8th September, 2018
Treading along the same green abodes for over a month now, the reminiscence escalates. One month in Jamia Milia Islamia, a Central University and three years in Galgotias University preceding this. What exactly is a university? Quite funny I am pondering over it in my 4th year of association with ‘university’ perhaps it is the nature of the events until now that evoke this question in my mind.
A university is derived from its educational capacity to enlighten students on a myriad of topics- on a ‘universe’ of topics. Thus reigns the legacy of Nalanda University. On contrary, contemporary universities are classified primarily based on ownership. Private and Public. And the academic divisions are acutely isolated even worse with a sense of hierarchy where social sciences have been successfully downtrodden as the untouchables while engineering dons the crown as the top caste in this neo-educational caste system. I wonder how the universe would be analyzed and formed if it were treated just as isolated systems where the galaxies, the constellations, the dying stars never interacted but kept to themselves, all while a developing a sense of hierarchy among themselves. It doesn’t take a cosmologist, to see what utter nonsense this is. But even the senior paragons of educational system can’t see how foolish it is to apply this same isolation principle in universities where the interactivity and collaboration between the fields of study is only a null set. This phenomenon is not a singular event. It is a widely accepted and ignored prejudice that prevails across the Indian subcontinent. Let us row our boat into that storm to see where it takes us.
Let us start with private universities. These were designed and propagated with the ambition to provide world class education to the students nullifying the borders of ignorance and illiteracy while relaying the campaigns of research and innovation. Bearing with the irony, private institutes have emerged successful in one thing – forceful transformation of students into homogeneous products for Multi-national corporations to pick upon. Their grading systems are accustomed to provide inflated grades, impeding a possible educational apocalypse if this persists. It will be a Great Depression, only in the field of education because of the over projected grades and the consequential unemployment. It is a ticking explosive. These universities are so engaged in producing the perfect products for the MNC’s which in turn expand exponentially creating an upward spiral demand. Education is the mask of corporate development where institutes and MNC’s feed each other in a rather fatalistic symbiosis. Long gone are the days, where universities are supposed to nurture explorers, sportsmanship, artists and most of all thinkers who break the box and move forward by integrating all the above. Today, it is all about how much ‘Y’ will you earn after graduating from a particular university if it costs you ‘X’ for studying there. Such ‘geniuses’, have transformed the dynamics and enthusiasm of life into a binary economic equation. The surface attraction makes all parents fall prey into this downward spiral of quality of life and nation as a whole. With everyone being shown the same piece of cake over and over, they are forgetting that too many cooks spoil the broth. The rate at which engineers are graduating in India is unbelievable. Before the next generation plunges itself into the ‘high package’ dream, all the parents out there… How fair is it for everyone to become an engineer and earn diamond collars you want them to? It is a simple yet powerful thought and successfully ignored by the ‘elders’. Not straying far on this shore, it is important to know that Indian culture suffers from the ‘Yayati Complex’. This shore will soon be revisited, my friend. Patience perhaps.
Private universities have found their ways out of entrepreneurial innovation, only in the wrong zone. They have discovered ways to distract youth onto the flashy elements and hence mentally seduce them into pleasures to not raise their voice against what they truly lose. Universities will invest in inviting pop-stars, movie stars and other influential entertainment personalities to suspend students in awe and build a media ‘honey trap’ to invite more bees. But seldom do you find someone raising points about the micro-scale library which is just a room with no academic significance, digital libraries which claim access to various journals yet you find no student being able to access them, debates that vivisect the university policies and other related matters. All these raw issues with their lack of glamour are conveniently pushed into the blind-sight.
One reason, why this insidious phenomenon has survived against the odds of a healthy democracy is the acuity of businessmen who saw education as an emotional treasure cave waiting to be plundered. They suspended one element that lets students think and question – student politics. Widely exhibited as a negative phenomenon in student life. Student politics is the heart of change from the dark, condescending invasion and destruction of education system in India. It is suspended in most universities across India leaving students to the mere positions of spectators. Two factors aim to nullify student politics to ensure their own survival, one – the university of course and two, unsurprisingly it is the national political system. University doesn’t want to be questioned about policies, shortcomings, faults or any other elements. It is a masked dictatorship which freely roams around in a claimed democracy. And the defense which they rise to, “You are young, you do not know the ways of the world”. The very same logic that is put to play by the national political system. There are so called student wings are just brainwashed sympathizers motivated emotionally to a blind course of action. People who question are not welcome. People who oppose are not eligible. Young minds which topple authority are discarded. This is exactly where the Yayati Complex plays in. In the west, Oedipus Complex talks about how son grows by exercising his desires over father. But in India, Yayati Complex talks about the influential pressure of elders for their own sense of world sacrificing or discarding the neo-revolutionary views of the young. In here, young is a synonym of naivety. Only gray beard means you have wisdom. This psychological complex is the forerunner why we will always be ruled by sick gray beards who will relay the same principles to the hypnotized youth whose spirit of revolution is broken with the seduction of power and money. These so called ‘youth leaders’ are the front runners of the very archaic policies and money laundering corruptions that they inherit proudly from their predecessors. Only Student Politics is the key to this gradual deterioration. When every learned mind stands up to what it believes, it is not elders or youth anymore. It is the true wisdom that prevails over age or experience.
I see the dream, the dream envisioned by revolutionaries of all forms across times. The dream where students rise to the occasion with open minds overwhelming with transference of various fields of knowledge, swimming against the tides of mental seduction, protecting the frailty of the cracking education system, building new frontiers to the metamorphic political system and finally liberating from the shackles of ignorance to find true learning not just grades and scores.
And with that dream, I tread along these green shades in patience.