Let not ambition mock their useful toil

                                        Let not ambition mock their useful toil

Times have changed. I am not talking about the usual whine of old people like me, to lament the generational change and nostalgically speak about those days past as though  honey and manna had  then poured from heaven and the world overflowed with genteelness, when attention to the rules of polite and refined behavior was the rule and any deviation from it was frowned upon. At the same time it is naïve to say that all that was past cannot hold a candle before the assertiveness, dynamism and individualism of the present where self effacement is no longer regarded a virtue, but a pretension to humility.

The present is the age of Selfie. It has changed the way we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us. In fact Selfie and the social media have changed the way of our behavior, our action and talk. Take a Selfie and post it on the Facebook to share one’s new look, new haircut, new style to receive compliments from fellow FaceBookers (and occasionally to be  trolled). This is the modern method of staying connected and feeling smug that we are at the  centre of everyone’s thought and concern.  This is a new means of creating one’s image for the world through aggressively foisting the Selfie on others. Selfie is showing off one’s own perception of himself or herself without the least sense of self consciousness. What a difference between the inhibiting self consciousness of the past and contemporary solipsism!

The picture Selfie is complemented by the word Selfie- an exaggerated account of oneself as presented in one’s Curriculum vitae(CV) or what we termed in the old world lingo, Bio-data. Today speaking about oneself in the most flattering terms is deemed a virtue and not something to be shy about. It is no longer viewed as being brash, impudent and arrogantly self confident, in stark contrast to the uptight lives that we had led in our times. The brasher one is, the more one is heard and respected.

 During our youth, four decades ago, we were brought up on the wisdom of the 18^th century poet, Thomas Gray, who wrote

                                    Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

                                   The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:

                                    Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,

                                   And waste its sweetness on the desert air

and we preferred to remain unseen , delighting in what we did even if no one sang our praise.  Recall the millions of Indians who sacrificed their job and participated in the freedom movement.  In our own way we loved our incognito status with enormous self pride that we were like the purest serene gems and blushing flowers full of sweetness and beauty. We knew our brightness and radiance would be visible to all and we therefore needed no Selfies( it is another matter this Selfie technology was not with us then).

The present is the age of self trumpeting. Politicians all over the world engage a lot of spin doctors to promote good will with the public. Leaders do not shy away from the microphone to package old ideas and make them appear new. What is important today is not so much about what one does as what one is perceived to do. Perception is the new mantra but this perception is no longer visual but mental and psychological. Politicians handle perception so deftly that negative perception is directed at the opposition and positive perception at themselves.

The second anniversary bash of the Modi sarkar was in the nature of a massive Selfie to match the mammoth poll promises made before the new government took over. Many promises remain promises while a few-notably Congress-mukht Bharat has been amply fulfilled.  It is too early to say whether the rest of the  promises will become a reality- two years is  not enough  as it is not  even one half of the massive five year gift given by the people to Modi Sarkar.  Three more years remain to be in office and it seems a hasty decision to tom- tom what any government in power in normal course  would have done. But unfortunately the spin doctors had forgotten Robert Frost’s lines 

                                                 But I have promises to keep

                                                 And miles to go before I sleep

                                                 And miles to go before I sleep

The underlying meaning of these lines is affirming a new path of governance and fulfilling the promises made. What the Ministers had stated in interviews they gave to government owned TV channel was what they had done in the last two years and that too on the presumption that people had been blind to their work and therefore they have to be told about it. The last two years, despite all the trumpeting, had not yielded the desired result in terms of improved governance, reduction of prices of essential commodities,a fresh roadmap for quality education, a new strategy for bringing equity without compromising merit, an implementable and practical plan to provide the promised two million jobs to the youth, a dynamic  vision  to make India overcome its caste bias, religious intolerance, gender insensitivity, mental cum moral  corruption and physical hygiene. No one spoke about the need to blend modernity with the essence of ancient wisdom while  steering clear of the overloaded accretions accumulated on that wisdom over many millennia. Mere platitudes and slogans about one’s daily quota of  designated activities are the Selfie approach that pretends to connect with masses  without touching their emotional and inner chords.

