Vol 5; No. 2 A forum for education concerns 2001

Empowerment is a seductive word. It opens up infinite possibilities, which can be explored to choose the best one to suit our society. It was our mantra during the freedom struggle, but in the decades following it has been slowly relegated to the back burner. In the present background of intense debate about globalization and the clamour for increased privatization, people now sense a new threat to their autonomy.

In this context, many of the people's protests have invoked the concept of empowerment. In our current issue of Edu-Care, we are trying to map the contours of this concept. Empowerment can be simply translated to ‘power to the people’. But can it be achieved by the simple cleaning up of our existing systems and structures, or does it require a complete overhaul of the basic frameworks supporting the systems?

One of the problems lies in the fact that we rarely take the discussion all the way to the core because "empowering" all means giving up some of the structures that empower the few. If all of us are to be truly empowered, we need to examine not only the ways in which power can be redistributed, but also the ways and places in which power currently resides--and revamp, perhaps even destroy, these. One way of looking at empowerment is to look at the ways in which the word has been used, and what a useful conceptualisation could be. Another way is to examine the institutions that were originally meant to be tools of empowerment but which have somewhere along the line lost that central mission and have instead become enslavers. We look at how schools and other institutions have subverted the mission of empowerment to the advantage of a few groups that hold and determine privilege. Are we as a society and as individuals really interested in empowerment? Are we able to commit to an idea that might undermine our very manner of doing things, our existing power structure and the systems based on it, and the upheavals it might cause?

WHAT do we mean by empowerment? Are we talking about empowering people discover themselves, to realize their potential as human beings, but giving them a wide array of choices and the power to make those choices independent of external pressure? Or are we talking about giving all people the tools to deal with society as it is today, and perhaps make transformations within the overarching framework (but without changing the framework itself)?

If we are speaking of empowerment in the first sense, neither education nor social systems have succeeded. The entire focus of most schooling in this country has been to fit people into predetermined slots, to thrust a mass of information down throats often unable to swallow it, to cast more "bricks in the wall". At the end of twelve years of school, ask any child if they know who they are and what they want to do with their lives, most likely you will at best get a highly unrealistic answer and at worst a bewildered, uncomprehending stare. This is the relatively "privileged" child. Ask a child who stands at the margins of social and economic development (as is popularly conceived), and you will get an answer that reflects a degree of self knowledge accompanied by the resignation that there is no point in "wanting" to be anything or do anything other than what the system has decreed. In fields other than education, too, this is the case--industry, agriculture, and medicine. The "cutting edge" of most of these areas has nothing to do with the needs or desires of a large majority. They race "ahead" and in the process benefit a highly visible minority that control media and popular culture, so we have the illusion that things have changed, that life is better for all of us. When in reality the "us" is a small percentage. So what is this empowerment we are talking about?

The second interpretation is perhaps the more pragmatic, if not entirely ideal. And this is certainly the way empowerment has been conceived by the architects of modern India. Teach people how to fit in, how they can feed the system and hold it up, and when they fit in well, and support the system with this "learning", then one might deem them empowered. Most of the examples we see held up to us are of those who have achieved such empowerment with support from the system, and are not "productive" members of the same system that created them. Very very few see that they can use education in different ways, and try to chip away at some of the walls created by the system--these are examples of how the tools of the system can indeed be applied to change it. Education has not only made it possible for the rebel to find spaces in the system that fit him/her, but it has also made him recognise the imperfection of the system and has given him the means to destroy and rebuild.

It is clear from this view of empowerment that every individual must be empowered--to be themselves, to be able to achieve their potential, to be able to function as a productive member of a just society. It is not something that is a consideration when speaking of disadvantaged groups alone; it is a consideration in the development of every individual. Many of us, even in "privileged" groups, feel a certain powerlessness to change things, to make a difference. An education that empowered would help us make the difference in our own ways.

