Place of religion in public schools: Part 3

July 19, 2013

As I mentioned at the end of the part 2, before going to the third set of questions listed in Part 1 we still have to deal with three issues (at the end of part two I listed them as two issues, but it seems it is better if the first itself is divided into two, making a total of three, I have also changed their order of listing):

  1. Contribution of religion to the development of humanity,
  2. The impact of religions on believers’ lives, and,
  3. Impact on sociopolitical life of a society in general.

I will deal with these issues very briefly, only to indicate some basic characteristics.

Contribution of religion to the development of humanity

It seems to me that religion provided one of the most powerful early coherent pictures of the universe to humanity, therefore put in on the path of making sense of the world. It also provided moral code to live by, therefore, bringing humanity out of pure instinctive behaviour, making humans to some extent masters of their own behaviour and responsible for it. This gave social purposes, ways of organising society, and possibility of cohesive social life.

Religious theories had to keep pace with growing human self-awareness and intellect; therefore, they had to develop more and more abstract concepts and more and more sophisticated ways of organising thought. But we should remember that there always was a counter force of human intellect to religion and this development in human thought was a result of constant interaction with this counter force. But all said and done, religious thought contributed to development of philosophy and science; even if mainly by providing a counterpoint and stimulating debates.

It is undeniable that religion contributed tremendously to the development of arts, architecture, literature, music, dance forms and so on. That made human life artistically richer and culturally sophisticated.

So religion made significant contribution to development of culture and civilisation. I have made these remarks only to indicate that there is no need to deny contribution of religion to development of human race.

Religion’s impact on the believers’ lives

It is clear even to a casual observer of social behaviour of people that religion has a tremendous appeal to a large number of us. People find source of moral behaviour in religion. All religions do emphasise some or other moral code. There seem to be some common points regarding values like truth, compassion, helping others, and so on in these various religious moral codes. This gives the believers an ethical anchor to regulate their lives and aspire for higher achievements in this field. This is very important in human life; it gives it purpose and something to look forward to. A basic human need once self-awareness is awakened.

Religion also provides personal solace in times of distress. Faith in some higher power or set of principles that will unerringly lead to good at the end gives people a sense of security and even the endurance of unwelcome situation becomes meaningful. Particularly in the face of unreadable loss—death of some one dear, for example—leaving everything on some benevolent power and desire to earn merit in the eyes of this power provides with a psychological means to deal with it.

Religious rituals can provide with a rhythm and regularity, and therefore, discipline, in one’s life. This might be very reassuring in the face of fleeting, ever changing, and strenuous life of a modern human. Religion also gives a sense of identity—who I am—and a strong sense of belongingness—a fellow feeling with other believers.

But religion provides all these goods for a tremendous price. It often takes the most important attribute of humanness away. It tries to put believers—and mostly succeeds—in a permanent tutelage; denies them the chance of ever coming of age, becoming self assured independent beings. It tries to close their minds, makes them fit objects to be manipulated, and permanently blocks their further growth of consciousness, knowledge and even morality. It tries to hijacks their consciousness, to take all genuine artifacts from it away and replaces them with spurious goods. It demands the most degrading servitude. I know, what I have just said is rather strong, and with a bit of polemics in it. Therefore, I must explain.

