The almost illiberal me

As an undergraduate engineering student in a very democratic America, I a foreigner, was yet "forced" to learn American history !

I am an unabashed admirer & critic of America today.

Talking of history, the 1971 war "victory" over India was recently celebrated in Pakistan.

Now, we all know the result of that war - an entire chapter in history needs to be dedicated to it, not just for the military establishment to relive but also be taught in schools & colleges. The enemy had far better American weaponry & first move advantage. India was a 3 legged horse, not worthy of a bet. The movie Border is not fiction, we won that war so convincingly that it would be hard for anyone today to believe the same.

A similar one I read about on a flight in a Singapore news paper - was the Battle of Kohima. It was fought in the far eastern corner of India at Nagaland against the Japanese invasion. The British knew they were ill prepared & so put the Indian jawans on the forefront as sacrificial lambs.

It is voted by the National Army Museum in London as "Britain's Greatest Battle" in recorded history, where the lost-for-sure verdict turned upside down. The Indians, were out numbered in all respects but they prevailed. It ended with so much bloodshed that in the end, the last 20 odd men on both sides faced each other on a tennis court, killing each other with bare hands, wrestling !

This British war, was fought entirely by Indian men.

I believe it is George Orwell who once said that "If you want to control the future, you must control the past. To control the past, you must control the present " !

So now you know why the Paki establishment does such things with their history. If you teach of the glory of past to the children, you are more likely to produce real men, defenders of the motherland in future.

Their problem is that it's now a www that we all live in and so a lie is more likely to be exposed than ever before. Ours is a very different problem. We in India were not told lies, we were unfortunately told someone else's truth.

On our side, while the Doordarshan showcased the glory of the 1971 war, the popular commercial minded media was occupied in a different ideological war with a vested interest. And not having any emotional umbilical chord to the 1971 war, I am sure that during the telecast, most urban Indians had their eyes shut and mouths open in a yawn.

Shri Arun Jaitley hass hit out at the "liberal" folk for creating a wrong impression of India in the popular media. What caught my eye in particular, was him saying "Perpetrators of this propaganda never allowed an alternative viewpoint  ( i.e. one that belonged to the conservative majority ) to grow in academic institutions or cultural bodies they have controlled".

Please note that conservatives outnumber the liberals in India ( & most countries ) & yet they have the smallest voice everywhere, as traditionalists are boring people. It is the liberal non-conformists that the media plays ball to.

It got me thinking :

I was born to upper middle class family & so went to an English medium school, the best in the Mumbai city at the time and a very liberal one at it. I had almost entire Bollywood's kids as fellow students. It was multicultural & I grew up with a feeling of superiority & at some level, looked down at that guy in my building who studied in a Gujarati medium school.

I recall predicting that vernacular schools will close down. I was sadly right.

It is now coming to the forefront that, if the language of instruction at school is in a language different than the only one spoken at home, it is possible that a child might lag in studies. Not because the child is weak, but because there is a micro second processing lag in the brain. The child might have to put extra effort to keep up or catch up.

Coming back, I recall that we had learned about Romulus & Remus & even the Mughal Empire in depth. However, the Indian political history & the most significant part - India's Freedom Struggle, had completely bypassed us. The "cultural history" was taught to us from the lens of a westerner, as seen in the National Geography channel - romanticism with 'mystical Indiyeah' i.e. the on-the-surface architectural beauty of the monuments, but not truly the why-behind-the-what part.

If I over time, had I not learned to question myself, I too would be that make-believe liberal : the elite who controls the media & lives in 'Indiyeah', unaware of the ways of the majority, who live in that Bharat & who went to vernacular medium schools.

Can any developing nation afford to have a school as prestigious as mine, that churned out students,  bereft of real Indian history & yet call itself a truly liberal center of excellence? Should such a school & it's incomplete curriculum even be allowed to operate in a nation that is truly free - I ponder? Even as late as in 1985, the year I passed out, my school did not have the freedom to set its curriculum - the long shadow of Cambridge board did.

Now don't get me wrong, all my batch mates know my love for my alma mater & I would give my right arm to go there again. Both my kids are products of the same school. Thankfully, the curriculum is a wee bit better now, but still much is desired.

We in India are going through a tremendous churn. The Indian, marginalized till recently vernacular conservative have become a bit more vociferous & wealthy over time and are not willing to forget their glorious past, even as they assert their stake in the future.

They want it all to be a very : of,  by & for Indians. To them, a true education is one that is rooted in the past & wedded to the future. They want to set it right.

This has spooked the liberals, who say that freedom is now being taken away & educational saffronization is at play.