India Demands a Return to the Past Glory

India Demands a Return to the Past Glory

We all know the movement being led by Anna is essentially one for rooting out corruption from public life. His motive, and that of his supporters and all the lay people who identify with his cause, is admirable.  For our society is so much ridden with the menace of corruption that it is not only affecting the moral values of the citizens but also affecting economic efficiency, causing income inequality and poverty. Corruption affects the people by diverting resources and holding back development. But is the problem of rooting out corruption as simplistic as Anna seems to make it out?

The word ‘corruption’ does not simply mean bribery or dishonest proceedings in public life but it means a perversion of integrity and moral depravity in values and actions. Our society is emerging to be a hotbed of selfish and misdirected values that are breeding an immoral way of life. Look at the state of our schools, the very institutions that educate our children for a better future—for themselves, for our society and for the civilization. Co-educational schools foster values that are seen as modern and advanced and therefore necessary by teachers and parents but these in fact are detrimental to the proper mental and even physical growth of children. Schools actually nurture a materialistic and superficial outlook to life in children which gets reflected in diverse ways: rebellion against parental authority, growing violence among children, lifestyle illnesses and depression, anxiety and other psychological disorders, adolescent sex and even rising teen pregnancies and abortions. All these are a direct result of the kind of education children are being provided in the schools and the kind of life teenagers in particular are being taught to lead. The emphasis in the schools is on a Western type of education and an imported culture that instead of focusing on building a healthier and value-based society, concentrates on engineering a society that is materialistic, opportunistic and greedy and relies on scientific and technological tools to fulfill its goal. On a broader framework, the same factors impact on the state of the society. Increasing intolerance and violence in society, abuse and exploitation of women especially in workplaces, a selfish and avaricious attitude to nature, our environment and life in general, are all vicious effects of a growing abnormal trend in society.

The Indian culture and society is many centuries old. It is based on a system of values that have stressed compassion, faith, tolerance, and exchange of ideas between various religions and cultures. But where are these values reflected in the society of today particularly in its educational system. In this regard, it is better to recall Lord Macaulay’s address to the British parliament on February 2, 1835, “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation. ” It appears that the British were absolutely right in judging the Indian psyche, for that is how we have continued to be.

The loss in our societal values can be directly traced to a failure of our educational system to develop sustainable values in young people. India in ancient and medieval times was a land of plenty: it was famous for its wealth and glory, as borne out by the British and other nations and peoples in the past. What was responsible for this was its culture of education, the guru-shishya parampara, for instance, that believed in establishing a relationship between the institution and the teacher on the one hand and the pupil on the other that went beyond materialistic considerations. The students respected the elders and the teachers and imbibed spiritual values as an essential aspect of the process of being educated. These values lasted them a lifetime. The imbibing of values was stressed along with the emphasis on comprehensive instruction in various disciplines. India produced mathematicians, scientists, linguists, writers, philosophical thinkers and saints and religious men and women of note. There were the famousBhaskaracharya, Jyestadeva (who wrote the first calculus text), Madhava, Aryabhatta, Patanjali, Sushruta, Charaka, Panini and medieval scholars like Amir Khusrau and Dara Shikoh who can be rightly considered gems in the Indian cultural mosaic of their time. Shankara, Ramanuja, and later bhakti poet-saints like Kabir, Tulsidas, Tukaram and Guru Nanak were the product of a cultural tradition that emphasized on moral and spiritual values. Works by ancient Indian grammarians suggest that women were educated in the Vedic times. Gargi and Maitreyi are among the noted seers mentioned in our ancient texts. Razia Sultan was one of the first few women rulers of the world. Other famous women rulers were the Gond queen Durgavati who ruled for fifteen years and Chand Bibi. Nur Jahan effectively wielded imperial power and was recognized as the real force behind the Mughal throne. The Mughal princesses Jahanara and Zebunnissa were well-known poetesses, and they also influenced the ruling administration. Shivaji’s's mother, Jijabai was deputed as queen regent, because of her ability as a warrior and an administrator. In South India, many women administered villages, towns, divisions and heralded social and religious institutions. Mirabai, a female saint-poet, was one of the most important Bhakti movement figures. Some other female saint-poets from this period include Akka Mahadevi, Rami Janabai and Lal Ded.

The emphasis of the educational institutions was not on what we see today:  universities churning out graduates as mints do. We have hordes of mass-educated unemployed men and women who are value-less and jobless. That’s a dreadful combination, for such youth do not hesitate to resort to violence and use any unfair or immoral means they can find to exploit the vulnerable and earn easy money. Minister for human resource development, Mr. Kapil Sibal, has sought to introduce the CCE system that seeks all-round development of students. The students will have to develop their skills in different areas, rather than just simply memories bookish facts. It emphasizes on teachers desisting from using negative comments vis-à-vis the learner’s performance. It encourages learning through employment of a variety of teaching aids and techniques and involves learners actively in the learning process It aims at all-round development of the child’s personality. Students will be equipped to meet different life situations with greater maturity.

It is only a complete overhaul of the educational system that can ultimately produce a good set of values and culture in society. The western-imported education that we have in place today has clearly failed to inculcate abiding values in our youth. The dire need  is for a return to the past—our traditions in terms of the family values we have cherished over time and our  educational system in the past that not only provided instruction in various disciplines but was also devoted to fostering a cultural and social system that stressed the values of religion and tradition. We can go back to the India that Lord Macaulay so enviously described: an India without beggars and thieves, without corrupt babus and netas and without its breed of modern consumerists who put personal aggrandizement before any other cause.

By: Syed Ruman Shamim Hashmi,   Editor-In-Chief