Cover Story

Coming of age in the republic of injustice

In anticipation of Republic Day which is traditionally celebrated by the establishment with archaic pomp and pageantry, EducationWorld investigates the cumulative impact of high-promise high-potential post-independence India’s slide into a republic of injustice, upon children coming of age in this society fashioned by the heirs of Mahatma Gandhi. Dilip Thakore reports

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On a wintry day on November 26, 1949 newly independent India which had suffered foreign rule for several centuries, threw over the last trappings of foreign domination — nominal allegiance to King George VI as head of the Commonwealth — and gave itself a new national identity (officially celebrated on January 26, 1950) as a wholly sovereign republic with its own head of state by adopting, enacting and endowing itself an elaborate written constitution comprising 22 parts or chapters, 395 Articles and ten schedules. With French-inspired justice, liberty, equality and fraternity as its guiding principles, the extensively debated Constitution of India — perhaps the most comprehensive national charter of citizens’ rights and code of governance in global history — bestowed cast-iron, unbridgeable fundamental rights upon all citizens, and minorities in particular.

Fifty four years later during which the Constitution has been amended 93 times, the idealistic dreams of the founding fathers of the Constitution lie in tatters even at the base of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue which graces the entrance to the nation’s Parliament. The ideal of social justice has been trampled almost to death in a society characterised by massive disparities of wealth and opportunities and the transformation of the republic into one of the most corrupt nation states of the world, according to the assessment of the Berlin-based investigative institute Transparency International. Simultaneously the nation’s over-hyped independent legal system has been emasculated by calculated neglect and massive case arrears.

"Its a vicious circle..."

Kamal Kandadai

Kamal Kandadai (24) is a first year business manage-ment student at the Sadhana Centre for Management and Leadership Development, Pune.

What is the significance of Republic Day for you?

Republic Day is more significant than Indepen-dence day because it gave the country a road map for national development in every sphere. It gave the ministers, bureaucrats, and all political parties a blueprint, a vision, a mission to wipe every tear from every eye.

To what extent do you believe that India’s post-independence leaders have discharged the mandate of the Constitution?

Immediately after independence great leaders like Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, and even Indira Gandhi worked hard to fulfill the mandate of the Constitution and demonstrated commitment. But after the death of Indira Gandhi, the culture of corruption took deep root in every government department. At one time, India was so politically unstable that the country had four prime ministers in a span of two years. The reason: political leaders of latter years concentrated on their political careers rather than on the development of the vast majority of struggling voters.

India is characterised by great inequalities. What are your thoughts about coming of age in this society?

India is a demoralised nation governed by hypocritical leaders. While it claims to be a leader in IT and science and technology, the poor have no access to primary education. It is a vicious circle: no education, no jobs and therefore, abject poverty. Consequently the divide between rich and poor and the urban and rural is growing alarmingly. This unsurmountable divide is a real threat to law and order in the country.

Likewise the liberty of millions of citizens has been sharply curtailed in several parts of the country where small but persistent civil insurgencies refuse to be quelled. The status of Kashmir remains unresolved five decades after India and Pakistan attained independence following a bloody partition; several militant insurrections are aflame in the north-east; and a Maoist militant movement has persisted in parts of central India for several decades. Similarly the ideal of equality of status and opportunity has been shattered by the crystallisation of two nations within the Indian landmass — prosperous, resurgent urban India and dirt-poor rural Bharat wallowing in mass illiteracy, hunger, disease and pernicious class, caste and gender discrimination.

"The answer is education for all"

Dhaval Vaidya

Dhaval Vaidya (15) is a class X student and head boy of the Utpal Sanghvi School, Mumbai

What is the significance of Republic Day for you?

Republic Day relates to our school syllabus and the portion we have been studying. As head boy of the Student Council I have a lot of duties to perform on Republic Day. We have a march past and a sports competition on this day.

To what extent do you believe that India’s post-independence leaders have discharged the mandate of the Constitution of India?

