment of capitalism. People are getting empowered-politically and economically. But they are not learning how to handle the power. They take pride in showing their strength riding on a broad-tyred roofless jeep, with a rifle on the backseat, zooming around in the cities, and harassing and eve-teasing any weakling- be it a man or a woman- who was not as lucky. I empathize with Gandhi ji who said – “it has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings”. It’s time for us to realize the utter degradation of values and morals in our society.
  • ·         A worldwide discourse has started on the irresponsible role of media and its impact on our society due to some eye-opening cases that have demonstrated falling standards of journalism, corruption of media, and its capture by power structures and vested interests. I am unable to decide whether to cry or to laugh when I see a news reporter on TV with a long mike asking a person who has recently been traumatized by an accident or a tragedy and lost his/her kin –“So how are you feeling right now?” TRPs and viewer ratings are the only things that now concern our media. They have forgotten that they are not another source of entertainment, but an instrument of informing and empowering people, by making, staging and channeling public opinion against such incidents.
  • ·         I want to put the onus of what happened on our Police too, for not being able to stop what happened. But then I realize that one who was slain in the incident was a cop himself. But surely the responsibility falls on our legislators, and our bureaucrats, and ministers and judges, to selflessly achieve that which they are supposed to, and they can. To withhold the ideals of constitution, by working in harmony and synchrony, to strengthen our public agencies, our police and our courts, to ensure that justice is given to people who need it.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Miles to go...


Well, career dilemmas are a part and parcel of the life of any person who dares to think beyond what comes easy to him on a platter and who nurtures higher ambitions. This is that time of the year, when the dilemma have crossed me with a volley of questions, since past few years, which I have always tried to answer with a bit of nervousness, yet a firm conviction for where I want to see myself, a few years down the line. This post is not meant to convey my thoughts on different career paths I could have taken, nor is it to undermine any one of them or to eulogize another. It's more on the lines of an answer to my own self, a self strengthening address that I consider extremely subjective, an answer to the almighty question - 'To be or not to be'.

Tomorrow, the newspapers will be full of the hefty pay package figures that students from the prestigious IITs were offered on day 1 of campus placements today. The multinational corporations that would figure in the news items would range from the flamboyant consulting firms, to the mighty financial industry and investment banks, the IT giants that have become indispensable in our lives and other technology big shots. The names of course had been latecomers to my vocabulary, just like IIT was. In India, unlike many western developed nations where the youth chose a career path that they see to befitting their aptitude and attitude, students here are fed with dreams and destinations, right after they start comprehending speech, by their parents. It is certainly not a tradition if not an exception for a person to look beyond the world their parents live in and show to their children. It is for this very reason that one may find lawyers' children often opting for law schools, doctors' children becoming doctors, bureaucrats' wooing their children to join civil services and big businessmen and industrialists laying down the red carpet for the entries of their children, however qualified, into their legacy sooner or later. Then there remains a fraction, who are unable to pursue the above mentioned few career professions, and they are more likely to guide their children towards engineering studies. Coupled by an insatiable demand for the technologists in today's globalised knowledge economy, it comes as no surprise that India produces almost 3 lakh engineers every year. Of course there are numerous exceptions to this more or less generalized scenario (which happens to be my personal observation, with not a lot of empirical evidence to support with, yet would be acceptable to many). I have for the time being chosen not to take into the ambit of this blabber piece, the non professional courses to avoid further digression from what I really wanted to convey when I began.

So, I happen to be in category of the second fraction mentioned above. I, having schooled in humble schools with a humble peer group, never ever cared to worry a lot about life beyond a student life. With no specific reason to be particularly attached to any common or uncommon career, I took my studies as they happened to come, pursuing them passionately being my only duty. It was only when I chanced to clear NTSE, that I started hearing rumblings of making to some good institution, from my parents and teachers. After matriculating with flying colors, the question of choosing one of manifold path for higher studies never became a huge and cumbersome one to select an answer to. I made an easy choice into engineering stream. I was till then, not one of those few who knew what they want to do with a clear and concrete aim. Being inquisitive about hows and whys of everything, and a so called scientific approach, I dreamt of becoming a scientist or join NASA when I was small, endless skies always took over my imagination. But I feel so naïve to think back, that those dreams were never substantiated with the information of what it actually took to be one. Anyways incidentally for me, but deliberately on part of my parents, I started taking coaching for IIT JEE, which I eventually cleared.