None of us would dispute the notion that empowerment is (among other things) about increased choices, and the ability to make those choices. In this sense, our system (education and most other streams) have fulfilled the empowerment imperative in very limited ways. A person who goes through 12 years of school certainly has more choices in terms of vocations and avocations. But think about it a little more and you will see that the empowerment is limited to having a wider array of choices available from the existing avenues. It has not provided choices in terms of actually carving out new pathways, or making a person feel comfortable with himself or herself even if the current pathways do not lead where s/he wants to go. That choice exists, no doubt, but the person who exercises the choice to ignore the existing pathways and carve a new one, must work outside the system, not with it, and certainly not within it. Such a person has succeeded in empowering himself despite the system.

So when we talk about empowerment what exactly do we mean? When we take our books and pens to the remotest areas of the country, to the most insular of peoples, and teach them to read and write, what do we wish to accomplish? In one sense, we are actually taking away their sense of power, their sense of self, by imposing a different system upon them, a system in which they feel totally powerless because its tools are different, its outlines are completely different. Do we really make an effort to give them the tools of learning (this new way, not the only way) while offering (or leaving open) a choice about which one--or which elements of each--they will accept to make their own world of choices? In most cases it is a total subsuming of their world of choices with ours. It is a replacement of their system of knowledge with a different one, in which they become objects of change rather than participants in or agents of change.

I would say that empowerment is truly about self discovery, pride in what one is and what one can do, and gaining value for whatever one does. In a truly egalitarian society (not necessarily material equality but value for personhood equality), an empowered society, people would find their place in life on their own, and every place would have an equal if different value. And empowerment as a process is about getting us to that place, in our minds and in our lives. Obviously, then, schools must be places where the process of empowerment begins. In an "empowering" system of education, schools--all schools, for all children--are places where the tools for self discovery are acquired and applied, where minds are opened up to the possibility of choices, of worlds more perfect than the one we live in.

Most "alternative" approaches to development begin with the notion that they will lead to the first kind of "absolute" empowerment, but succeed to a limited extent in achieving the second. Without giving in to cynicism, it may be possible to take advantage of the second approach as a stepping stone to the first. If a large part of society is equipped to deal with the system as it is, and is able to achieve success within its framework, then maybe--just maybe--it will be possible to achieve social transformation over time, provided of course we manage to retain the ideal of real empowerment within our sights.

WE all believe ‘Knowledge is power’. Schools were, therefore, set up to inform and thus to empower the people and the nation. It is the reason that people go to schools or send their children to school, sometimes at great cost to themselves because they believe that schooling empowers their children. It is also the reason that governments invest public money into schools because an educated work force is a national wealth (i.e. empowers/strengthens the nation economically) and an educated citizen is an asset to a democratic nation. This is purportedly the aim and the justification for taxes to be spent upon education.

Yet as Danger School and Letters to a Teacher point out that this is actually far from the truth. They point out that of the total number that are enrolled into primary schools, only a fraction of them reach even the graduation level, let alone beyond that. It is significant that most of the children who dropout are from the disadvantaged sections of society. By and large the children of professionals become professionals, the children of technicians become technicians and the children of workers end up as workers. There are few anomalies but these are hyped up. Upward mobility, for the under-privileged, is more a myth than a reality. Schools serve mainly as a mechanism to grade people and to stream them out, to fit them into their predetermined slots in society. Schools do not empower but domesticate and slot in. Their major task is not to subvert the system but to maintain the status quo by getting the people to accept the system.

Those encountering this argument for the first time will be shocked and may refuse to believe this. Though hard to believe, if a person explores further s/he will discover that the authors of these books have done their homework very well and on the whole their facts and arguments are incontrovertible.

Do I believe in the ‘conspiracy theory’ --- that it is a deliberate, planned conspiracy theory against the people? Well, no. It isn’t a planned conspiracy but even after it was discovered that the education system did in fact work against the disadvantaged groups there has been little concerted and sustained effort to correct the mistake/system. Such initiatives as there are to include dropouts and increase enrollments seek to again readmit these people into the same system. They see no contradiction in enrolling them into a system that clearly discriminates against them.