I think the Constitution has been implemented in a good way. It’s the duty of the Supreme Court to ensure that the Constitution is upheld. The Supreme Court has been given wide powers and it has to uphold the Constitution amidst great political uncertainty.

India is a nation characterised by great inequalities in education, food, clothing and shelter. What are your feelings about coming of age in this society?

Every Indian who is well off, should do something for his/ her downtrodden brothers and sisters. If and when I become successful I would like to do the same. I think the answer to improving India is quality education for all.

Contemporary India has also been rated as one of the world’s most corrupt nations by Transparency International, Berlin. What’s your comment?

I completely agree. Politics, an increasingly dirty game, is to blame. The police, municipal corporations and most guardians of the law are corrupt. What is needed is a reconstruction of every organisation. Due to corruption, most qualified young people shun politics. A little enthusiasm for politics on the part of youth can do wonders.

How proud are you of your Indian nationality?

I am very very proud of it, despite the fact that I am constructively critical of the country. If I were to enter politics I would uplift all Indians.

In the circumstances it’s hardly surprising that fraternity — the fourth ideal enshrined in the preamble of the Constitution — has become a distant, perhaps unattainable aspiration. Within an economy of perpetual shortages, castes, communities and religious groups mobilised for subsidies and unearned privileges by uniquely amoral politicians, experts in the British art of divide-and-rule, are at daggers drawn. Former US ambassador and economist John Kenneth Galbraith jestfully described India of the 1960s as a functioning anarchy. For the great majority of citizens the description is no joke; it’s a depressing reality.

Against this backdrop of a republic gone off the rails, EducationWorld resolved to ‘celebrate’ Republic Day by investigating the cumulative impact of high-promise, high-potential post-independence India’s slide into a republic of injustice characterised by open, uninterrupted and continuous corruption, upon children coming of age in this society fashioned by the heirs of Mahatma Gandhi and iconic leaders of the nation’s freedom movement. The mindset, morale and attitude of India’s youth is of global importance for the simple reason that this nation harbours the world’s largest number of young people — 280 million Indians are below 18 years of age and 550 million less than 34 years old. It is quite probable they may be called upon to assume the role of worker bees in the rapidly crystallising but ageing global economy.

"As far as I’m concerned Republic Day is just another holiday to spend with family and friends. And though I live in Delhi, I’ve never made the effort to attend the parade at India Gate. It is too routine and monotonous. After independence our so-called leaders have let the nation down very badly. There is just no comparison between the leaders who fought for India’s independence from British rule and the current corrupt self-serving lot. National progress and development isn’t at all on their agenda; accumulating power and using it to line their pockets is their goal. Who can be really happy living in such a society riven with inequalities and injustices?" asks Chitvan Gupta (21) a journalism student at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi.

The dissatisfaction of youth with the state of the republic is echoed across the country. "It’s a crying shame that half a century after the nation declared itself a fully sovereign republic, our country is divided on the lines of caste, religion, income and the deep rural-urban divide. Our leaders have not fulfilled even 50 percent of the mandate of the Constitution which was proclaimed 50 years ago, while they have surely grabbed more than 50 percent of the country’s resources for personal gain. If only they had been more committed and delivered even 50 percent of the mandate of the Constitution, India would be comparable to any nation in the world," laments B. Shiv Kumar (15) a class X student of the Government High School, Bangalore which has 204 students on its muster roll crammed into four classrooms and a computer lab (12 systems), but is deprived of drinking water and toilet facilities.

Lack of committed leadership

B. Shiv Kumar (16) is a class X student of the Government High School, Bangalore

What is the significance of Republic Day for you?

On this day we remember our great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru who liberated our country and declared the Constitution which transformed India into a sovereign republic. But since then the country has been divided on the basis of caste, religion, class etc.

India is a nation characterised by great inequalities in education, food, clothing and shelter. What are your feelings about coming of age in this society?

This inequality is basically because our parents and their parents were not suitably educated. They were not educated because previous governments didn’t establish proper schools and colleges for the poor. It is very saddening for me to think of today’s society. Private schools have large playgrounds, games facilities and students there travel in cars and motorcycles, while we don’t even have a proper set of uniforms. If the government didn’t provide mid-day meals, uniforms and textbooks, I would not have made it to school at all.

