We
all begin our lives in a close and protective environment. Naturally, the
child’s world is confined to direct experiences with the people and physical
environment she is surrounded by. But as the child interacts with others, it is
socialised in ways of behaviour, thought and feelings of her community. That
helps her in connecting with others, in understanding their intentions, pains
and hopes. In a way, she includes them in her own consciousness, they become a
part of herself, and her consciousness expands.
While
it is a great achievement for the child to have become a thinking being; her
consciousness is still bound by that very cultural and physical environment.
The very process of formation of mind also imprisons it.
Therefore
the most important role of education is to liberate the mind from here and now.
This is a tricky endeavour though, as this liberty has to be achieved without
alienating the mind from the community in which it was formed, for the most
basic conceptual equipment is formed with the experiences gained in life as
lived in that community.
Severing
connection with that experience will render the conceptual equipment empty and
useless. On the other hand, without loosening the connection, those conceptual
structures will become unreceptive to anything beyond the pale of the community
experience and will judge everything else with the narrow yardstick of that
particular community.
Therefore,
education becomes an endeavour to be receptive to the ways of knowing, feeling,
judging and doing of the humanity with intelligent analysis. That means
learning to see oneself as part of the great mass of humanity and sharing in
its destiny, while also expanding the imagination to construct human past as
well as imagine its future. The vastness of the universe situates the humanity
in a much larger system and the full picture makes humanity a subject of
critical assessment: How important is it? How sacrosanct are its ways? What
future direction could/ should it take?
All
this can be seen as liberating the mind from here and now. Liberation, in this
sense, is not disconnection; it is simply growing beyond. Noisily preached
ideals of education today all militate against this expansion of consciousness.
They are more pronounced in the higher education, but also shape the school
education significantly.
One
of these ideals looks at education as preparing cannon fodder for capitalist
economy. Riding on the economic aspirations of people, it almost exclusively
emphasises marketable skills. Even when it uses lofty terms like ‘global
citizen,’ it only means being able to render services to market anywhere on the
globe; not in the sense of feeling human pain caused by these market forces.
This not only disconnects the person from his/her formative roots but also
makes her mechanical and self-centred to the level where rather than expanding
the self, she can see all others only through the prism of self-interest.
Another
ideal starts with a critical look at the society and offers a lot of hope in
the beginning. But soon, this approach becomes so obsessed with identity
politics that it focusses exclusively on one’s own identity; be that Dalit or
woman or majority or minority. This particular affliction manifests itself most
devastatingly at the university level, and becomes so completely obsessed with
injustices done to one community that the whole humanity and all human actions
are seen only through that lens. Rest of the humanity is not included in the
consciousness, but is forcefully excluded by reducing it into an object of
judgment.
All
these ideals are out to confine the mind to their own rigidly defined
boundaries. They all, while having some grain of positive development, finally
want to shape the self into a particular mould, which is incapable of
encompassing the whole of humanity with its pain and pleasures, with its perils
and achievements, with its depths of depravity and peaks of exalted
achievements.
We
need to re-emphasise the educational ideal that is capable of feeling the pain
of particular sections of humanity without rejecting the rest of it. Which is
capable of contributing to the economic machine that sustains the human life,
without becoming just a cog in it. Which is capable of deriving nourishment
from our limited experiences while subjecting them to values that cherish all
humanity.
The
question then is, what is the way? As of now there is no readymade answer. A
possible solution would emerge only if we think with clarity and sensitivity
towards whole humanity.
(Based on an article by Rohit Dhankar, Director
Academic Development, Azim Premji University in DH May 03,
2016)
