The other
day a very shocking report of a professor being crudely talked to by a petty
politician appeared in the newspapers. It was nothing but a despicable act on
the part of a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) who was invited as a guest
in a felicitation programme at an educational institution where a minister of
the state government and a Member of Parliament (MP) too were present. The
crime of the professor was that in the vote of thanks he raised he made mention
of every dignitary except the MLA. Annoyed, the MLA crudely called out to him
and spoke to him in a very unseemly and uncivil manner asking him as to why his
name was not mentioned.
This happened in front of
numerous people, including students. Running down of a teacher in full public gaze
is something extraordinary and only the present-day politicians, hungry for
power, pelf and publicity, can do it. This only shows the culture in the midst
of which he was nurtured where no premium was placed on education or respect
for those who were imparting knowledge and understanding to others. That the
minister and the MP, superior elected political functionaries than
the MLA, kept quiet and did not administer a public rebuke to him, too, was
strange but was, perhaps, dictated by political necessities. It should,
however, have been the duty of the minister to educate the MLA about how he
should behave with a professor, a guru in Indian Hindu traditions which the BJP
politicians constantly keep harping on these days, and how he needed to be
revered and respected. For all one knows, perhaps they too are unaware of the
age-old practices in dealing with those who were teachers, regardless of their
level.
In our time we have seen how the students used to revere their teachers.
My father was a professor in the college at Gwalior. Because of his educational
attainments, his conduct and his ways with the boys and girls in the College he
used to be highly respected. For years together he remained in-charge of all
sporting and students’ union activities. His illustrious students like UN
Dhebar, a former Congress general secretary, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former
prime minister, would touch his feet whenever they came across him on the streets or
elsewhere. To top it all, in pre-independence era, my father and a couple of
other professors had occasion to go and meet the Maharaja of Gwalior in the
latter’s office in Jayavilas Palace. As they were ushered into his presence
Maharaja left his seat and stood up. In those feudal times this was something
unheard of. He was the sovereign and the supreme ruler and all his subjects
regardless of their rank bowed before him. His huge gesture only showed his
breeding. Again, at Jabalpur my mother was taken to a function by my friend who
used to be the Additional Collector. As she sat down, a man sitting on the dais
climbed down and came straight to her sitting in the front row to touch her
feet. She could not recognize him. It was Late Justice Shiv Dayal, Judge of the Jabalpur High Court. He told my friend that she was his “Guru-Ma” as her
husband used to be his professor. Those were the days when the tradition of
Guru and his pupil was maintained without making any song and dance about it
like they do today. Today it may look or sound very esoteric but in those good
old days these practices were normal and were observed as a matter of course.
Our venal, crude and half-educated netas to whom courtesy and tculture are alien have dumbed down everything, including the standards of behavior. As
education was extended to the hinterlands of the cities with more and more
schools being opened the standards of education were progressively diluted as
the governments failed to correspondingly increase the number of quality teachers.
As the new generations of untrained teachers were not equipped to deal with the
children in schools, the standards of education as also children’s behaviour
saw a continuing decline. Products of schools and colleges were as good as
half-educated, country louts, particularly those who came out of government
schools. Paying school teachers a pittance, too, did not help – the amounts
sometimes are less than those of a government peon. Struggling and living from-hand-to-mouth
existence, they are not able to maintain a dignified life in front of their
wards. What is worse, these netas think
nothing of them – themselves being riff raff, they take the teachers as such –
behaving as if they are the lords of yore. Keen on self-publicity and making
money on the side they have done nothing to improve matters relating to education in
rural areas. No
wonder education at the ground level is nothing whatsoever to write home about.
Things have so drastically changed for the worse over the last sixty to seventy
years. The government schools and colleges have become decrepit and unpopular which even the so-called economically weaker sections of society do not prefer to put their children in them
Earlier, a man’s education and his values were admired and respected.
School teachers and college professors never had enough yet they were highly
respected, the more brilliant, cultured and committed they were the more the pupils would
have regard for them. The thing have become different today. People worship money and power, seemingly, shunning all societal values. No wonder one can see a
keen race to make more and more money any which way – ethical or unethical – as
that brings power and position of influence in society. A man’s money power can
swing many things in his favour or in favour of those who are his boot-lickers.
He can actually go lording over others regardless of his intrinsic worth.
No wonder, the government is busy
chasing unethical money the colour of which is black, the money that has severely
damaged the country’s ethical and cultural value systems – with the venal netas being avid participants in the process.
*Image: from the internet
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