It is time that our politicians, leaders, and those who occupy influential positions in the country understand the true meaning of selfless work that needs no broadcasting. Good work done is obvious to everyone. Even the opposition that tries to blunt the worth of genuine work will be mocked at if it spreads negativity. It is equally true of the ruling party not to indulge only in calumny about the opposition. With such a massive majority, its behavior to banish the opposition from the face of the earth by bombast and bluster may work against it and  against whatever good work it had done- for example in the areas of power, railways  and improved financial investments.

There is no need for birthday bashes on such a lavish scale and expenditure with Bollywood bigwigs adding to entertainment. The progress report that the people should give ( and which they have given in a fairly balanced and objective manner)  should not be made by those very people whose work is being assessed. The money, the showbiz, the verbal onslaught on our visual and auditory senses left many of us mentally fatigued to respond to what was going on the TV channels. Let not the Modi sarkar become too ambitious about getting a second innings that is still another three years away. Let not their work be superseded by display of Selfies broader than life.

Let them understand Gray’s wise counsel:“Let not ambition mock their useful toil.”

Challenging Changes for Higher Learning

                                  Challenging Changes for Higher Learning.

This year will mark the 70^th anniversary of our independence. After the euphoria of the first decade when IITs and IIMs were opened and higher education was truly of high quality, there has been a steady decline in the next six decades. Successive governments have attempted to address this issue without addressing the core question:  “what constitutes quality?” Increase of working hours in colleges and universities has been recommended frequently as a panacea for all problems undermining the quality of education. This is a cure-all solution as per the prescriptive diktats of the bureaucrats in the Ministry of HRD. Somehow the perception (no doubt, contributed by a few unprincipled university and college teachers) that academic job is lucrative and sinecure has been an irritant with the senior bureaucrats ever since university teachers’ pay was revised to be on par with civil service officers up to the grade of Joint Secretary barring the Vice Chancellor whose pay was equated with that of the Additional Secretary. The Civil service officers resent  the fact that while they are at their desk for at least eight hours(no one dares to question how many of those eight hours are productive hours), the academics enjoy the luxury of 3-4 hours work and yet getting almost the same scale of pay. It is this long standing grouse against academics that make the bureaucrats transfer all the blame on the teaching faculty for the steady decline of quality in higher education. Hence from time to time new guidelines have been framed for the service conditions of the university and college teachers. Has anyone asked this pertinent question as to where do we find service hours quantified in this way as is being done with teachers? The fact that the UGC under instructions from the ministry seeks to change the present workload of 18 hours to 24 hours is on its suo motu presumption that teachers are not working and have to be treated like school children and mandated to put in the number of hours as laid down by the officials whose perception about  a good academic’s work is to say the least, warped.  It is a fact that in any profession about 20% are work shirkers and this is true of administrators, teachers, office staff, bank employees etc. It stands to rational discernment that when working hours are framed, the focus should be on the 80% of the genuine workers and not on the 20% of work shirkers. Sadly in our country, our policymakers work on the reserve focus for teachers in colleges and universities.

For framing higher education policies to improve our present education system, it is axiomatic to understand what is meant by quality in higher education. The quality of education is not constrained. It is a higher attribute of the mind both of the teacher and the taught. It blesses him that gives and him that receives. If higher education is to change qualitatively, it requires quality of input from the teacher and quality of output from the student. It also hinges upon quality in the content and curriculum. In mathematical equation, it is a linear flow from course curriculum to course content through the teacher to the student. Quality of higher education is a sum total of teacher’s knowledge and ability to instruct with the quality of the student’s ability to absorb. Unless we ensure ways and means to maintain quality at all these four levels, all talk about quality education will be empty rhetoric.

