Recently, the former president of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in association with the IIM-Ahmedabad professor Anil Gupta launched a course for IIM-A students. The course was aimed to identify different fields and set targets for them in order to transform India into a developed nation by 2020. A good number of students participated in this course with lot of enthusiasm thereby displaying their activism. This is one of the reasons why IIM-Ahmedabad is regarded as one of the best educational institutions of the country.
A question arises here that whether such activism is seen in the entire students community of India. Unfortunately, barring a few exceptions the answer is in negative. The root cause of such a situation in India is the societal temper and the prevalent education system. Even today our education system is being run as per the Lord Macaulay’s design conceptualised in 1834. The students in our education system are taught few subjects in a conventional manner without being concerned about their all round development and inculcating leadership qualities in them. Today the debate on education has caught the imagination of the entire nation. Even the announcements from the Human Resource Development Minister, Kapil Sibal have added a new dimension to these discussions on the education system.
To understand the insensitivity of the students towards the society, an insight into their lifestyle is necessary. The prevalent education system has divided the students community into two broad classes. The first type of students have access to excellent schools, great infrastructure and exposure to subjects like English, Science, Computers, Sports and host of other extra curricular activities. These students go on to perform exceedingly well in the competitive examinations. While the second type of students which form the majority in our country are made to study in inferior schools with poor teachers and infrastructure. They are unable to excel in the competitive examinations and end up being second citizens of the country.
There is also a significant difference in the activism of both these classes of the students. The fortunate students excel in their careers while achieving great distinctions.There are enough examples of such students who have carved out niche in the Engineering disciplines of Robotics, Satellite Communications, Computers, IT and Applied Sciences by contributing to global projects of repute for the most noted research organisations. Ankit Fadia is one such example who was regarded as a global authority on Ethical Hacking in his teen age. He has authored many books, articles and is a regular speaker in international forums at a very tender age. These students have also earned a lot of repute by shining in various sports like chess, swimming, athletics, gymnastics, and martial arts among many others. There are students who have introduced the Indian culture in many countries during the regularly held exchange programmes between different nations.
The number of such successful students is very low. Moreover, many a times it is found that these students develop a complex that our nation cannot compete with the developed world and their skills would be only recognised in the foreign countries. On the other side the large students community does not even have the clarity for their careers and lives, leave alone their sensitivity to the society. Education and knowledge is their last priority. The only things which engage them is friendship, movies, girl-friends, fun and glamour. They are always short of money and for them the real promotion is the journey from buses to bikes and from bikes to cars. These students not only are dangerous proposition for themselves but they become a huge liabiltiy for their parents as well as the society.
This phenomenon among the students is not unprecedented one but it has been occurring since ages. In every era the messengers and noble souls have stood up to resist this tide. They dreamt of a better world and dedicated their entire lives to such causes. During similar and infact much darker times before around 1450 years, Muhammad (pbuh) led a noble cause of change and transformed the entire Arab landscape in a matter of just 23 years.
Even in India, great men devoted their entire lives to bring about positive changes in the society. The great men like Mahatma Gandhi and Dr.S.Radhakrishnan made relentless efforts to inculcate sense of accountability and sensitivity in the education system. This idea of a meaningful education system was propounded by almost all ideologies which became popular in India. These ideologies include socialism, communism, Hindutva, Islam and many others. All these ideological organisations tried to influence the students community by way of founding student wings of their ideologies. NSUI (National Students Union of India), ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), SFI (Students Federation of India) and DSO (Democratic Students Organiation of India) are some of such examples of students organisations. Throngs of students join these organisations. These organisations have indeed penetrated deeply in the campuses but the fact remains that they are being exploited by their parent political groups for their interests. Having a closer look to their activities, one cannot find anything beyond violence, destruction and rhetoric. There may be a small number of students who join these organisations due to their ideological affinity but the majority of them regard these organisations as a first step to their political career. A large number of today’s established politicians are the products of these organisations.
If these students organisations decide to do some noble cause then they are unable to think beyond blood donation camps and few odd scholarship distribution programmes. No effort is seen to inculcate morality in their cadre by them barring few token pledges of staying away from dowry. The major sins like alcohol, adultery and obscenity are not even regarded as problem areas by these organisations. They are not bothered about concepts like God, Accountability and life after death. They have no absolute world view to feed to their cadre. What can one expect from those organisations where there is no sense of accountability. And, if there is a group of noble people who are trying to call students towards God and inculcate spirit of accountability in them, then they are brandished as terrorists. This is an irony of our country and its education system.
It is indeed very difficult to change such a situation but it is not impossible. It is also a law of nature that the evil gets uprooted and the truth prevails. There is another natural law which explains that all thoughts, concepts and ideas which are harmful to the mankind automatically get diminished. It can be deducted from these natural laws that the change is imminent. This change is as certain as the certainty of the rising sun and moon. It is now to be seen that who are these fortunate ones who are ready to contribute to this change.
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