The divided India

The educated and the ‘educated’ Indians

It’s been 60 years since the British left India and we became a ‘free’ nation. In these 60 years, India has further disintegrated not as a nation but as a society. While the division has been in many dimensions of life, the most prominent I feel has been between the educated and the ‘educated’ Indians. I’m using the term ‘educated’ for that part of population which gets educated through a pre-defined syllabus, a pre-defined pattern. There are then those educated people who get education not through any prescribed syllabus.

In one of our weekly meetings, an elderly gentleman said “education starts from home. Education starts the moment a child is born. Going to school and college is mere a part of it”. If this is the case, then every child is educated. If I look at myself, it would be wrong to say I was educated in school. The correct thing is, a part of my education came from school. I learnt a lot more about life from sources outside school (my family, my friends, my surrounding). What school has given me is mainly the ability to read and write certain languages and partly the ability to use mathematics. The school has also given me lot of names for things I already knew. For example I always knew if I leave something in the air it will fall on the ground, but had no name for it. In class IX, school gave me the name gravity.

I’m not trying to downplay the role of school in one’s life but I’m trying to question the belief in me which says I’m educated while others are not.

The definition of science is that it’s a study of nature. If I claim to be a science student, if I claim to have an engineering degree, let me then test my knowledge. How much I know about nature as compared to a farmer’s son? Do I know about the nature of soil where I live? Do I know which crops grow in which season and why? Can I look at the sky and say if it will rain or not? How many plants and trees can I identify? How many can I use for medicinal purpose? I have an engineering degree, can I build my own house? Can I repair my car? The answer to all the questions above is NO. Yet it’s me who is educated, in fact professionally educated, while the other is not.

I feel a whole lot of young urban population suffer from this superiority complex. We are made to believe we are fortunate to be able to go to a school. We are more fortunate if we are able to go an English medium public school. We become blessed if after school we get into an IIT. The IITians are made to believe they are the ‘cream of society’.

And so, India gets divided. As we grow, the ‘educated’ alienates itself from the other educated.