On contemporary India being rated as one of the world’s most corrupt nations by Transparency International, Berlin...

The fence is eating the crop. To get into government service one has to pay bribes. And a person who has bribed his way into a government job will obviously be corrupt.

How proud are you of being an Indian?

I am proud because our country has a rich history and cultural heritage. We have the Himalayas and several other natural wonders. If only our politicians and leaders were not corrupt and dishonest, I would have felt more proud.

Chugh: entropy warning

Not surprisingly mind doctors — psychologists, psychiatrists, psycho-analysts and children’s counsellors — who interact with representatives of this massive population of disillusioned youth coming of age in contemporary India, are beginning to discern disturbing omens in winds blowing across the subcontinent. "Children’s minds — especially of adolescents — are like blank spaces. They absorb and emulate what they observe from their immediate environment. When they see negativity — corruption, injustice or abuse — they internalise it and make it a part of their own system. Without positive reinforcement or inputs from the environment, young people become complacent and accepting of injustice and corruption. The cumulative impact of this propels unjust societies towards a condition known as entropy, or complete chaos and anarchy. Such societies are susceptible to total breakdown of law and order," warns Dr. Sanjay Chugh hitherto senior psychology consultant at the Apollo Hospital, Delhi and currently a private practitioner who writes for several news publications.

Blame the electorate

Sunil Pandey (24) is a Ph D student of Lucknow University

What is the significance of Republic Day for you?

It’s a day of great pride and it reinforces the love I feel for India.

To what extent have India’s post-independence leaders discharged the mandate of the Constitution?

Sunil Pandey

While there has been a lot of development, the ideal of a clean society has not been achieved. The leaders of the freedom movement worked with a spirit of sacrifice. Now politics is the preserve of bad elements whose sole aim is making money. But I blame our corrupt leaders less than the people who vote them into office. The country’s future is not decided by some 700 people in Parliament, but by us.

What is it like coming of age in contemporary India?

Awareness of our numerous problems causes sadness but then it’s up to us to battle them. Inequalities will persist, as we have become a capitalist society. But progress is not possible without capital. Why blame only the government? Look at NGOs — they get huge funds, yet never pass them on to the intended recipients.

Transparency International, Berlin has identified India as one of the most corrupt countries worldwide…

Corruption is part of everyone’s life. We are all links in a larger chain and each one of us is as corrupt in our circumstances. I would not hesitate to ask favours for myself or someone I knew.

How proud are you of your Indian nationality?

Our cultural values and heritage are unique. Love and respect for parents for instance. No matter how debased otherwise, an Indian will still revere his parents. Our culture is respected the world over, so why should there be any shame in proclaiming we are Indians?

Seshadri: radical reform prerequisite

Similar danger signals

This simmering volcano of anger and resentment is being stoked by the consumer and personal credit disbursement boom which has followed in the wake of the liberalisation and deregulation of the Indian economy during the decade past. Insensitivity to pervasive public disillusionment cost the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government the general election last year, and is probably the root cause of the civil unrest and insurrection in several parts of the country. But even as there is an emerging consensus that anger and resentment is being stoked by unequal sharing of the bounty of economic liberalisation, most sociologists and pundits blame the nation’s flawed and seemingly incorrigible education system.

 Politcians not statesmen

Shilpa Ratnam (16) is a class XII student of the National Public School, Chennai

What is the significance of Republic Day for you?

When the national anthem is played on Republic Day my heart leaps. I am reminded of the great leaders of our freedom movement.

Do you believe that India’s post-independence leaders have discharged the mandate of the Constitution of India?

In post-independent India, we’ve only had politicians, not statesmen. While paying lip service to the poor, our wily politicians have filled their pockets. The Constitution sets high ideals, but they have largely been ignored. The Gujarat carnage is an indicator of our ‘secularism’ and regular election riots speak volumes of our ‘democracy’.