I had been a teacher who had taught both in the college and the University. Hence I know the daily drill for a teacher. To prepare for an hour’s lecture one needs many hours of study.  Lecturing in today’s age of internet and Google is different from what it was in those days.  Today it is not giving facts and figures that are readily available to a student at the press of a key on his/her laptop. A good lecture involves analysis, interpretation and elucidation of facts, making them relevant to contemporary times. This is the age of cross disciplinary studies where every subject under discussion is recognized as a small strand in the web of knowledge.  No teacher can stay in isolation and call himself/herself as belonging exclusively to his/her chosen discipline.  As a student I had the benefit of listening to weekly lectures by great professors who would marshal resources from different disciplines to bear on the subject of their lectures. For example, when my English professor  taught us Eliot’s The Wasteland, he used to conjure a vast and dissonant range of cultures and civilizations to highlight the theme of disillusionment and despair and the need to restore fertility to a sterile land.  He was able to make the cross references by virtue of his wide reading of different literature and cultures across many millennia and bring them to bear on the central consciousness of the poem that ends with the Sanskrit lines “Datta .Dayadhvam.Damyata/Shantih, Shantih, Shantih.”

 Today more than at any other time lectures in colleges and at universities demand condensing varied strands of disciplines to provide a capsule understanding and interpretation of the text under discussion. The same teaching-learning method, I had  enjoyed in UK where I had gone as a student for research.  What in essence this means is minimum lectures, maximum learning. I followed this method of giving the essence compiled from different sources, when I was assigned one weekly lecture for post graduate students. At the college level it has to be a little more expansive as the undergraduate students for the first time encounter great minds and advanced knowledge. The authorities who make the policy guidelines (it will merit another discussion as to why they wield such power over academicians) must understand that college teaching is not an extension of school learning. It is not spoon feeding; it is to stimulate the curiosity in the learner.  The teacher acts as a catalyst to perk the curiosity of the students and convert them to be intellectually stimulated, well informed, and motivated to learn. It is not the number of lectures that count but the quality of those lectures. Ideally speaking, at the undergraduate class, there should be four lectures per week for each paper,  each for an hour and this should be complemented by two  tutorials each for two groups of students where assignments are discussed, class tests are given and doubts cleared. There should be two seminars every week for each paper for students to present papers and be evaluated on their presentation skill, intervention and participation. This effectively translates into eight classes per week for one paper of 100 marks- 4L+2T+2S (for a 50 marks paper, this number gets halved) . For three papers per semester, the student has 24 classes per week comprising six days which works out to four per day. The student gets more time for self study, for library work and for participation in extra- curricular activities.

 The present dispensation of 18+6 for asst. professors means there is hardly any time for the teachers to prepare compact lectures of 60 minutes duration. 18 lectures, as stipulated in the new guidelines, is punishing if not killing. It works out to a minimum of 3.36 hours of talking per day in addition to 6 tutorials per week which will work out to another 1.2 hours per day.  The total comes to 4.56 hours per day for the exercise of one’s vocal chords and lung power which is inhuman and physically draining. Where is the energy left for study, preparation for next day’s lecture, correction of assignments, writing research papers and completing administrative work of filling in the attendance, mark sheets, attendance at department meetings and other administrative work?  An hour’s lecture is equivalent to two hours –if not more at a desk job. As per the suggestion given above of assigning four lectures per paper per week, the teaching hours work out as below:

 If a lecturer teaches two papers, s/he takes 16 classes per week and @60 minutes per class it works out to16x60 = 16 hours per week. Divided by five working days, it comes to 3.2 hours per day in the class room. This is just teaching time and does not include the time for preparing the lectures, evaluating assignments and doing research in quest of personal intellectual development. 

 A teacher’s work does not end with the ringing of the bell at the end of the day. It signals the beginning of the next phase of work- either in the library or at his/her desk at home to prepare for the following day’s lecture. There is also the compelling need to revise courses and curriculum to keep updated in this age of knowledge explosion. Can the teacher be expected to do ashtavadanam- eight folded concentration to retain a sharp mind and  to access and possess a wide range of knowledge on his/her subject area after a punishing day’s lecture in college?   To compare office work with teaching is like comparing oranges and apples. What is needed is the will to ring in challenging changes in respect of graduate and post graduate teaching and provide teachers more time to give quality lectures and upgrade and advance their own  knowledge. This is a new era- the era of knowledge explosion where the need to keep abreast with everyday findings and discovery is pivotal to learning., Regulatory rules like swiping cards to register time of entry and time of exit and increasing working hours for teachers cannot serve to improve quality in higher education.