A more recent opposition, and stronger opposition, to schools comes from a German movement called the Anti-Pedagogic Movement which draws its inspiration from the Anti-Psychiatry Movement. The main arguments of this movement are based on the analogy they draw between schools and the mental asylums. Their point is that just as the Anti-psychiatry Movement see mental asylums as unjustified detention centres so too schools are detention schools. They protest against the awful treatment meted out to inmates based upon arbitrary definitions of what constitutes ‘normal/educated’ and ‘abnormal/uneducated’ or ‘pass/fail’, which constitute an infringement of personal freedom. Futurists add that with the increased pace of change there is no way we adults can know how to equip the children for tomorrow and hence there is no justification for subjecting children to this unnecessary grind. Whether or not we totally buy into this argument, it would be hard for any of us to deny that there is some truth in this point of view.

Faced with this fact and the further point that Ivan Illich makes in ‘Deschooling Society’ that schools-mainly-teach-you-that-you-cannot-learn-without-being-taught-by-schools, the tendency has been to declare with Everett Reimer that ‘School is Dead’ and to join Paul Goodman in declaring that we must ban ‘Compulsory Miseducation’ and begin home-schooling our children. Strangely, it is at this time that the government of India, backed by international funding organizations, including the World Bank, are committed to a programme of ‘Education for All’---which means of course ‘Schooling for All’. And, just as the agenda of ‘Universalization of Primary Education’ is empowerment of the people, the reason of those opposing schooling is also empowerment of the individual. So ‘who is correct/ right?’ and ‘whom should we believe?’

The truth, I feel lies simultaneously with both sides and neither side. The anti-school lobby is quite right in pointing out that schools have domesticated, alienated, humiliated and even cheated millions of students and their parents, though perhaps not intentionally. Yet even after the realization there is little acknowledgement (except to dismiss the critics of schooling as cynics), much less any correction. So in a sense the anti-school lobby is right in moving towards de-schooling or banning compulsory miseducation. But the question that arises is that will the move to abolish schools succeed in empowering the children and their parents? The answer seems to me to not be so clear.

The disadvantaged groups, even more than the more privileged groups, will be more at the mercy of the market economy dictated media mis-education, out-dated ideas, authoritarian controls and political disinformation. Parents of children of the disadvantaged groups do not recognize the rights of their children and are unlikely to support their freedom to learn, particularly of the girls. And even if they were interested, how will they be able to afford the resources necessary for supporting their learning.

The privileged group may be able to afford more resources and facilities for their children but whether these will be used for educational purposes or entertainment can be debated. It is also perhaps very unrealistic to expect parents who find holidays too much and too long to don the mantel of teachers so suddenly, whether or not they are working. The children captivated and bewitched by the television are unlikely to discover themselves or explore the real world around them. It is much more likely that they will succumb entirely to the lure of the make belief world offered by television as the latest version of ‘opium of the masses’.

While my own sympathy lies more with the deschoolers, two factors make me pause. The first, is the fact of the scarcity of resources of even the most basic kind in our country. In India with a total lack of open public spaces, libraries, museums it is difficult to imagine how viable learning networks or initiatives to schools are to be set up. (That could be the reason that in the West people think of alternatives to schooling and in India we look at alternative schools as the antidote to mainstream schooling). The second springs from a consideration of what my own teachers mean to me. I know I was lucky at each stage to come across a teacher who has made all the difference.

Bad as most schools are, it is likely that a child may encounter a real teacher there. A teacher who despite the system will not compromise but will seek to actually liberate and empower. Such rare individuals, a species on the brink of extinction, be they in formal schools, government schools, informal schools or alternative education centres make the difference to the children that they teach. In alternative schools they work with the system and can do more but even in formal schools they create spaces for the children and make some difference to their students’ lives. Opening doors wherever they are, widening horizons, changing perceptions through unconditioning of the mind, clarifying values and priorities they help their students realize their true potential and their own direction and priorities.

