Heard of Dark Continent?

The little girl looked carefully at me. Had I ever heard of Dark Continent, she asked softly. I was surprised that she knew enough to quiz about it, considering her background. She was a child of the slums, and hardly ten years old, her clothes worn, frayed at the edges. Perhaps this is the habitual mistake the “educated” make. We look upon the poor as an undifferentiated mass of entrenched illiteracy, impediments to the nation’s economic progress. 

This country does its best to eradicate poverty, but with the population burgeoning, it is difficult to make much headway. I believe a Japan adds on in people numbers each year or so! Illiteracy is the other face of poverty; hence education for all is a part of social development in the socialist, democratic republic of India of the present.  Education is heavily subsidized to make it within the reach of the economically disadvantaged. 

In a bygone era of numerous monarchies, organized community living in the Indian sub-continent had strict social segregations based on birth. These divisions of society were hierarchical. The Brahmins were the academicians, teachers, custodians of the scriptures; the Kshatriyas were the royalty, the warriors; the Vaishyas were the business group; the Shudras were the menial labour, the untouchables. Social discrimination was rife. Males born into a particular family were forced to follow the trade of their fathers. There was no escape; caste was hereditary.  The “upper” castes hoarded wealth and privileges, and imposed upon those “lower”. 

The right to education was restricted to the top of the social ladder, and those born to families low on the totem pole were barred from it. The epic Mahabharata recounts the story of Ekalavya, the talented son of an untouchable. Unable to attend the martial arts academy run by the renowned Dronacharya, guru to the princes, Ekalavya practiced archery on his own before a statue of the teacher he revered. He caused consternation when he dared compete against Prince Arjuna, the guru’s favourite student. Teachers, during that period, were not paid salary, but received guru dakshina (returns in cash or kind) from the students or their families. Although not directly responsible for Ekalavya’s prowess, Dronacharya nevertheless claimed dakshina from him, and demanded his archer’s thumb in reward! 

Women of course, were entitled to a caste only after marriage. Thus the point of their education really did not arise outside of chores learned at home from childhood - cooking, cleaning and rearing children. Although social reformers fought long and hard through the colonization of India to remove the social discriminations, the perception of women being secondary to men continued far into the twentieth century. All that the marriage market required was the minimal ability to read and write; girls hardly needed to become pundits! In fact, the elders feared that prospective grooms would turn away from over-qualified brides, who would never get married and thus dishonour the family name. Even today many believe that investment in the education of boys bring returns in future, but girls are paraya (outsiders), soon to belong to another family. 

In the ‘sixties, my father broke family tradition, as it were, by sending daughters to English-medium schools to get what was then the best education. I remember that during university days, a classmate and I were in heated discussion of a certain project on the tram ride back home. While we argued our points, other passengers were listening in. After I got off the tram, the man that took my seat turned to my companion and inquired where I came from. His eyes popped when he heard that I was a local. Huh, he exclaimed in astonishment, Speaking English! Educated!

At the time, the tuition fees everybody paid were about two hundred rupees a year, that is, less than five dollars annually, even in the science subjects. This was because the political intent post-Partition was to rebuild the dismembered nation. They assumed that the intellectual crop so nurtured would take the country forward. But that idea backfired in the ‘seventies and ‘eighties. Unlike many other nations, India did not have a compulsory service scheme for its citizens. Thousands of top graduates and post-graduates winged their way to the West, lured into serving in the more lucrative workplaces overseas. The expendable patriotism of the already privileged sunk the nation deeper into debt, because there were no legal bonds to hold them back. With the actual cost of the university education for each a few hundred thousand rupees at least, the eventual loss to the national exchequer with the brain drain must have been in the billions. Without the IT boom and the outsourcing industry, the Indian economy might have still wallowed in the doledrums. 

Although scores of private autonomous universities have since mushroomed charging exorbitant amounts for better teaching facilities, the educational subsidy continues in governmental institutions, the university fees being raised minimally over decades.  Furthermore, in and around Kolkata, primary and secondary governmental schools waive tuition fees for the economically disadvantaged sections. After generations of illiteracy on the backs of social segregation and poverty, their offspring are exposed to the R’s, and graduate degrees. One parent told me that they would have been satisfied with their children being allowed to touch the benches of high school; to have a graduate in the family was beyond imagination. 

I visited the students of a governmental primary school recently to get a sense of their ability in the English language. Both boys and girls present were the first school-goers in their family. I looked at one young boy’s exercise book. He had made many mistakes in an earlier spelling test, and in one word, written “dee” instead of “deer”. Just carelessness, I presumed. I pointed to the word, and asked him what it was meant to be. He blinked at it a moment and then whispered to me that it was a very hard word. What is it, I insisted. Elephant, he replied glibly. Clearly the wiggles on the page made no sense to him at all! 

It seems to me that, with the decision to eliminate examinations in the school system, the point of education is being lost. The light of knowledge being spread is dim because the children are not pushed to rehearse, remember, think complex and compete intellectually. They are being uniformly promoted with no quality control of capability, simply pushed up to a new level of incompetence each year. Education to them thus becomes a meaningless trudging back and forth each day, uncomprehending. 

An interesting TV reality show is titled Are you smarter than a fifth-grader? Questions from science, math, history, geography, grammar, etc., are asked of adults locking horns with the academic level of the average American ten-year-old. It proves that the children really do have to study a lot, because most adults trip up in the programme. But sadly, amongst the economically disadvantaged groups in this state today, many children of the same age are stumped by anything to do with academics. 

Education for all is a commendable idea in democracy, but is the process in use the best for the country? The educators might boast of rising literacy numbers, but the quality of education differs widely between the social sections. Eliminating competition in schools for the disadvantaged encourages their students to avoid critical thinking, to seek the easy ways out. Where ability counts most, in the work world, they fail to impress employers.  The degrees they possess may not be worth the paper they are printed on. The joke is, toss a pebble on the street and you might hit such an “educated” unemployed. 

The little girl clued into the Dark Continent is one bright spot of intelligence amongst the general clueless. Surely, there are many more talents like her touched with the light of knowledge, passionate about learning, and waiting for the opportunity to excel.  Education is meant to enlighten minds, to create awareness of the environment for adaptability, and to dispel the darkness of ignorance, superstition and discrimination. The socially disadvantaged groups need out of dole dependency to develop as people. Else, lamp-lighting ceremonies in the educational institutions become mere rituals, while the dark continent of mindsets are preserved across society.