As for the students at the graduate level, they have  to learn self study. They have  to be given adequate time to work on class lectures, to analyse and interpret different subjects, to cultivate judgement and above all to deliberate and articulate her/his findings. If the students are forced to sit from nine to five in the classrooms, where is the time for self study and self development?  There is a constant complaint that today’s graduates  have neither the skill nor competence to think and express themselves to be employable.  Quality of education is not the responsibility of the teacher alone; it needs the student’s power of assimilation as well. And for that to happen, the student has to be free from the class at least for one half of the day.

Many of the academics have had the benefit of foreign education and have seen how the universities function abroad.  Self reliance, self directed learning, self motivation, autonomous working, independent judgement have been their major gains while studying in foreign universities besides intellectual acquisition. Universities and colleges will have to factor in the importance of freedom and autonomy for intellectual and personality development. Quality in higher education is to be measured by the wholesome development of the individual- which in the context of colleges and universities includes the teacher, the researcher and the student. 

A corollary of this increased workload from 18 to 24 means a virtual ban on fresh recruitment. For example if a three year course of 72 periods is today shared by four teachers @18 per individual, the same will now need three teachers @ 24 periods which means one teacher becomes redundant. Thus the new rules imply no fresh recruitment and the current system of employing ad-hoc teachers will have to be done away with. Will this encourage young men and women to take up teaching as a profession? If teachers are made to take on the bestial burden of 24 periods per week, will not it infringe upon that small degree of excellence that is still present today? The new policies are not well thought  through policies and have been guided by fund crunch that is faced by the UGC. The reduced allotment to UGC stands at 55% of the previous year’s grants.  With more and more students knocking at the portals of colleges, is this a new measure of the government of  abdicating its responsibility and ceding that space to private universities and private colleges?  

I have served Delhi University for forty years and I have had the privilege to have  been associated with it at its hey- day.  This holds true of a number of Central universities in the country. That bastion of excellence started crumbling during my last years as a result of slow withdrawal of university autonomy and poor service conditions. The present promotion system on the basis of API points has made promotions still more languorous, immethodical and unscientific.  It has to be disbanded forthwith because it has resulted in exaggerated details about  one’s academic potential, production of third and fourth rate papers in journals( whose acquisition of ISBN certification is no proof of its standard) in order to garner additional points in API and untruthful accounts of innovative teaching and administrative work. There has to be a simpler system that is more accurate and objective than the present API system. Students’ feedback, Pincipal/HOD’s confidential reports, evidence of research and self development are adequate to assess the suitability of the teacher to move to the next grade.

 There is now a phenomenal increase in the number of students going abroad for undergraduate studies. Instead of strengthening the citadels of excellence that had been built over many decades, we see them slowly getting dismantled. There is still time for us to shore up the ruins of the citadel and rebuild them on a stronger and lasting foundation with emphasis on quality and excellence. It is time for the teachers to show their mastery and expertise to bring back excellence that was the pride and glory of our universities in the past. The universities should make course corrections wherever they have veered from high standards and the Ministry should understand and appreciate that  teachers alone have a sense of belonging to their institutions, and they alone can make India’s future and instill in the younger generation the virtues of cultivating excellence without unfairness, aspiration without ambition, and humanity without discrimination. Are we ready to make the leap and become intellectual colossus or do we willfully continue to slide down with the closing of our minds to end up as intellectual pygmies? It is time for authority and academics to work in tandem to make giant strides in the field of education.

Look for the Stars, they shine for You

                                          Look for the Stars, they shine for You               

The five state elections are over. The euphoria of the winners and the dolefulness of the losers have once again taken centre stage. Parrot-like pearls of wisdom like “we accept the verdict with all humility and we will introspect” from the humbled Congress and the resounding arrogant BJP slogan “All hail to us. We have made Modi’s ‘Congress mukht Bharat’ a reality” echo forth from the two parties. 

