The students magazine 'Ping' asked me to write something for them - in 400 words. That was a challenge, to write something in so few words; finally made it in about 600 words. The issue came out a week ago.
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Some days back, Rajeev Rajeshuni and
Harish Reddy, two UG4 students, presented their experiences of summer
internships with culturally/socially active groups sponsored by
SPICMACAY. Rajeev spent a month with Tibetan monks in Dharmashala and
Harish was with Aruna Roy's MKSS in Rajasthan.
Rajeev's talk was about the serenity of
Tibetan Buddhist monks and moments spent with The Dalai Lama. Harish
was an angry young man telling us about how miserable the caste,
gender and class realities are in rural India.
Both talked about people who are not
free and who are struggling for freedom. In one case, the Tibetans,
they could run away to India and were provided shelter. In the other
case, the people have nowhere to go.
In both the cases, there is a logic
that the oppressors present to perpetuate the atrocities. The
oppressors do not believe that they are doing anything wrong and they
do not accept the logic of the oppressed,who seek freedom and
dignity. It is easy for us who are distant from the China-Tibet issue
to understand why China is wrong in its logic. But it is not easy for
us to see how wrong we are in dealing with our own oppressed.
China has made schools, hospitals,
roads, etc., and provided a better quality of life in the modern
sense, in Tibet, that may not have happened if it was not under
Chinese occupation. The Tibetan society was feudal to the core and
most of the pepole lived like slaves, serving the monks or the
traders who form the majority of those who escaped. Not everything
about the Tibetan society in India is laudable. But this does not
make China right in doing what it did. China is an imperial power
that has colonised Tibet. We must raise our voice in support of the
Tibetan people, who have been fighting a non-violent struggle against
the military might of China.
The struggle of the oppressed castes in
India is also non-violent. This is surprising, because the intensity
of oppression remains high and wide. The constitutional path has
provided a solution, not necessarily the best, but one well supported
by those who have studied the problem for years. This is the idea of
reservation for access to quality education, in employment, etc. For
a long time, the policy was not even implemented to an extent that
could be called significant. When finally it started looking like a
reality and the percentages in jobs started showing, the country went
for massive privatisation. In a private educational insititute, there
is no reservation policy. It is apparent that privatisation of
education is a policy that makes quality education inaccessible to
disadvantaged sections.
Ordinarily one expects the youth to
question the structure of lies and disinformation that sustains the
otherwise untenable institutions of oppression. Our institute
provides mechanisms for students to study and question the present.
Counterculture is promoted and yet we remain content with extreme
underepresentation of large sections of our people in our community.
Naturally, the feeling of being a hypocrite is intense in me. In six
years of being here, I have motivated only a small number of students
to look at real data published in credible journals and inevitably
their opinions have changed after a thorough reading. But most of us
choose to remain happily gullible because it serves our interests.
The arrogance that goes with it is notable. In a more equal society,
most if us will not be where we are. With such undeserving power and
privileges, how can we be so arrogant?
Insensitivity to issues of social
justice indicates a severe crisis of values. The pain of exclusion
that a large majority experiences in our country is not going to
subside. It will, as Langston Hughes said in his poem 'What happens
to a dream deferred', explode one day.