The pro-school lobbyists will argue " It is only in schools that students can come across such teachers, which is why we need schools" and the de-schoolers will say " We don’t deny the need of resource people but do they have to be teachers in schools? A genuine teacher will be sought after, even out of school; closing down schools will put an end to inflicting bad/indifferent non-teaching teachers on thousands of students. The money that was tied up with schools can now be made available for setting up libraries and other non-authoritative, flexible learning net-works." So while the argument remains open-ended for each of us to discuss, think through and decide, perhaps we can stop assuming that all schools and teachers by the virtue of being schools and teachers necessarily empower us.

It is a fear familiar to most of us--the fear of getting caught in the endless bureaucracy and red tape. As a nation we have even acquired a worldwide reputation for our terrible bureaucracy. Take any simple, straightforward task like getting a telephone connection or a gas connection or even paying one’s own bills. Our institutions have managed to turn these simple tasks into nightmares. Making several fruitless trips to get a single paper moved (be it your rightfully earned pension or an application for a loan) has become routine. More dangerously we are growing to accept this as integral to the systems themselves. The other worst fall-out the institutional failure is the deepening of the divisions between a privileged minority (for whom the systems work) and the disadvantaged majority (ignored by the systems). In fact it seems to be the modern face of our traditional caste system.

Apart from the examination of the institutions, the people responsible for their smooth functioning should also be taken to account. In the beginning they were a highly motivated group working for the realisation of a set of ideals. This is the fuel necessary for ushering in reform. But there was a signal failure on the part of the leaders in fulfilling their side of the bargain and the result was a fatal diminishing of the spirit. The people at the top of the ladder in these institutions have become successful over the decades in holding us to ransom through the middlemen who are supposed to provide the key to this maze and negotiate the mysteries of the web to smoothen our path. It is imperative that we untangle the mess and rescue the systems from these unholy alliances.

There have been many attempts to understand the causes of the these failures. One of the common factors coming to fore is the unnecessary and often circuitous procedures devised by the institutions for accomplishing any task. They have increased the distance between the people and the system and more significantly, serve as conduits for corruption.

First of all let us take the specific example of the systems of Law and Medicine and find out how they have become the instruments of subjugation.

The basic premises of the legal system are a certain conception of freedom and responsibility. These, when embodied in the building of a civil society are translated into laws protecting one’s rights with penalties for trespasses. In practice however they have turned into the bogeyman that everyone would rather avoid. Courts and lawyers are feared and kept at a distance. The convicted standing in the docks delivering an impassioned speech about the evils of the society, moving the judge and jury by his oratory is merely the stuff of films and dreams. In reality the system keeps its subjects away by its very method of working. The courts allow the use of only a specifically structured language in a particular format. Hence our entry into this world has to necessarily be through lawyers. After we enter, further course of action is dictated not by common sense but by legal sense. What we understand logically in our day-to-day world seems inapplicable here. Without the special training required for fathoming the logistics of the system, we yield, perforce to the lawyers. Surrendering the future course of action means transferring both problem and its probable solutions to the system and accepting the verdict, whatever it may be.

There is a sacred halo around the system of medicine and advances in medical research are supposed to add to our comfort and contribute to our happiness. We visit the doctor with a minor or a major problem looking for relief. Until then the problem was within our grasp as a pain or an ache or a growth, etc. The doctor puts us through a series of tests, which are not comprehensible to us. As time and tests go by we have an increasing suspicion that the problem may not be so simple. The final results of the diagnostics are couched in medical jargon, foreign to us. We duly await the doctor’s verdict and return home with a long list of medicines and only a dim understanding of the problem. If we are fortunate we get better, otherwise we will be lined up for more rounds of the labs and doctors.

This discussion is not to malign the lawyers and doctors, but to remind them of the travails of those who are grist to their mill. The forgotten subject, be it the client or the patient, is the single and only reason for the existence and continuance of these systems.

