by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 24, 2006 | reservations
The airing of video images of AIIMS student’s burning Dr Ambedkar’s books sent a chill down my spine. Images of a doom-laden future flashed by my mind.
The reservation issue is going out of hand and unless it is addressed by non-political citizens our land may become unsafe. I would like to ask the students who committed this horrendous act whether they remember Dr Ambedkar has being the main author of the very constitution that allows them to express themselves, albeit negatively. I would like to ask the pro reservation students whether they realise that no child asks to be born in a particular family? Can I ask them to remember that all Indian children are born in the same way, after a gestation of nine months and are protected by the same laws? And finally can I ask them where this hatred will lead in an already electrically polarised society.
I have seen that a mere fight between two ladies over the issue of a petticoat to dry turned into a caste riot in seven minutes. Is not the duty of educated and supposedly high caste students to heal rather than aggravate. Can I also ask the students to look at their other caste peers with their heart and not with borrowed vision and find if there is anything to hate. Or in a gandhian way can I ask these angry children of India to take one tiny dalit baby and give him or her the same childhood and teen years as they had and then to see whether they are still worthy of hate.
My mind boggles at all the questions that are choking me. I am neither pro nor anti reservation. I just want every child to be given the same opportunities and then find his or her place in the sun.
is that asking too much?
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 13, 2006 | reservations
I have often wondered what is it that makes pwhy such a menace to local powers that be. Why is it that we get dragged to the labour court, accused of nefarious activities, ranging from pandering to stealing. Why is it that each time we solve a problem and start thinking that things are behind us a new problem arises, a true hydra headed monster with an elusive neck!
I have been mulling over this not quite finding a satisfactory answer. It hit me yesterday like a bolt out of the blue.
Education, a threat says who? Says ‘they’ say I is my answer. How can the little boy and his copy book can be a danger to anyone. The answer is that if he is given an empowering education than he is a huge threat to the existence system.
Let me elucidate this. Since the reservation issue aptly referred to as Mandal II raised its head and the issue of the creamy layer came up, I decided to ensure that all pwhy kids who fit into any reserved category should have the certificate to prove that. As usual I asked one of my staff members to find out, as he too is a contender. The answer was the usual I get, one that till date I did not doubt: I will check up with the local corporator’s office. Why should I question this, is the corporator not the representative of the people.
The next day I got my answer which was something like: there are no forms, they have not come picche se (from behind), they may come soon. Normally I do not dispute such answers but this time it disturbed me. No matter how badly executed we have a sound democratic system, at least on paper so of I went to friend google and of course in a matter of seconds found the forms waiting to be downloaded as well as the required information on how to apply.
That is when I realised the power of the kind of education I dream of, one that empowers. The cynics will say how can you teach everyone to search the net. My answer is simple yet sound, till we cannot get the kids to, we can show the parents the way: find someone to check for you!
Today I will walk to pwhy with the forms in my bag ready to be photocopied in as many numbers as wanted. When they reach the local politicians for countersignature I know I would have jumped a few places and be closer to the top of the wanted list, but I also know that I would have walked a huge step in the right direction and someone would have lost a bit of his hold.
It is another matter that some of the required stipulations have to be challenged in court as to get a caste certificate your family is required to have lived in Delhi since 1951. What about the 10 million who came after. Well they have to go seeking their Patwari. My question then is how come you are willing to give voters ID cards or whatever else is needed for your benefit and not what might help your potential voter. the answer looms larger than life.
No wonder that no one wants to get the creamy layer excluded.. wonder who would apply for the reserved categories in med school , IITs or IIMs then?
Somehow it maybe easier to call the bluff for by campaigning for the right to a certificate for every potential beneficiary. Is caste not an intrinsic part of a population count
P.S. while browsing the net for programmes for handicapped kids, I found out that most apply to those whose family earns less than six hundred rupees a month. Wonder which planet they live on
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Sep 11, 2006 | reservations, sealing
JFK said: “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future”. Wonder what he would have felt about their situation in India..
last week three blasts rocked Malegaon, most of the victims were children, many beggars who had come on this holy Friday to the mosque and the cemetery, traveling long distances to earn a few extra rupees.
This morning the picture of two young rag pickers was carried in a national daily. The sealing of shops in an effort to beautify Delhi had in one blow taken their livelihood as they did not know where to sell their daily collection.
In a few days the child labour law will come in force and many kids will be homeless and in search of food.
The little kids in the picture are filled with hope and dreams as they sit quietly in the middle of a garbage dump, oblivious of the odours or even the flies, or the heat. They want to learn, knowing intuitively that it may change their lives.
Fuelled by images they see on the box, they dream of being a Sachin, or a Salman. Some want to be doctors, others teachers… many even belong to the innumerable social divisions that benefit from umpteen reservations. But there is a catch: none have the required certificate to prove it and getting on is a nightmare. No one has told them about the value of that piece of paper, on the other hand many have denigrated its value by telling them it shameful forgetting of course to enlightened them about the many benefit they entail.
And for those who have a certificate, the door are closed as they will never get beyond the infamous 33 %. I was even told by a secondary school teacher that they taught only 40% of the course as that was sufficient to pass.