India is a nation characterised by great inequalities in education, food, clothing and shelter. What are your feelings about coming of age in this society?

I happen to be among the lucky few on the right side of the red line and am thankful for it. But when you see so much poverty so early in life, you have to become philosophical in your outlook or turn to spiritualism.

Contemporary India has also been rated as one of the world’s most corrupt nations by Transparency International, Berlin. What’s your comment?

Why should people who elect their rulers to office through open contest and proclaim ‘Truth alone triumphs’ on their coins and other state insignia, be so tolerant of bribery and corruption? It’s ridiculous to say that corruption is in our genes or stems from a deficiency in our culture. Indians who settle in New Zealand or Singapore willingly adjust to a system where corruption is not tolerated.

Surendra Munshi

According to Dr. Surendra Munshi an alumnus of Bielefeld University, Germany who teaches sociology at the blue-chip IIM-C (Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta), the remedy for this potentially explosive situation is to accelerate the national drive to make quality education with a modicum of moral content available to all. "Good quality education which teaches values, needs to be accessible to all children. And it should be available in the proper sense, i.e not just on paper so that we have schools with teachers, blackboards and basic infrastructure. Children from the lowest strata of society will appreciate education only when they perceive that it helps them to make good in life. Unfortunately the social reality is that the sub-standard education dispensed in the majority of schools and colleges does not guarantee economic prosperity or well-being. Consequently young people feel helpless and easily succumb to anti-social activities to get ahead in life," says Munshi.

Implicit in Munshi’s criticism of the education system is a plea for the infusion of moral and life skills education into school and college curriculums. Right now the Delhi-based National Council for Education Research & Training (NCERT) is engaged in the process of framing a National Curriculum Framework for School Education for which purpose it has constituted 20 expert focus groups. Teachers across the country are keeping their fingers crossed that life skills and value education curriculums will be devised by NCERT to acquaint students with inter-personal management skills aka good manners, and sensitise them to moral values which will help abate corruption and conspicuous consumption.

"Children are naturally impressionable and it’s hardly an exaggeration to say they are thoroughly disenchanted by the corruption and injustice which pervades every walk of life. India has the dubious distinction of being one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Therefore it’s urgent to introduce value or moral education into school curriculums — not as a separate subject taught weekly, but built into every subject so that it has a sustained impact," advises Raji Sankar principal of the SET School of Excellence, a thoroughly contemporary secondary school promoted in 2000 by the high-profile Chennai-based Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd.

Box

Republic Day reality check

On January 26, 1950, a wintry day in Delhi, the constituent assembly of free India which had cast off the yoke of British rule three years earlier on August 15, 1947 presented the Constitution of India to Parliament and the nation. Drafted by a team of perhaps the finest legal talent in Asia led by the legendary Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and extensively debated by the choice and master spirits of India’s freedom movement, the Constitution drew upon the French, British and US constitutions to translate into a historic charter of rights and freedoms which encapsulated the lofty dreams and noble aspirations of free India. On the eve of the 54th anniversary of the formal proclamation of the Constitution, it’s time for a reality check. The preamble of the Constitution reads as under:

we, the people of india, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic and to secure to all its citizens:

justice, social, economic and political;

liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;

equality of status and opportunity;

and to promote among them all;

fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;

in our constituent assembly... do hereby adopt, enact and give ourselves this constitution

Against this backdrop it’s instructive to assess the extent to which the lofty aspirations of the founding fathers of the Constitution have been fulfilled.

JUSTICE. Post-independence India’s much-hyped independent justice system has been overwhelmed by a backlog of case arrears. Currently there are 30,000 cases pending in the Supreme Court, 320,000 in the high courts and 25 million in the subordinate courts. With only one judge appointed per 100,000 citizens (cf. 10,000 in the US and 5,000 in Germany), the judicial system has been almost emasculated with the average civil cause pending for over a decade. Moreover India is one of the few countries which charges court fees and also lacks an effective legal aid system.

