Demonising Dissent

Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel laureate of India, emphasised on “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high… into that land of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.” Lofty and liberating indeed and certainly aspirational for each one of us, impelling us to live with dignity, self respect and free speech. These eternal words were constantly reinforced in me both, by my mother and my grandfather since my childhood, and to date I continue to risk my life trying to abide by this belief. Wait, did you read risk? Yes, I did write risk! If you are one of the lesser mortals who has ever tried to live your life on these lines and are a working professional in a corporate set up these words are bound to kindle your deepest hurt and revive the old spirit that will abandon you tomorrow morning soon after your punch in time!

It is precisely for this reason that the ongoing strike by the Uber and Ola drivers elicits my admiration regardless of the extreme inconvenience it has put me through. At least these chaps can remain united, can chalk up their demands, put it forth before their bosses and not be issued letters of warning or disciplinary mails! In other words, they can speak their mind and express dissent unmindful of the consequences. Now, all of us working professionals are very aware of what such a strike or demonstration from us could mean… even considering one such is inconceivable in sectors like education, we even have the Orwellian “thought control” or ‘seeds’ who can report a dissent even before it is expressed. 

Besides the obvious, there are fundamental reasons why at least educators need to inculcate the value of dissent in the succeeding generations and actively participate in expressing such, wouldn’t you think? Well, your nodding of your head, sideways or vertical, depends on what rung of the management you are placed in. Considering the lingo in the IB (International Baccalaureate) World Schools, it would be an enthusiastic affirmative nod as a young teacher brimming with ideals, slightly guarded, if you have already clocked in a couple of years, a cynical sneer if you are a Head of Department, Coordinator and the like and a downright sideways shake of the head if you are a Head of Secondary, Principal or anything remotely close to that! You would probably be reaching out to typing out a letter of dismissal if you are a trustee or Director of the institution!! 

Now, why dissent or worse still how can there be any scope for dissent in an education sector you ask? Well, that is precisely the matter. The sheer ignorance of such a vital need in itself is at the core of my argument. I am not talking of dissent to teaching classes, or in marking or stopping valuation as has become the norm with many University and College peers, am sure they have their good and valid reasons too. I am talking of a basic right to freedom of free speech, the need to express one’s honest opinion without fear or favour, the necessity of calling a spade a spade without having to bother about the proverbial political correctness. Wherein an educator is actually free to tell a set of errant students off for their deplorable behaviour or even express objection firmly to a particularly parvenue and patronising set of parents, unrealistic of their own wards, wherein one can walk up to one’s higher up or a head (most times, headless and heedless actually), and tell them off for the non productive, mundane paperwork or fillers that are grandiosely termed professional development sessions. If you are one such free spirit you would empathise with the dilemma of having to constantly silence that honest, inner voice, which begs to defy and state facts not meekly nod at nonsense that is repeated and echoed by your rather sycophantic colleagues who feign interest. Now, if this head is an expat, then heaven forbid! For each word, syllable and grunt is and ought to be the gospel and nothing short of it. With much respect to all my honourable and truly intelligent and amiable expat friends, many such ‘imports’ are pompous dolts that have trapeze into this sector or worse still to our nation to ‘experience India’. Imagine having to listen to the rants of such soulful masters in post independent India, wherein they wax eloquent about R K Narayan or a Ramanujan and stop there with a smug assumption that the rest of the Indian multitudes need to be schooled in everything from education to enunciation, from learning to teaching… as they drone on in a sonorous tone that barring themselves hardly anyone else cares to listen to. In fact, one such head, in the recent past had actually asked me, an English teacher with over a decade of experience in teaching, if I knew the meaning of “road rage” as though he had invented the term personally. This, while I was offering him a lift in my car! That is the smugness and sense of entitlement am speaking of. After a momentary, “Do I dare and do I dare…” (Eliot’s words from Lovesong of Alfred J Prufrock), not only did I demonstrate that but explained the varieties, forms, and the extent to which road rage permeates various Indian cities, for I was adequately enraged by this patronising!

