After the announcement of Smriti Irani as the nation’s HRD
Minster, Mr. Ajay Makan (former UPA Minster) tweeted, “What a cabinet Modi has!
HRD Minster is not even a graduate.” His statements are directing towards the
debate of understanding ‘Education and its implications in Politics’.
Expressing his sharp opinions writes Vishank Singh-
“Man should be guided by humanity and social consciousness not by the Degrees on paper”.
Yesterday while reading an article of one of the India’s renowned
Left Leader, Prakash Karat I came to a dilemma which I thought necessary to
share with you. In his whole essay, Com. Karat has ruthlessly criticized the Neo-liberal policies of Indian State since 1991. Every fact was so beautifully
designed and each word was so sharply targeted by him. And this was natural as
Com. Karat belongs to the intellectual community of JNU who was a Left rhetoric
since his college days. But there is a question in my mind and it must be
answered by someone rational. Mr. Karat though so loud on the question of poor
and proletariat (thanks to his facts and figures) but is far away from
them in practical. I am doubtful whether his intellectually saturated English
articles reach to the village farmers and urban scavengers or not.One such
question also encircles me when I extended my thoughts on our Former Prime
Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. Dr. Singh, a highly educated Economist who failed
to see the real problems of Indian economy as a Prime Minister. Suddenly my
thoughts just switched their ways and met Congress Rajkumar who has some
degrees in his bag but no ideas and actions for the nation.
Now, you might have been able to recognize the epicenter of
my argument. I am compelled to write this not by my emotions but the situations
emerging here. Recently Mr. Ajay Makan, former Congress Minister has motivated
me to write something on the concept of ‘Real Education’. After knowing that
Mrs. Smriti Irani is the new HRD Minister of India, Mr. Makan (in order to
prove his loyalty to the INC masters) tweeted in an antagonistic tone,“What a
cabinet Modi has! HRD Minster is not even a graduate.” Here we must go to the
historical context of this attitude where we could find that Mr. Makan is a BA
Pass from Hansraj College and that may be a reason why he feels himself to be a
great intellectual. I am not here to support the cause of the Right Wingers but
to support the cause of education in the real sense. We must understand one
thing that the component needed for an educated person is not just to possess a
bundle of degree but to develop a sense of attachment to the people that live
around him/her. No PHD. is of use if you are not able to feel the society in
which you live. And I must assert a point that feeling the social wave is very
important for a minster to come up to the expectations of the nation. And you
cannot feel the land and society until and unless you are not sensitively
charged with emotions and experience which according to me does not depends on
the degrees.
Politics is not a science where you have a formula for each
and every problem. If that would have been the case then I would have supported
Mr. Makan’s cause. Politics needs inner self-consciousness which may be or may
not be generated by high educational degrees. We have seen many leaders who were
ornamented with high degrees but were null in understanding the nation. One
name I would like to refer is of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, who was a great
intellectual but made several mistakes which paved the way for many problems of
which Jammu and Kashmir conflict is just a part of. Let’s talk about the
ultra-intellectual Left leaders of our nation. I don’t know how to describe
them as according to me their intellectuality and education lies in the
disunity. Hundreds of Communist parties in India have emerged under the shadow
of great educated politicians but none of them are able to do something about
what they write in their lengthy books and articles. Are we in need of
politicians like Laloo Prasad Yadav who besides being an educated person
organizes the party of mafias and Dons? My argument is based on the rational
approach that an education can not only be judged by the merit or degree
qualification. Education is not just anything which makes you an MA or PHD but
which makes you a human sensitive to your society and its problems. The ones
who possess the degrees do not hold the validation of being a good politician
until and unless he does not possess that ethical and social component.
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| Picture Credits- www.dnaindia.com |
In my view nobody has the right to humiliate Mrs. Irani in
the manner Mr. Makan did just under the pretext of a critical approach. You
cannot criticize a person on the irrational grounds. We must take time to
evaluate the performance of our HRD minister. We must criticize her if she
stamps on the wrong decision but should appraise her for her good decisions
even if she is only 12th pass. If she is able to act in the favor of
good education and high opportunity in India then we must be ready to give her
the credits lot much more than the degree holder Mr. Kapil Sibbal or P. Chidambaram
had. At the end I would like to mention that my mother who may not be a highly
educated women (and I am proud of her) has still placed me on the pedestal
where I could confidently face the world. This is just because of the devotion
she has for me. This very devotion possessed by a leader for the nation could
be the key to immense growth not his Educational degrees on paper. It’s not the human that should be controlled
by the Educational Degrees but the social-consciousness which should lead a human.
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| Vishank Singh (Student, University Of Delhi) Contact- 9654751123 E-mail- vishanksingh1@gmail.com |
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