The joys of madness

N. Arunkumar *

"A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world".

You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it. DU dictum!

Yes. It is official now. The DU cut off of 100% is downright absurd, ridiculous, insensitive and discriminatory to the rest of the country. Is the DU the preserve of the elite and the favoured who can garner such ridiculous marks that put them right at the apex of the marks tally in the public examinations? How can a student get 100% marks in languages?

India or rather Delhi is the only place on the planet perhaps, where students can score a cent percent mark in language, it seems. The government’s assurance of the right to education bill has been scorned at fair and square by this bizarre decision by the DU to peg the ceiling at such a target.

Now, this brings into focus the marking standards in the country’s premier educational board’s right from the CBSE to the State Boards as they stand. If the CBSE students can score such absurd marks in the public examinations, then why lay stringent standards for other state boards to follow and adhere to rigorously?

Most state educational boards are still languishing in the age old correction methods, which make it next to impossible for students to get fair marks, other than those who are again at the elite strata of the state’s social ladder. A few rare exceptions are there no doubt, though those cases are few and far between. Most often, it is apparent that the students coming from well – to – do ambience manage to outclass their lesser privileged brethren in the educational race by a distant margin.

This happens due to a number of factors, ranging from nepotism to preferential treatment of certain institutional corruption of the educational field by unscrupulous elements from within the society. When we find a few institutes doing well on a regular basis, we begin to wonder what is going on behind the scenes. There has to be something that is incorrect here, as it is most likely that a few people indulge in malpractices to wrest superiority over others.

If the premier institute in the country goes to such extents as to allow only students of cent percent calibre into their corridors of educational merit, it will create another annoyed class of people, and it will plainly further widen the gap between the have and have not’s in this country. Don’t we already have enough of this gap amidst us that is giving us sufficient headaches? These are of course mere speculations that are brought up front by myself as a matter of concern to me and perhaps others like me.

Why is the bureaucracy in the country living in Utopia? What kind of role do they think they are playing in developing the talent pool in the country by resorting to such absurd practices of discrimination among the students who had burned the midnight oil to achieve something of a dignified status in their examinations? Isn’t there something really unnatural about such illogical decisions by the educational bureaucracy to the needs of the students of the country?

Or, shall we say that there is a coterie already in place indulging in a new scam to divide and rule and make hay while the going is good for them? Do we need another expose of the murky goings on in the corridors of the universities of the country who are resorting to such practices that are downright unethical to the very noble intentions of education?

I think there is something very fishy about the whole thing at the moment and there is a time bomb ticking, and waiting to be brought out into the open. Not everything looks rosy in the educational field of the country today, folks. The education minister meanwhile is busy fighting the Ramdev’s, Hazare’s etc who are trying to bring the corrupted leaders to book. He is a lawyer first and lawyers are forever, remember that.

An erudite spokesman who brings all his years of experience in fighting high profile cases at a hefty fee is now a leader of the downtrodden? The joke of Indian politics and the Indian politicians cannot get eerier than this! It is more than preposterous, and we fade away to the distant horizon, in the haze of scams, scandals and siphoning of money from the common man’s pocket with typical insouciance. The silliness of such inconsistencies is just too comical for us to ignore.

The Robin Hood factor is a reality in our political circles today. People like Digivijay Singh and sometimes even the other voices of the Congress are indulging in mudslinging with those who are uniting together to bring the corrupt politicians to the altar of justice. The language being used by these leaders leave much to be desired and are downright in poor taste. They should realize that they are playing to the media gallery and are under the scrutinising glares of the world when they appear on TV.

However, it appears that they have lost all respect for the sentiments of the educated people in this country and indulge in phrases which are of very poor quality. Calling names at such figures like the Baba and even Anna Hazare is not acceptable to the common people, and they seem to overlook this.

So, how can poor students expect justice in such a murky atmosphere? Who will listen to their grievances? Should we have to fight out this stupidity again in the courts? For every simple thing if we are to go to the courts for our rights, then when are we going to go ahead with the business of living in this country? Each passing day is making the situation more and more complicated for us to find our rights in an ordinary way.

Our politicians and so called leaders call our civil societies as ‘so called civil society’ and we are merely the ‘so called janta’ of the country. We are as good as cattle for them who are enjoying the heady reins of power over us and allowed to determine our quality of life. The only precondition to it is that it should not interfere with their quality of life...I mean our ‘so called’ leaders’ quality of living that is.

So, poor students of unfortunate states and humble backgrounds can now forget the DU, as it is formally declared accessible only to the real crème – de – la crème of the society in the country. The rest may go pleading to the private colleges who are ever ready to welcome you as long as you pay them the hefty fee that they demand from you anyway. So, is a nexus coming to light here? A faint ray of this nexus is already in the vanguard, don’t you think so? Nonetheless...God help our aspiring students from beyond the NCR.