Now, imagine when such entitled, myopic, luminescent (read expats that are Euro Centric/American) folks take it upon themselves to teach us how to teach, talk and interact with one another, with our students and with our parent community….do you see my point? They fail to comprehend our students’ need and expectations to be disciplined by elders, misread our firmness and giving a reality check to our unrealistic and far too demanding parents who treat schools like investment where they expect returns or the paisa vasool (extract money’s worth) regardless of their son or daughter’s academic calibre, or the teachers’ need for having a say in their subject of expertise or within their departments. Unlike us, who have an innate understanding of how to deal with the slackness of  a student or when to actually send out a kid to the school nurse (not for a paper cut!) or when to reprimand an indolent learner who has taken it upon himself or herself to disrupt a class, all of these simple things that can be dealt with on the spot would elicit a staff, department or a meeting with the school counsellor or worse still with the parents, as it all boils down to being nurturing! Nurturing what you wonder? Well, you are still normal then and my hearty congratulations to you on that! Do remember this feeling once you become a parent or if you are one already, try to hold on to this common sense for that is precisely what is being sacrificed at the altar and routinely at that!

Speaking of common sense, my mom always opined that it is so uncommon to find common sense and I could not agree with her more. Especially in this education sector and going by my conversations with people from various walks of life, generally among those in positions of power. There seems to be an inexplicable lacunae in what organisations actually seek, especially those in the business of education. Yes, for most IB schools are run by businessmen who consider institutions offering International Curriculum is a ‘safe investment’. I wonder what propels these monied sections into assuming that the colour of the skin determines merit and calibre, besides the obvious colonial cringe of course. Now, in no way am I a racist. But, if some of our (thinking, speaking and common sense oriented academics) collective experiences are taken into account there seems to be a pattern to this. Not only are these heads hailing from a certain race/ ethnic community, more often even the Indian heads, are those that are pompous, self serving paper pushers who are eager to kill the spirit of inquiry and innovation and sacrifice them at the altar of rules and handbooks that make little or no sense in practice. 

From organising the highly advertised CAS (a core component in International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme; Creativity, Action and Service) trips or leadership camps to facilitating the staff professional development, the ineptitude, pomposity, a wilful self deception and a desire to foster sycophancy is blatantly demonstrated on such forums. How else could one explain a three hour all-staff session on sharing, editing and creating google docs, slides and website? Or a more fancy term such as design thinking, apparently the brainchild of a Harvard professor which his Indian franchisees were merely peddling, wherein the focus is to list out the 63 ways (someone has actually worked out the number!) in which a student can be distracted or demonstrate disinterest and the best ways to cater to that student, albeit nurturing him or her! This indeed was a session wherein the charade continued for over three hours without the workshop leader being able to explain the purpose or a viable outcome of such an exercise! Worse still, I believe that the Principal of this institution actually sent out an all-staff mail hailing the success of this workshop and the value add that it was! Well, if you are one of those who raise an eyebrow at this, just wait for the piece de resistance, a minor section of staff who chose to strongly express displeasure at this deplorable waste of time were actually ‘warned’ for contempt and ‘motivated’ dissent! This, towards a community and from a community that is in charge of shaping formative minds, wherein imparting critical and creative thinking is an expectation, wherein texts such as 1984, Animal Farm or A Doll’s House, are taught and discussed with much passion, wherein gender stereotypes, bias and propaganda, along with parochial mindset of the society is openly questioned. If, like me, you too can spot the irony, then join the club of inspired dissenters. If you are among the rule enforcing, compliance preferring pontiffs who demonise dissent, kindly apply for the post of a head for your qualification and merit stands corroborated. 

Life’s ironies never fail to stupefy, for often, idealism and inspiration like the yearning for freedom or liberation stems from a lot that is subject to oppression and deprivation, seldom has a leader, head or the oppressor shown a proclivity for self reflection. It is precisely for this reason, that a group of women routinely fighting for a dignified workspace in the Malayalam film industry or the cabbies fighting for what they believe is their right finds resonance in me and a faint hope that just some day in the distant future educators too express dissent with conviction. Maybe in a distant future, those in charge of shaping young minds remain true to their own beliefs and opt to speak their mind without fear, for then alone can a land, country or a world hold its head high for fostering fearless freedom and confidence in lieu of political correctness and a habitual deference to mediocrity. 

- A G K