The most important event in human evolution, to my mind, is the awakening of self-awareness. Self-awareness as used here is consciousness of “I” as an entity different from all else I happen to be aware of. Different does not mean disconnected, nor does it mean totally different having no similarities at all. All it means is having some attribute, however small, that is nowhere else but in me. Self-awareness once awakened immediately wants to understand what is going around me, what is this world, how it functions, what should I do, what is my purpose, and a host of other questions of this nature. It is freedom from instinct and mindless natural laws; it is declaration of independence, of autonomy, of freedom to choose. Freedom of choice may give a thrill of power, power not necessarily on others, but of consciously bringing about situations that I want, that satisfy me. But it immediately brings in tremendous responsibility. If I am making my choices then I face dilemmas as to what should I want, and as to how do I get what I want. If I make a wrong choice in either, then that is my responsibility and I have no one to blame for it. I have limited knowledge, limited powers of action and see forces around me that are much beyond my comprehension and powers to control. That makes me vulnerable, that makes me alone. I may get very scared of this vulnerability and loneliness. But I do have cognitive capabilities that may develop into sophisticated reason and I may improve upon my skills and capabilities to deal with the world. If I take this path of dealing with my uncertainties, vulnerabilities, fears and loneliness then I retain that spark of humanity—freedom of choice[1]—that emerged with self-awareness. But the responsibility and fears may weigh me down and this freedom of choice may become a burden to me, a burden too great to bear. In such a case I may barter it for some security from my vulnerabilities and seek solace in some dogma propounded by someone else. In this case I have found a cell to hide from my humanity and throwing this burden away. Religion provides such dogmas and hiding places easily enough. That is why I say that it takes away the most precious gift of humanity in exchange of illusory solace. (We must remember that there are plenty more merchants ready to buy this gift of humanity, some political theories may act as such merchant, but we are dealing with religion alone here.)

The capacity of the religion to provide solace partly comes from the dogma and partly from the feeling of belongingness. The dogma can not be rationally questioned, examined and modified. It is immutable ultimate truth. But it can not be proved. And human reason, that irreverent terrible child of self-awareness, demands grounds for acceptance of these dogmas. So it has to be discredited, dulled and bribed by the promises of fantastically pleasurable after life; or subdued by the fears of a terrible after life, or plainly threatened in this life by the force of believers’ community. Thus the only means what can make me capable of making my own choices, capable of coming of age, growing out of tutelage and becoming my own master; is subdued or destroyed. That condemns me to be in permanent tutelage either of the dogma or of the community or of both. That blocks all possibility of me becoming a self assured human being, confident of my own ideas and actions.

If I were to deal with the vulnerabilities of life on my own, with the aid of my own capabilities of observation, capabilities of freely and intelligently learning in the society, capabilities of reason; I would have created concepts, principles, formed attitudes, dispositions, likings and dislikings. These mental-artifacts would have populated and shaped my consciousness. They would have been genuine artifacts created by my own consciousness. But in accepting the dogma and dictum of my religious community unquestioningly, unexamined, I am denied the possibility of creating these genuine artifacts to shape my own consciousness. In their place, by accepting the tutelage of religion, my consciousness if filed and shaped by the ideas, concepts, attitudes, dispositions—artifacts—that agree with the dogma and are dictated by the community. Thus, my consciousness is hijacked. It is no more my own; it is taken away from me. I have sold my soul, to use a religious metaphor. Well, the devil is not the only one after my soul; there are other merchants as well.

The religious dogma, once accepted, becomes the central part of my world view. As we noted above, it is immutable and ultimate truth. If I question it I am in danger of losing faith. Since it can not be justified on rational grounds, it has to survive on the fear or lures of afterlife; and on fear of loosing belongingness to a community of believers. All my other belief to form my world view and understanding have to fall in line with this dogma and its implications. Therefore, further development of my understanding of the world has to be subordinated to religious precepts and community sanctions. That seals my fate in terms of growth of my understanding, be that ethical, epistemic or aesthetic.

Since all this depends on my abandoning my own reason and acceptance of the dogma on the authority of the scriptures and their authorised interpreters, I am mentally prepared to obey them to wherever they lead me. I am a fit tool to be used for some one else’s purposes. If my controllers be caring for humanity and morally upright people, I may be used for service of the society and humanity. If they be interested in money and luxury, I am prepared to work for them and provide means for their luxurious lives. If they be power hungry bigots I am ready to be used as cannon fodder in the violence they will create. I barter one kind of vulnerabilities for another kind. But now my reason is dulled and I do not see these vulnerabilities for what they are. I see them as achievements and earning of religious merit. So I get illusory security and solace.