Democracy has had its last laugh on Tamilnadu exit polls that had predicted the rise of the nonagenarian Karunanidhi like the legendary phoenix and the eclipse of the redoubtable Amma.  Ammavote is now  the new entrant into Amma brands like Amma idli, Amma dosa, Amma vada, Amma water, Amma medicine etc with  Ammanadu singing “Jaya ho”. We also see the might of another strong woman in Dididesa(West Bengal) where Didi is  going strong punching all her opponents. The hand and the sickle together could not reap the votes in Dididesa.  However in God’s own country(Kerala) the sickle has harvested the votes without the hand to wield it and the lotus has opened its account with a solitary flower, leaving the rest of the blossoms to flower in Assam. This Northeast state has shaken off the 15 year old umbilical card from the cow and the calf.  Down, but not out, says an enfeebled Congress taking a consolation prize in Puducherry winning 15 out of 30 seats. The hand that had rocked the cradle of democratic India for almost 35 years (17 with Pandit Nehru, 13 with his daughter Indira and five with his grandson Rajiv)  has now lost its grip and  been replaced  by Jora ghas phul( grass and the two flowers) in West Bengal, by two leaves in Tamilnadu, by the lotus in Assam and by the sickle in Kerala.  Only in Puducherry the hand remains unsoiled –may be to prove an exception to its all round displacement by the new emerging powers both at the Centre and in the states. .

On the day of the announcement of poll results, I dreaded to switch on the TV channels for the evening news analysis. I was afraid my ear drums will get punctured by the non- stop diarrhea of wisdom from our anchors sporting an omniscient look, and displaying  caustic indulgence towards their favourite whipping boy, the Congress.

With curiosity outweighing the fear of cacophony, I switched on the TV to have the evening entertainment of verbal fights without the fisticuffs. The BJP, though has won only one out of the five  states that went to polls, was in its ever arrogant best, tom- tomming that it is the only national party with a pan India presence. The BJP spokespersons known for their sneer and smirk whenever the opposition -in particular the Congress- mews, have   a talent for over shouting the debaters , cross talking  and interjecting  even before a word could be uttered by the hapless losers. Today was a special day for them. Though their take-in was 1/5 or just  20%, they talked with pomposity, laced with  a high sense of self righteousness bordering on hubris. The media, ever alert to be on the side of the winners had no compunction flogging the dead horse.

 The pathetic Congress reminded me of a mime Act Without Words by the Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett, where on a scorching sunny day, a man in severe thirst hankers for water. As he spots a carafe with the label ‘Water’ descending from nowhere, he lunges forward only to find the carafe going up. This happens a second time, a third time and on the fourth occasion, when the carafe comes down, he does not move. Maybe he is in coma, maybe he has no energy to rouse himself up, maybe he is aware of the futility of his effort to reach the carafe, maybe he is dead.

What is the status of Congress? Is it in comatose or is it finished for good or is it without hope, without will, without energy, without strategy to bounce back? It is certainly not in comatose because one is said to be in comatose only if he does not respond to external stimuli. In the case of Congress ,since there is no external stimulus( as it continues to be  busy with introspection), it is unlikely to be roused and therefore not necessarily remain in comatose. The BJP says with glee Congress is finished and it has thus fulfilled at least one of its many promises-i.e. to bring a Congress- mukht Bharat. Since Congress  has now a foothold in Puducherry  in addition to Uttarakhand and Karnataka, it is more likely that it is on the ventilator and unless it gains strength to breathe on its own, it will be on the ventilator at least till such time  these three states also bounce out of  its hand.

Is it good for the country to have one of its oldest parties on a ventilator? I read today that the next target for the BJP is Nitish- mukht Bharat. That means it will strive for one party to rulea nd thus provide a new definition for Indian democracy - rule by BJP, of  BJP and for BJP.  This may not augur well for the future of democracy in India.  If there is only a single ruling party with no opposition, it sounds the death knell of democracy.