Consider the large public sector created soon after independence. Its chief function was to increase the self-sufficiency of the nation, and to engage the people in the building of a new nation. It was constructed as a leveled hierarchy with a distribution of power and a bureaucracy to support and carry out the tasks. However, if we turn to the tricky but weightier question of intentions--some of them are openly articulated, while others are open to only more subtle inspection. On the face of it intentions seem bound up with and similar to the functions of an institution. But they are more than a mere sum of the functions. They cover a larger spectrum and can be described as constituting the vision of the system as a whole. For instance the larger goals of a democracy can be said to be the de-centralization of power and encouraging local self-rule. In short, it has to do away with the paraphernalia of big institutions, large companies and all forms of central control including the government. Democracies over the centuries have in general failed to achieve even partially any of the final goals. Whatever be the successes or failures it is important to spell out the intentions. They are the only means to inspire and empower people to either build or clean up the systems as the need may be. Institutions are the basic structures created for translating particular systems of knowledge into practice. They have to be representative of the changes occurring in the knowledge systems. They are the tools in hand for us to work with. They will deliver no more or no less than what we expect.

The underlying premise of all these systems is a distinct division between the specialists in charge and the laity. If this hierarchy is in-built and there is no scope to bridge the gap, it becomes an inherent limitation of the system. Such a fundamental flaw requires a radical solution, in the form of structuring new alternatives.

This holistic overhaul is possible only with radical reformation and a mass movement away from the prevalent modes of thinking. It can happen only gradually with the help of a more enlightened education system, which prepares people to reflect and question the existing premises. This type of a discussion may look like an indulgence in ideology and not really engaging with reality. My core argument however remains the same--there is a fundamental flaw that calls for a rethink. I will address the issue differently and leave the basic question open for all of you to decide whether or not it merits an in depth and urgent discussion.

Social scientists like Ashis Nandy and Shiv Visvanathan have explored this in built hierarchy in science and medicine and suggested alternative pathways to build a more equitable society. But to continue working within the systems we have to introduce more checks to prevent the specialist/laity divide from fulfilling the original functions. There has to be more caution and extra care has to be taken to stop deepening the division. Otherwise it will strengthen the belief of the present privileged minority that the best institutions (schools, colleges, jobs) are theirs only because of hard work and not due to any fundamental flaw in the systems. They will continue to disparage the majority for laziness and lack of will. They fail to see the defects in the systems that succeed only in producing doctors out of parents who are doctors, engineers out of engineers and chaprasis out of chaprasis.

If some sections of the population have failed to rise socially , it is not always due to their lack of determination. The institutions have to sustain their spirit and add to their determination. This cannot be achieved by offering paltry reservations and a few concessions. They have to be replaced by systems offering fair participation. If schools exclude from an early age on the basis unequal competition, hospitals serve only those well educated or well endowed, legal recourse is limited by our knowledge of its internal intricacies, the majority of us will be left behind. We will be powerless to act within these systems nor can we make them work for us.

Given the fact that the domains of the specialists are distinct, a sympathetic doctor or a sincere lawyer can be only a beginning of the solution. A real change is possible only when people overturn the systems and reclaim the power that is rightly theirs. A real difference can be made only when the power to question and effect changes comes to the people. It is a reiteration of the fact that these systems are neither self-evident nor self-explanatory and solutions are not always available within them. It is not true that questions of efficacy and meeting targets are the sole matters of a competent administration. Though they can be achieved within a good working system, it can be only an initial condition.

For the system to fulfill its intentions and not merely accomplish its functions, the distance between the people and the administrators should be kept at a minimum. Increasing the role of the people and providing many more possibilities of intervention would pave the way to recovering these systems for our welfare. There is a need for flexibility and even a complete change of the rules to ensure the well being of the people. In such an atmosphere we need no longer stand outside hospitals, courts and government offices in awe and fear, but proceed with a new confidence. Specialists looking down their noses no longer people them. Instead fellow human beings with empathy and understanding will be at the helm. We can together proceed to restore the balance and equanimity to our society and start steadily working for its progress. .

