Sanity of vanity

N. Arunkumar *

I asked many people for their opinion on the ongoing class boycott going on in our state. Most of them were unable to give me a sensible answer, except those whose children were actually out on the streets, pointlessly wandering here and there and wasting valuable time. Those children are today like rudderless ships caught in ocean currents over which they have no jurisdiction at all.

Classrooms are empty and the school gongs have gone eerily silent. Benches and desks in the schools of Imphal are vacant and gathering dust. The larger issue, one which strangely calls for a decisive thrust, has to come from the students, apparently. Leaving classrooms empty is intended to draw the attention of the centre towards the deplorable state of affairs arising out of the arbitrary killings of innocent people in the nooks and corners of our land today.

How the students will benefit from political maneuvers that should concern elders is lost on most of us. Dark days seem to loom large over the fate of our children with the ongoing agitation taking away their right to a decent attempt to untie the mysteries of life in the future.

They learn to be intolerant and that might is right, today. They will learn that by not doing what they are bound to do, they will win victories on the basis of might. They will learn that disobedience to the laws of nature will help them carve a niche for themselves in the world that belongs to all of us. We are looking at global presence based on half baked self serving interests of a few.

I am not, I wish to put it on record, arguing about the rights and wrongs of the issue itself, but am speaking for the thousands of children who will have to do more than what they will otherwise have to do, to catch up with the globe ultimately. I even asked a few students about their views on the issue of class boycotts.

One student told me that she felt useless as a human being at the criminal waste of her precious time. Many of them frankly opined that they would like to pursue their education at safer places outside the state at the earliest opportunity. These are not cooked up stories or opinions that I am observing here. I have the right to know the facts from the actual participants of the boycott.

It is intended to be a popular uprising by the students and, these are the views that students have expressed to me. How can this be called a popular uprising and expressing the true sentiments of the students? I even asked them if they were interested in the issue of the CM's ouster, which the agitation is targeting to achieve. They said that they were more concerned about their education and the prospects of a career more importantly.

One student also told me that she could only see darkness ahead of her in the state. These are the honest sentiments expressed to me by the students who are theoretically leading this newest round of pressure tactics to force powers that be, to show the incumbent CM the door.

Now, the question that needs to be asked is, what about all the talk, by all and sundry, about ushering in a peaceful educational atmosphere in our society? What about all the reams and reams of print and decibels of sounds that were raised not long ago about the need to ensure quality education in the state? What about all the talk of making Manipur an ideal state, established on democratic principles followed in the country?

Perhaps, some would ask, which country? We all know only too well that for the moment, we only have the option of calling ourselves a part of the Indian sub – continent, however much we may dislike to be identified as one with the mainland. We do not have any official sanction from the International community to be called as a different nation.

When that time comes, we shall proudly call ourselves a free nation. But, come again and, how free? Can we really hope of being free given our concurrent conflicts and disagreements with almost all constituents of our society today? Can we simply wish away our troubles and brush them under the carpet, declaring that those real problems will just vanish from our midst once that blessed freedom from the Indian Republic is finally achieved?

We have issues. Serious issues with our immediate neighbors, although we do not accept it prudently. There are always undercurrents of suspicion among us. We do not have the precise parameters of living in peace with each other in place. More often, intuitive reactions are visible rather than hardbound common sense in our dealings with our immediate cohabitants existing human races. Common meeting grounds with them are more or less non – existent at the present moment.

We still have people in our midst who can only think on sectarian lines without scope for integrated living with each other. Somewhere, our noble attempts and intentions to integrate for that matter, has gone awry. A few segments are still missing and denying us the true opportunities to bridge gaps that separate us from each other.

Our aptitude for open acceptance of humans as uniquely evolved creatures on the earth fails our narrow logic. Rather, we fail to register the fact in our minds that we are all different in many diverse ways and that all that diversity has the potential to fuse into one large machinery that can propel us into the world stage as equal participants in the process of superior evolution.

For that, we need our children to build themselves up as true citizens of the world. They have to ensure that they value and pride their traditions whilst simultaneously embracing the modern, sensibly to suit their contemporary ethos in which they will have to live in the coming generations hereafter.

We have to teach our children higher values of living and fashioning out of them complete individuals who will bear the mantle of future actions for our betterment. We are creating history each moment of our lives and the past history must be considered in a positive light.

If we throw them into the darkness that we are seeing them being subjected to today, they will not have the forbearance to judge us with fondness. To that end, our children are only being used as scapegoats in a larger political theatre of stubborn titans. The barbarians are beckoning them to watch their merciless ploys, and the gladiators among them are on the prowl again while we remain mute spectators to their bloody battles.

The future is dark, and we all wordlessly accept that as a bleak fact. But, what is being done to tell the perpetrators of the darkness that it is not fair to subject an entire race to political machinations that does not offer us an immediate solution.

Wouldn't a more dramatic form of voicing concerns without compromising the very foundations of the society have been more prudent? A black badge series would have served the purpose equally forcefully, provided it was propagated sensibly.

Closing classrooms and preventing children from pursuing their fond dreams are only going to further our backward status. The trend is more disturbing now, given the fact that more student unions are joining the fracas with their own versions of solutions to add to the misery in the society. Sanity is the victim in this melee, however. This is my voice for the students who suffer the ongoing agitation in silence.