English Education

I very often make a derogatory remark, on a few I don’t agree with, for them being non-Indian thinkers despite being Indians, as "English-Educated". I do not intend to talk on English being the medium of instruction in our educational system. This piece is rather about the "English-Education" and what it is doing to the society, through the pair of goggles - my personal experience.

I attended Shrine Vailankanni for elementary and primary schooling. The school buildings' planning was in a way that Kinder-Garden was housed in a building in Ramaswamy Street, Primary classes in Hensman Road and High School in Dhandapani Street.

I assumed that the whole school was just that building in Ramaswamy Street, which made it obvious to me that LKG and UKG were all about schooling, and I would go to office after that. I was so young that I didn't even realise I had many elder cousins who were attending higher classes in school. All I knew then, was Divya, my neighbour, who was a year elder to me. When I passed on to UKG, I realised that she was still attending school! I was struck with "What was she doing beyond UKG?". Later I realised that my cousins, infact one of them in my own school is attending 9th std. Stunned, again I was, that there is a whole set of a dozen more years in this school, and later we have college, and on and on. I, for a moment thought, "This educational system (read Shrine Vailankanni building system) has cheated Me!". Well, these counldn’t have exactly been my feelings at the tender age of 5, but I always felt something was going against me.

From then on, whatever my school or teachers tried to teach me, I always looked at them with some suspicion. I was a rebel in thought, but not necessarily in action, in the learning process. By the time in 6th, I was unhappy with SVS (Shrine Vailankanni) for the 'business' they were running in the name of school. I realised that what history books spoke about was not history, rather was what NCERT and Frank Bros., the publisher, wanted us all to read and accept. This realisation was because of my ever-suspicious mind and my teacher's inability to answer "Why did Alexander leave India without proceeding further towards Magadha, even after having planned an attack?”

Then happened the most beautiful turn in my life till date, I moved to JGHV, a school run by VHP. It could be that I was growing older and more mature to realise what education really is, or that SVS has till then held me against the wall, or neither, but HV had the best platform for me to realise Me. Sriram, who was not known beyond my classroom earlier in SVS, was now known all over the school. The school did not preach anything into me, but I realised, education was not writing exams and scoring high; It was more than that, but never was able to realise what it really was. History, as ever, was the subject which kindled the most interest in me. Honestly, I did not learn much in it either, but ended up having many more unanswered questions, the list of which was ever-growing throughout my school days.

The school arranges for many speeches by leaders from RSS and VHP, which almost all the students deride saying: this school is making sanyasis' out of us; but always, there was some element of stove-lighter type of effect in them, on me at-least. I must remember Mr. Manian, who according to me is well read, knowledgeable man but lacking some element of common-sense in talking to students of the age 10-13. He once made a speech on English Education, and what has it done to us all. He made one interesting point on Ashoka. Not just in English language, but even in Tamil and Hindi, we were so fed-up writing answers "Asokar Saalai oram Marangalai Nattaar, kinaru vettinaar....." (for those who cannot understand tamil, you should have guessed what's inside the quotes from the word fed-up preceding it ;-) ). He said, “Ashoka the great”, is perhaps the biggest hoax inflicted by this Education. It was planted, so that the students will completely ignore the essense of Magadha Empire, the 'real' reason why the Macedonians fled back, its real Hero - Chandragupta, the governence in the Mauryan dynasty, the concept of dynasties and the family ethics which was driving India till then, and above all the Pride we need to have, hailing the first Maurya as our National Hero!. Instead, we hail the "First-ever" non-secular king in the Indian history, whose symbol we still carry as the national emblem today, from nowhere till then, and his act of infrastructure building was all the governing practises we had in our country. Maurya and Raja Raja Chola, who independantly popularised local governance were totally forgotten. We now attribute our Panchayat Raj system to Lord Rippon ("Rippon, engaL appan" BS! ), and Balwanti Rai Metha Committee, post independance.

I did not learn anything new by asking many questions. But always, I have let myself open to reality by asking further questions without really bothering to find answers. I knew, answers would come at their will, and no question is stupid, if it is not so thought. In this process, I was able to shed some Englishness which was already planted in me.

I am running into something more involved than what I intended to write about, now. But the point here is the kid, who felt cheated when he felt UKG was not the end of school, has come a long way. The one who was looking even at the dozen years to spend in school with awe, 18 years later, is continuing, and still going, with almost all my friends, even those who were mine since my UKG days, think " Will this one ever stop going to school ? "; I attribute it all to all the non-Englishness I had or rather chose to have in my english-education.