 The BJP is happy to  open its account with a lone win in Kerala. Let us hope in its euphoria, let BJP not destruct itself by destructing democracy. Let it face the truth- it has been rejected by four states and it has managed to open its account  in Kerala.  Despite all its fanciful slogans of Make in India, Digital India, Skill India, Swachh Bharat, and its vigorous rechristening of all roads, organizations, official bodies and associations that had been earlier named after Nehru and the Gandhis(not the Mahatma ),  despite all its efforts to hug and embrace foreign nations to prove India’s  fraternal bonds, there has been no significant change in the social and economic conditions for a majority in the country. There is nil growth in employment, no lessening of prices of essential commodities for the common man, hardly any qualitative improvement in our lives. What extra benefits have accrued to the people of India except for some welcome contributions made by the Railway ministry and the Power ministry and to some extent the Transport ministry?  Corruptions at high places continue as evidenced in the case of Lalit Modi’s infamous association with BJP leaders- Sushmaji and Vasundhraji, in the hoarding of  Black money in safe dark vaults outside India and in the day to day corruption in all offices. Maybe one notices less of corruption at much higher levels of governance. The foreign policy for all its fanfare has not yielded the desired results. Our neighbours who enjoyed the hospitality and embrace of our PM do not miss an opportunity to attack us and scorn our overtures. After the Modi-Nawaz bonhomie, it is raining artillery shells from Pakistan. Even the only Hindu nation of the world-Nepal- has turned against us. Growth, employment, achche din continue to be pre- election promises. The disturbing acts of lynching persons who had allegedly stored beef in their homes( an allegation that had been proved false), the attacks on freedom of expression and on personal  freedom to eat what one wants, to read what one likes, to pay obeisance to the motherland in one’s own way, to follow one’s belief and political ideology  have all caused fear and anxiety among the citizens about a possible reversion to dictatorship and Xenophobia.  The two years has seen the government going hammer and tongs at all Congress big wigs spreading the perception that the grand old party is corrupt from top to bottom. As for education, The Universities in the past had recognized that the quality of education is not strained; it  had blessed all those who contributed to academic scholarship and blessed all those who received it. But today the only perceptible change that is brought in our institutions is to question the wisdom of great academicians of the earlier era and replace it with new scholarship that has yet to stand the scrutiny of academic, historical and textual integrity. Autonomy had been the strongest bastion of our higher learning centres- Universities, IITs, IIMs,  Medical institutes and research organizations. Unfortunately that fortification is now attacked and destroyed and one dreads to visualize the destruction of academic scholarship and academic integrity. It is BJP’s good fortune that Congress is on the decline. Otherwise with nothing much to show over the last two years- which seem to be a continuation of the earlier regime- it could have been hauled over the coals had there been a strong, articulate and intelligent opposition. Had the reverse happened with Congress in power and BJP in the opposition, the latter would have beaten the former to within an inch of life.

The ruling party is good at smear campaigns to create false perceptions about their opponents. The idea is throw mud so that something sticks till such time you have the water and the soap to clean it. The BJP spearheaded by its two top leaders have shown the opposition rule as mired in corruption and for ten years in a perpetual state of policy paralysis.  Though partly factual, it is three to one exaggeration. There were many in the previous government starting from the then PM, Man Mohan Singh who were not touched by the greed for extra pelf. The partial truth is a few blacksheep in the Congress and UDA had shown themselves to b  far from being  clean, efficient, compassionate, honest and strong. Post 2014, It has shown itself to be effeminate, whining, complaining, corrupt and rudderless. The choice before the electors has thus been between bluster and babble.  What democracy in India has shown is there is no alternative except to choose between tweedledom and tweedledee. No leader of proven integrity, with wisdom and vision has come centrestage bringing decency and cultured behavior in action and speech. 

It is well known that powerful people are those who operate from commitment. And those who are powerless always operate from complaint. BJP has a visceral hatred of the Congress and in particular of the Gandhis and is committed to banish the party into wilderness. It has almost succeeded and has also grown powerful. It has of late been sounding paternalistic and intrusive almost to the point of promising people to provide those needs which it would decide and at the simultaneously denying them their rights and responsibilities. The grim prospect of a paternalistic state is not just an imaginary nightmare, but too close to us for comfort. Milton Friedman wrote that "the paternalistic ground for government activity is in many ways the most troublesome to a liberal; for it involves the acceptance of a principle--that some shall decide for others--which he finds objectionable in most applications.”