On the other hand the numerous population count that have been done include the caste. Now does it not become imperative for the government to issue the required caste certificate one wonders?
Maybe someone should take notice of this and act so that if one of the children in the picture breaks all barriers and gets to the gates of higher learning, he is able to benefit from what is his right.
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by Anuradha Bakshi | Aug 25, 2006 | common school, reservations, utpal
In the wake of the reservation issue and keeping in mind the abysmal state in which education for the less privileged is, many questions come to mind. Today’s paper published a report on India’s capital city which states that over 100 000 children in the age group 6 to 10 do not go to school. These are kids for which doors closed before they could open.
Then the question one could ask is who is the reservation for, when no one seems bothered about a huge section of the children of India.
Instead of thinking of basic education, the powers that be are busy placing quotas in institutes of high learning.
I am convinced that each one of these 100 000 kids is a potential entrant to the best institution, if given a chance no matter what label our divisive society choses to stick on his face. Force majeure made us find a boarding school for Utpal whose labels are quite fuzzy. His alcoholic mom hit rock bottom and had to be sent for a detox programme, and his ‘father’ just vanished.
Utpal goes to a boarding school where he shares his dorm with children coming from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. He has integrated and learns happily with his little mates, rides a horse, plays games, sings along and does what kids his age should do. All doors are opened for him and as years pass he will walk through the ones he choses and could become anything from a rocket scientist to a choreographer!
My impossible dream is to take 10 underprivileged kids age 4, belonging to various deprived groups , castes and creed and put them in school and watch what happens when they sit for their class XII. Unfortunately I do not have the funds to do so as it would cost around 4000 rs a month for each child – not a huge amount when you see what it gives and one compares it to what one spends on a child in a city like Delhi.
One needs a corporate of philanthropist to set aside the corpus that would revert back at the end of the education cycle. The common school is a pipe dream because of bizarre misconceptions, or rather because of a warped status symbol syndrome. The young principal of Utpal’s school was initially a little hesitant, but a short week after Utpal’s admission he was the one to send me a message telling what a great kid he was!
It is time someone thought of giving underprivileged children all the support they need in schools till the day we can have the elusive common school. The children of India have waited 60 years or 3 generations in the hope that something will happen. How much longer will they have to wait.
One has to understand that is is not separate schools, or parallel education programmes that will solve the issue, India will find its identity when children of all walks of life learn to live together, respect each other and learn from one another.
Children have a great way of adapting to situation and imbibing new ways.. it is our duty to give them that opportunity, till date we have failed to do so.. how many more generations will have to wait for us to see the light.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Jun 22, 2006 | reservations
I cannot but remember the days in May 2000, when I use to sit at a door step in Giri Nagar, and hordes of parents use do come with a single plea:
“English bolana sikhado” – teach them to speak in English-
How intuitive and right these poor illiterate parents were: last week spirited Garima, a class X topper was denied a place in a ‘prestigious’ English medium school because she could not speak English properly.. what properly means should be defined by the principal of that school..
Wonder if next time my French friends say: ze book is on ze taboul‘ I should cross them off my social list and what about the London friends who speak with a cockney lilt!
Almost 60 years after independence, one that was fought against the British, we still judge people by their ability to parrot the queens’ tongue!
Garima was lucky – NDTV picked up her story.. there are so many Garimas living under the stranglehold of their inability to converse in English, their self esteem eroded.. there are many whose mother tongue’s inflection is so strong that it permeates every language they speak and who can never quite get rid of it… the Japanese and Italians and our own Biharis or Bengalis are good examples of this
There is something terribly wrong in our land, now added to your social or religious background is added the ability to master the language of the erstwhile coloniser.
So now perhaps some smart alec will come up with a reservation for those who cannot speak English well..
Why can’t we accept the child who speaks English with her or his Indian accent, just as we accept the inversion of l’s and r’s by our friends from the Far East..
One of the most difficult tasks at pwhy has been to get our kids to shed their self-consciousness and put in active use the huge knowledge of English that lies hidden in their brain.. one understands why when one reads Garima’s story..
But there is another aspect to her story, one that I highlighted earlier with reference to the Mumbai old couple: the role of the media as an agent of change… a single story on the silver screen gets people to shed their cynicism and inaction and do something, be it redressing a tort or reaching out to another..
So maybe that is the road to tread..
PS: Kudos to Garima who has decided to remain in her old school, the one that helped her top and kudos to her parents who have stood by her.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 31, 2006 | reservations
It has almost become a habit and we blase about it..
The class X results were out and all the kids passed with a few compartments, mostly students who had joined us recently or were very weak when they came to us, some even failures..
At a time where reservation is spliting the country wide open, these children are a proof of the fact that with a little help and large doses of positive stroking, kids pass and with good marks. Of the 28 project why kids more than 8 have secured more than 65 marks with 2 having crossed 80. These are students who can stand on their own and compete with any peer and succeed.
I do not know what caste they are, to me they are simply children of India who deserve the best. If we can , with our limited means and resources, ensure such results, does it not prove that what we need is well run schools to erase social or other differences.. The question is do we really want them to succeed?