LIBERTY. Currently India hosts the world’s largest prison population of under-trials, i.e citizens in jail awaiting trial. Torture in police custody is routine and in Kashmir and large swathes across north-east India, fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution have been suspended for decades. Moreover the fundamental right to own property which was abolished in 1976 has not yet been restored to the citizenry.

EQUALITY. Over 300 million Indian citizens earn less than $1 per day, below the plimsoll line drawn by the United Nations and the World Bank as absolute poverty. Despite this non-merit subsidies given to the relatively affluent middle class aggregate to over 14 percent of GDP and a mere 34 million Indians pay income tax. Even as state-of-the-art five-star schools are springing up across the country, one-fifth of government schools (which teach over 90 percent of school going children) are single teacher institutions and lack proper buildings; 58 percent don’t provide drinking water and 70 percent are bereft of toilets and sanitation. Little wonder that of the 146 million children who enroll in government primary schools, 59 million drop out before they make it to class VIII.

FRATERNITY. Contemporary India is a hotbed of religious, caste and urban-agrarian conflict. Communal rioting and pogroms are recurrent. In 1984 over 2,000 innocent Sikh citizens were killed in state-sponsored riots in Delhi. Likewise in 2003 over 3,000 Muslims were murdered in Gujarat in state-government sponsored rioting. In Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh and several states of the north-east there has been continuous insurrection against state governments for several decades.

The idealistic founding fathers of the nation who wrote the Constitution of India must be spinning in their graves.

Singh: home messages

But while teachers and educationists stress the need for value-based education (which contrary to popular opinion can be secular in content), they are also unanimous that institutional education needs to be supplemented with parental example. "Morality doesn’t flow only out of textbooks. Moral education is a necessary but insufficient condition for moral, ethical and caring conduct. We need to create a society which places a premium on values. It’s important to be aware that at best children spend eight hours in school and 16 hours at home, where the right messages need to be given to them," says Khushwant Singh (not the Khushwant Singh) director of the Ankur Yuva Chetna Shivir (estb. 1989), a Lucknow-based NGO providing the urban poor with formal and non-formal education and an advocacy group for childrens’ rights and healthcare.

But while they concede that the re-introduction of moral science education into school curriculums and reinforcement of ethical values in the home environment are necessary to roll back the swelling tide of corruption and accumulated injustices which threaten to overwhelm Indian society, better informed monitors of the contemporary socio-economic order believe that a just and egalitarian society is impossible without comprehensive reform of the education system.

Parikh: quality education accessibility issue

Likewise Dr. Sekhar Seshadri, (quoted earlier) believes that radical reform of the education system is the prerequisite of abating, perhaps eliminating, the pervasive corruption and injustices which have disllusioned — and continue to disillusion — young India. "The existing infrastructure of schools and teacher training colleges offers the most high-potential option for reforming Indian society. There needs to be a paradigm shift from academics orientation to life skills learning to the extent that schooling should be transformed into a joyful, enabling experience. Secondly professional coun-selling of disheartened and disillusioned children with the objective of healing rather than punishment needs to become more widespread within the school system. And finally the media could play an effective role by highlighting the importance of the child in the context of family and society. Parents must be made aware that child rearing is not a routine activity; they need to work at it and transform the family into a joyous space for children — a reservoir of love, nurturance and security," says Seshadri.

Quite clearly the most appropriate manner of ‘celebrating’ free India’s 54th Republic Day is not by way of marvelling at the forced bonhomie of its military parade down Delhi’s Rajpath, but by way of deep introspection and honest stocktaking of the debits and credits of constitutional freedom. It’s self-evident that the currents of the great ideals and aspirations of the Mahatma and the founding fathers of the Constitution to transform independent India into one of the world’s model societies governed by the principles of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity have run awry. Republic Day offers a chance to resolve to sweep away the debris of the past five decades and make an honest new beginning. This is an unpaid debt owed to the nation’s 280 million children coming of age in a republic of injustice where the best seem to lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.

With Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai); Mona Barbhaya (Mumbai); Neeta Lal (Delhi); Vidya Pandit (Lucknow); Srinidhi Raghavendra (Bangalore) & Sujoy Gupta (Kolkata)