 The Congress which had till now been a national party is seen operating from complaint and is not committed to any new vision or plan. One of its top leaders has hit the nail on its head when he said holding to the 1970 slogans about Garibi hatao has no meaning in the altered narrative of present history. The young and the middle aged are full of aspirations irrespective of their economic status. The senior citizens desire security, care and comfort. Everyone desires to live a qualitatively improved life. As for the state leaders, they think to win elections, offer freebies. This would ultimately turn their countrymen and women to modern day Oliver Twists, asking for more and more and without striving to earn them.

  What is sorely lacking in India today is the development of the mind, the inability  to discern between empty promises and implementable  vision  for the betterment of individuals and society. This is the Age of Social Media, Twitter and What’s APP.  In short, Groupthink Is the blight of our Age of Information and this has bred mediocrity and poorness. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote: “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius".  We have not nurtured talent and intelligence sufficient to recognize what is true and what is false, what is exaggeration and what is meiosis, what is cultured and what is inelegant speech, what is genuine talent and what is extravagant boasting.

 We need a new revolution- though as I had often said, it should be like the Velvet revolution of East Europe in its attempt to free itself from the authoritarian rule of Soviet Russia. We need intellectuals to come forward to educate us on new politics of discernment. We need to educate our people and make them understand the concept of true citizenship and collective welfare of humanity. True education consists in developing discerning minds that recognize the difference between individual and society and seek new measures to include both to benefit materially, mentally and spiritually. We need a new breed of leaders who can bring about a synthesis of individual genius and collective talent, of the wisdom of the Ages and the progressive outlook of the moderns, of freedom and restraint, of aspiration and ambition, of equity and justice, and last but not the least of svabhava(one’s intrinsic nature) and svadharma(one’ s duty/role in the social and cosmic order) .

 Many may look askance at such idealism and describe this write up as empty rhetoric. To them my only answer is ( as the Velvet revolution exemplified), to make people aware of  binary concepts listed above and make them realize a new vision that seeks unity in duality. This is not ideological revolution, but intellectual revolution. It is for the University professors, academicians, school teachers ,educationists, scholars and writers to come together to foster this new vision among our people. It is time our intellectuals and our young bright minds get out of their cocooned space and enter the bigger political arena to create a new idealism that is realizable in our land. Is it wrong to ask to look at the sky and discover that the stars shine still?

Award pe Charcha (Discussion on Awards)

                                             Award pe Charcha (Discussion on Awards)

H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar made news, recently, for suggesting that perhaps Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize winner who stood up for a girl’s right to study and was shot at by the Taliban, did not deserve the award. I could not believe that a widely acclaimed Guru, Sri Sri  would have spoken against a Nobel peace Prize winner especially when his own nomination for such a distinction had not been successful.  This uncharitable remark( and uncalled for, after almost a year)smacks of  a loser’s scorn for such a prestigious award and does not behove of a Guru in a spotless white robe who teaches and practices ‘the Art of Living’. Sri Sri who is revered and venerated as a spiritual Guru offering succour to millions of men and women stressed out by negative feelings has shown himself to be one of them with his negative remark about Malala. In fact recently, during the much vaunted World Culture Festival by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s The Art of Living Foundation, he behaved unlike a Guru when he said he would not pay the fine imposed by the National Green Tribunal and dared the Constitutional body to arrest him. He displayed a spirit of defiance and impetuosity which lent added piquancy to his remark. One does not know whether there had been any damage to the environment at Yamuna floodplain, but Sri Sri’s reaction was bitter and betrayed a sense of hurt that he, SriSri, the great Guru had  been faulted. On both these occasions, he had dropped the mask of imperturbability and shown that he is like anyone of us not insusceptible to criticism. It is unfortunate that one who calls himself a spiritual Guru has shown a weakness for awards and hankers after them. After being bestowed( not clear whether it is a self bestowed one) the highest award of a spiritual Guru, Sri Sri accepts the civilian award of  Padma Vibhushan  which is just a step below the highest civilian award of Bharat Ratna. One wonders if Sri Sri feels the spiritual endorsement is not adequate in comparison with worldly approbation! His proximity to the political leaders currently in power and his earlier open canvassing for BJP and its Prime Minister designate in 2014 clearly demonstrated he was not free from prejudices by favouring one group against another- and thereby not a guru for all humanity. Such spiritual gurus with a weakness for worldly power are legion in our country. Baba Ramdev promoting his Patanjali brand of food and beverages, Dhirendra Brahmachari, the yogic guru of Indira Gandhi,  Asaram Bapu, now in jail for his alleged sexcapade, the controversial Satlok Ashram head Rampal ,also in jail are some names that make us wonder whether there is just a shadow line between the self styled Spiritual Gurus and ordinary mortals who hanker after material power, wealth, status  and recognition through national awards.

