Ryan and Me and the Art of Education in Bharat
(A small boy in a Delhi school was murdered by a school senior after being sexually molested. This created a hubbub which lasted a few weeks, before everything subsided)
The Queen’s English would have it ‘Ryan and I’, but we know better. Ryan and Me is a concession to the way “the English is usually isspoken” in Bharat.
At the outset, I must admit that I do not know Ryan, either the school or Mr Ryan Pinto, heir to the business and CEO. I studied in humble St Xavier’s in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A very humdrum education — no teachers molested me, no peons called me into dank bathrooms to get to know me better — altogether a very unexciting childhood. The same continued at Springdales in New Delhi and the KV in Trivandrum where I completed my school journey.
I did not know then that education, especially in some schools in the North and in Bangalore in the South, was about to be drastically reformed in the manner we are now familiar with.
Of course Ryan deserves to have the book thrown at it, for being in the business of making money through education, while the children who study there are denied bathrooms which lower level staff have no access to, and other such conveniences. But that is what all books, holy books not excluded, are for. Throwing them at other people, for blasphemy, for example.
Contrast this with the children in any government school in Bihar or UP, where in order to inculcate concern for the environment at an early age, the government has ensured that children study in natural surroundings, under spreading chestnut, sorry (no chestnut trees in Bihar), peepul or other ‘deshi’ trees in keeping with our swadeshi philosophy. Here the children learn to appreciate the blessings of nature. When it calls, they merely saunter a few yards or metres, if you prefer metric, and settle down to commune with Mother Earth. No mucking about in filthy closed lavatories or ‘washrooms’ and no worries about pedophiles or the other dangers inherent in an urban education either, in these tranquil surroundings. When the lone teacher arrives (these are usually single teacher schools), a rare event the children really look forward to, they are updated on what Masterji wishes them to learn. He might gently suggest that they take his cattle to the fields, or milk them in case it is time, or clean the surroundings in case they happen to belong to the lower castes, whose occupation it was traditionally. A gentle ‘green’ upbringing and education is what these children in rural India are getting, without the six-figure price bracket attached, as it would be in urban India. And please do not bring caste into all this, as some might be tempted to do in view of the frank admission above.
The caste system was merely a division of labour, with those better suited to higher education going onto college or the priesthood and those less fortunate, being given the benefit of earning a living in time-honoured ways. When people criticise the caste system today, they are merely mouthing what Western imperialists wanted our people to believe, without understanding its ethos. These insidious attempts to make our people ashamed of their glorious past and coerce them into converting to Christianity, were generally unsuccessful.
To come back to Ryan. I understand that strict action is being taken against the senior management and against the owners of Ryan International, who have converted education into a well-paying business, instead of harking back to our gurukul tradition. Shockingly, we have also come to know that a child died earlier in one of their schools (a different one) when he fell into a water sump, access to which had been left unguarded. Such lack of concern is typical of the private sector. Contrast this with the strict action taken by the administration and the police in India, when children usually of the age of four or less, fall into borewells which have been left uncovered. The Army is immediately brought in and they usually manage to rescue the straying infant, pumping in oxygen, digging a parallel shaft to get better access and so on, all of which keeps our TV audiences entertained and our newsmedia busy. Of course, the local administration needs to be lauded for its prompt decision-making in calling in the Army and not letting false prestige cost delay and lives. We know that our babus are loving, caring people, even if incompetent and overfond of red beacons atop cars.
But help is at hand. The Haryana government has decided to take over the concerned Ryan International School. So this particular school will become a government school. Parents can now heave a sigh of relief. Their children can now have the benefit of a first rate government school education but at private sector prices. These schools have a distinguished history. Similar education produced the luminaries who have distinguished themselves in Parliament and Tihar Jail. I suspect that these two locations are mutually interchangeable. The qualities that enable one to excel in politics are quite similar to those that result in a Tihar address.