The solution suggested may seem simplistic in the face of the proportion of the problem. But for its deceptive simplicity it requires a radical overturn of the system for its implementation. It is not a cosmetic addition to introduce a better bedside manner in the hospitals. Nor is it an attempt to create a posse of lawyers intent on serving us or institutions waiting with open arms to welcome us. It is a move to restore the balance of power. It is a move to regain the original purposes of creating the institutions.

The popular weekly newsmagazine Outlook, April 10^th 2001, ran a cover story entitled "Digital Empowerment", which talks of IT as "no longer an urban bubble" but "a silent revolution, large tracts of rural India are logging on to…"

A friend calls and tells me of software that he has created that will make medical diagnosis, involving x-rays, scans, and other such expensive methods, more accessible. He talks of how this can benefit the disadvantaged sections of society by making medical diagnosis more affordable. A wonderful creation that ensures better quality and will cut down drastically on not only the operational costs but also on the initial investment, a benefit that can be passed on to the customer. The only thing is now to get the people interested in buying this --- a profitable commercial venture with a social conscience for the seller and buyer while also benefiting the end-user or patient.

Another friend calls up to tell me of setting up cyber-chai shops which can offer information and many communication related services for the rural and tribal populations. From distance learning and tele-medicine to e-mailing complaints to the concerned government departments without the tedious, expensive, often futile, repeated visits to the state capitals, and from weather forecasts for farmers and fishermen to the latest crop and share prices. Of course this also opens up employment possibilities for the educated youth of the villages, and of course, provides faster communication facilities.

Images flash of how tele-medicine or e-medicine that can instantly ensure access to the specialist/expert from remote villages without exhausting, expensive, back-breaking, multiple trips to ill-equipped health centres. And, weather alerts that could save the lives of thousands of precious lives. How can one argue against such technological boons?

Captivating, bewitching, seductive images of digital empowerment percolating down to the grass roots and yet the disquiet within remains. Have I really becoming so cynical and prejudiced that I refuse to acknowledge the advantages of technology even in the face of hard evidence? Isn’t this hypocritical as I myself have succumbed to the conveniences of IT and am beginning to see in it exciting, innovative possibilities. Why fight shy of taking IT to the rural/tribal users then?

At one level, I think, yes, why not. After all my ostrich attitude to modern technology will not make it go away. And, if it will not go away, why not harness its potential to serve the needs of the disadvantaged sections, as indeed my two friends are suggesting? At least here are two people who will be using the fruits of technology to benefit the disadvantaged people rather than themselves. Even so the uneasiness remains. Am I not just becoming one more of the multitude capitulating to the lure of IT, thus making what-was-never-a-choice an inexorable reality? Isn’t this what made it a no-choice situation in the first place?

Other niggling doubts and questions surface: will we really be empowering the disadvantaged by hooking them on to IT? What with "just three phone lines per hundred people and 5 PCs per 1000 people" especially in rural areas where "power outages remain the norm rather than the exception" (Outlook, 10^th April 2001) is it possible to imagine the kind of access necessary to make the IT revolution really effective? Are we again not creating a need that cannot be fulfilled or fulfilled only at a great cost? Is it a feasible proposition for people who are dying of starvation and debts to afford computers, from the initial cost to the peripherals to consumables, leave alone the need to constantly update? Also won’t the access to glitzy, glib media disinformation make them even more vulnerable to the marketing sharks and MNCs? Who will give advice regarding crops, fertilizers, diseases and their treatment? The scientists doing research for MNCs? Will it really be information that they will dish out or advertisements for their products? Is that really an advantage? What space will be left for traditional farming practices and crops? --- Likewise in other areas. Therefore will it empower or hook and further entrench into the system? For when the TVs first came in, one thought, one could use it as a medium to educate the masses, by passing the short-coming of illiteracy, and instead ending up enslaving even the ‘educated’. The introduction of the TV, as we know now, did not serve to improve the information levels of the people and nor did their social and cultural awareness improve.