It was then, at IIT, that I was out of the boxed life (not that I despise it) for the first time. To begin with, I took over this place's curriculum also in a mundane school-like way. But sooner than I realized, I came across the window to the real world. Blessed by ambitious nature to excel and succeed, an enlightened group of seniors ready to act as guiding light, and a more exposed peer group, I happened to see what lies beyond a students' life, and the notion of making over to the next phase of life started hitting me.

I did everything I felt a serious student and a person with opportunity to learn should do. Knowing well, that the rat race is ubiquitous, and just being in IIT doesn't matter any longer, I tried to maintain a profile well suited (at-least this is what I think, as it was not put to many tests) for making to any of the promising careers, either in the firms that are going to be mentioned in tomorrow's newspapers, or to the even higher institutes of learning, which might as well have got me into NASA, who knows!!

It is here that I would like to look back again, in times when one seed was sown when I was small. I remember the long evening walks my father used to take me for. It was during those  walks that I got to learn the important lessons of life and world as seen by my father. My father had always admired civil services as the best career profession, for himself and also aspired the same for me. His aspirations perhaps were even strengthened by his trust in me and my capabilities. He used to narrate me the incidents exemplifying the grandeur and prestige associated with the services. Perhaps, he himself never considered private jobs as a very good option, especially at that time, when IT revolution was just starting to take massive dimensions that were to be manifested a few years later. I personally had never got into close contact with civil servants, but the sight of occasional red beacon light cars zooming in the town, the grand red walled limitless mansion of district collector guarded heavily by alert policemen, used to catch my attention. I covertly did start to dream of such a future for myself too.

But in IIT, these thoughts took the back seat when I got acquainted to the more glamorous, and sought-by-all, day one jobs from the campus. Perhaps, in fact this may be true for quite many others, my liking for the big shot and often two or three abbreviated company names was due to the distinction gained by those who cracked these, their inaccessibility for most others, and just like a class rank for a school going kid is the ultimate aim, these tags became a parameter for me to judge my achievements.

Sooner than later, however, the old resilient idea came back. It may be difficult to single out the reasons for its revival, but parental persuasion, due to their perspective on (then ostensibly 'limited' but highly 'judicious' in hindsight) recession and a long experience of life, I was again made to think of considering civil service as a career choice. I certainly had the liking for it since ever, but I needed more to convince me. I got a chance to spend a semester on exchange in France. Perhaps the long stay away from India stirred a patriot in me, and perhaps a lot of other events on a personal front and a broader view of the outside world during that period made me study more of the opportunities I would get as a civil servant. Opportunities, to serve better, myself, my folks and my nation, that would allow me to make an impact on lives of millions, a success in terms of satisfaction indeed. I juxtaposed them with other alternatives I had and found every 'zarra' now conspiring to bring me closer to the old dream.  Out of curiosity for the work in private sector, I got a short stint in the corporate world during my completely non-technical technical internship at the end of my third year. This was the turning point indeed, as I came to know what I never wanted to do. I was certainly not prepared to live a life, without much diversity, a monotonous, fixed-hours job, with loads of money, but hardly any time to spend it. It was glamorous indeed, more youthful, but ill-suited to my nature at least.

I took the decision not to opt for the campus placements last year, and here I am today, back in the horde of aspirants, earlier for securing a place in IIT and having succeeded in it, now for getting into civil services. This brings me back to the theme I started with. A dilemma. This dilemma is certainly not because I am not sure what I want to do, but certainly arises out of the fact that the path of a civil servant aspirant is full of despairs, as numerous as hopes. It is a long one, with immense uncertainty. Preparing for this exam becomes even more strenuous when the burden of taking up responsibility of bearing up oneself starts piling on. I do not doubt the fruits of success, but the dent of failure can be devastating. At this juncture, when the path ahead is vague and indistinct, the thought of taking up the more common path would appear sensible, especially when I would read through tomorrow's newspapers, stopping to think what I missed.  But having written through this piece of blog, I have relived the moments of my life that made me take the decisions I took, and now I know again that I took them for a reason. It may take some time for the efforts to bear fruits, or they even might not. But for sure, irrespective of the consequences, I won't lament in grey years of my life, when the gains and losses of present would become irrelevant, that I did not do what I always wanted to do, or at least tried for it - to pay back to my people in a way I feel it is meaningful.