If Sri Sri has spoken against the selection of the Nobel committee, it does indicate that all is not well with the award kingdom. Since none of us are Sri Sris, we cannot question the selection for the ‘Padma awards’ notified every year on the Republic Day. It is not that every award is questionable, but some do raise misgivings about the correctness of selection. For example, every year journalists with closeness to the political power of the day are given the ‘Padma’ awards-  a Padma Sri or a Padma Bhushan. I cannot fathom what extraordinary service they have  done except reporting for a news channel or writing a column in the newspaper for which they are paid and if they do well, they receive the Media awards. This is no cavil, but merely an attempt  to understand how even prestigious national  awards are treated as political bonanza at the King’s (in a democracy, political boss’) pleasure.

The manner of selection of awards in a few academic institutions is the most intriguing. In Delhi University Foundation awards for outstanding academics under three categories are given.  They are                           Nishtha Dhritih Satyam Samman
                                 Distinguished Service  Awards  for retired teachers

                                 Excellence Awards for Teachers in Service
Those who think they are eligible must file in their own nomination to be forwarded by the college principal in consultation with a faculty committee to verify all the evidence supplied by individuals seeking such an award. In other words, these academics who have retired / are in service should send their word selfies to the committee. In the case of retired teachers, it is humiliation compounded, as first they have to seek an award for themselves, then their worth will be decided by a committee of teachers who have been their juniors or in some cases who have not even joined the institution when these worthy retired teachers were in service. The second question is how can a retired college teacher be evaluated along with a retired university teacher? Who decides who is worthy and on what basis?

As for the first award, Nishtha Dhritih Satyam Samman, usually bestowed on people for their contribution to the university, is there a mechanism to gauge the quantum of contribution made and is there any way to assess whose contribution is greater? And again unless one looks at the history of the University, ( assuming that everything has been faithfully recorded as to who did what) the present faculty will hardly be able to sit on judgement of those senior worthies. The only short cut is to give the award to the oldest among the applicants who have reduced themselves to beg for the award.

 As for the last category, there is no feedback from the students. No Confidential reports are written for teachers. So on what basis can these teachers be judged?- by hearsay, I suppose. Again there are 79 colleges in DU and even if just 40 colleges ( assuming the other 39 do not have any worthy faculty), were to assess teachers from say ten to fifteen departments, there will be at the least 80-100 outstanding faculty members who deserve to be given the Excellence awards. And these college teachers have to compete with university department teachers. What is the ironical icing on top of thee awards is the nominations with word selfies have to reach the university three days prior to the announcement of the awards.(This year, 26^th April was the last date and May 1 was the Foundation day- which means the decision should have been done at least two days earlier-leaving just  three days to arrive at the list of award winners) The final selection committee members have to be given special awards for doing this massive work in three to four days.

Has there been any award pe charcha among the Delhi University Teachers who have banded themselves into a strong association?  Maybe they think it is wiser to remain silent rather than raise questions and deny them an opportunity to present their word selfies and be included among distinguished awardees!