One might even say that who are we to decide how much IT the tribal-rural populations will use and to what use they will put it. In fact, the moment one started using it oneself, one has indeed lost the right to say anything to another person using it. One might even argue to the contrary that access to the TV has already opened them up to the full force of the advertising media blitz, which access to the world wide web might balance out and may be eventually even contain. In all fairness one cannot deny the possibility of such an eventuality but one must remember that this is something that we will have to work diligently towards, constantly guarding against the opposite more likely eventuality.

It is not that I disbelieve the potential of the ICT to empower but doubt that funded as it is, by the market economy/industry and a system committed to private profit, whether it will be allowed to do so. If the ICT were more about empowerment, there would be less emphasis on patents, copyrights and intellectual property rights. If one reads the writing on the wall the name of the game is property ownership (increasing domains of what can be called property) and converted into capital and profit. It is worth noting that there is only one Linus Torvalds as against so many Bill Gates. It is this that scares. The IT revolution cannot be viewed independently of the system that created it. Any innovation or technology is only as liberating as the system of which it is a part unless we recognize that and consciously and conscientiously work towards using it to empower. No matter how effective or innovative the technology or tool, it is the system that decides the use to which it shall be put. If a system is pyramidal, how can it allow the sharing of the benefits amongst more people without upsetting its own stability/balance?

This chain of thought that started with the call from my friend and almost as if to end the circle my friend calls up again. This is a basic gist/text of his conversation "I am shocked that no one seems to want this technology to benefit the customers only to enhance their profits, as they feel a fall in the price of services will harm their business interests. I don’t seem to convince them that it will not harm their interests but pass the benefit to the customers/patients as well. My choices are reduced to this: should I let my creation/software die or should I compromise and sell to the business houses willing to buy because it is cheaper and gives a qualitatively better reproduction but NOT pass the cost benefit down to the people. I prefer to sell my software than let it die, after all I produced a quality product with my best effort." Even if he sells but does not sell out, how can he ensure that the buyer will operate with his values?

Perhaps I’m not so cynical after all, only realistic. I might as well have spared the compunctions, the berating, the self-doubts, for the truth is there for all to see. The pessimist in me pops up like those little boxes on the computer screen "Heads you win, tails I lose". Unfortunately to win this argument is indeed to lose it.

This is the challenge that confronts all of us today, but particularly all those techies who are committed to egalitarian principles, justice and care to bring in a more equitable system. To prove that this is indeed the technology that is not only innovative and creative but also truly revolutionary we must not be so carried away by the possibilities of the technology that we neglect or ignore the design/intent of the system. And that can only be realized if we make the choice to do so at every point/juncture. It is up to us to prove that it not only has the potential but we also have the will and the capacity to bend the system against its will. Can we rise to the occasion?

Krishnamurti: A system or a method implies being told what to do and how to do it; and will that make you fearless? Can you be educated with intelligence, without fear, through any kind of system? When you are young, you should be free to grow, but there is no system to make you free. A system implies making the mind conform to a pattern, does it not? It means locking you up in a framework, not giving you freedom. The moment you rely on a system you dare not step out of it, and then the very thought of stepping out of it breeds fear. So, there is really no system of education. What is important is the teacher and the student, not the system. After all, if I want to help you to be free of fear, I myself must be free of fear. Then I must study you; I must take the trouble to explain everything to you and tell you what the world is like; and to do all this I must love you. As a teacher I must have the feeling that when you leave school or college you should be without fear. If I really have that feeling, I can help you to be free of fear.

Education, in my own belief, is always political in one fashion or another. It is political by provoking painful choices. It is political by urging ethical decisions. It is political, though in a rather different sense, if it creates a mood or atmosphere in which there are no serious provocations and ethical decisions to be made. I do not mean by this that education needs to be political in the sense of New Left, Old Left, or Old Right, although of course it often does mean this, but rather, that all of the school discussion has at its foundation the question of what young people will believe, or not believe, about the way they live, about the way the nation lives, and about the way in which it serves or does not serve the cause of justice.