This is a deliberately painted extreme picture of religious mind-set. Every believer does not end up there. There is a huge middle ground. That middle ground does have many avenues that are unobjectionable and sane enough. But the religious mind-set does have the potential, propensity and danger of reaching at the above described level, and often enough reaches there. The firmer and absoluter the belief grows, so does the danger of above painted scenario coming more and more true.

Impact on sociopolitical life of a society in general

Some important contributions of religion to sociopolitical life we have already discussed in the first section above. We need not repeat that here.

In addition to those positive contributions religion also seem to have a very marked propensity to treat any deviant behaviour with suspicion and harshness. The history of religions is full of various kinds of persecutions meted out to people questioning the dogma or going against the custom. Non-believers in most religions are looked upon with suspicion. Often, but not in all religions, they are targets of harassment, disdain, and conversion. Mixing of the believers with nonbelievers is often looked upon as undesirable. These attitudes contribute to fragmentation of society.

The religious dogma drives its staying power from psychological insecurity, strength of unreasoned faith and social feeling of belongingness; therefore, any challenge to it draws violent emotional and vociferous social response; any debate is denied and ultimate truth of the dogma is asserted unconditionally.

Religious faith is rationally insecure and often hypocritical. That forces it to oppose growth of knowledge and understanding that may challenge the dogma. Almost all religions perpetuate inequality, particularly against women. All religions curb freedom of expression severely. And create political rift in the society. They are against democratic norms. I do not need to argue these clams, they are self evidently true. But if need be arguments to support them can be worked out easily enough.

Now we are ready to explore the place of religion in schools. And that will be the Part 4 of this series.

To be continued….

******

19th July 2013

Rohit Dhankar, Azim Premji University, Bangalore and Digantar, Jaipur

Rohit.dhankar@apu.edu.in

[1] Freedom of choice is a hotly contested idea. Many believe this is only an illusion; there is no freedom of choice for humans. This is not the place to deal with the issue. Here I am taking it as a fundamental assumption. My immediate reasons for that are: 1. If we humans have no freedom of choice at all, every thing in it is totally determined by social, cultural, political and economic conditions; then there is no point is this debate at all. The debate itself is completely determined by the very same conditions. It’s a meaningless rigmarole of natural forces. Let’s put an end to is—if we do have that choice!—and go have a good drink. 2. Even if we have no freedom of choice we live our lives under the illusion that we do. This is not the kind of illusion that we can throw away and still keep on living as usual. This is a binding illusion of human condition. So for all practical purposes it is as good as if were real.

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Place of religion in public schools: Part 2

July 6, 2013

Rohit Dhankar

[As “Part 2” in the title indicates his post is in continuation of the earlier one with the same title.]

After the little discussion on secularism and freedom to practice and preach one’s religion in a democracy we can proceed to the second set of questions.

Meaning of religion—

  1. Isn’t dharma the knowledge of right and wrong? Then how can we be secular? Every one needs the knowledge to distinguish right from wrong.
  2. What is religion? What is the difference between ‘religion’ and ‘dharma’?

Secularism is translated into Hindi as “dharma-nirapekhshta”. Dharma-nirapekshata is also understood as ‘unconcerned or indifferent to dharma’. If dharma is interpreted as moral duty or morality or ‘knowledge of right from wrong’ then indifference to moral principles or moral duties becomes the same thing as ‘dharma-nirpekshata’. But how can one live in a society as an amoral being? Thus the question.

This confusion arises out of the use of term ‘dharma’ for religion. Dharma has several—one feels too many—meanings in Sanskrit, and is used in almost all those meanings in Hindi as well. Some of these meanings are close to religion: religion, faith, denomination, sect. As in Hindu-dharma, Tantric Pantha, Islam dhama, etc. Others are close to morality: righteousness, duty, merit, virtue. As in ‘it is dhama of the Raja to protect his praja’ or ‘it is a father’s dharma to get his children educated’. Still others indicate law and rights; and still more indicating properties or nature of something: nature, quality, attribute. As in ‘the dharma of water is coolness’, the dharma of agni is to burn’. In Hindi textbooks properties of matter are called ‘guna-dharma’.

In ‘dharma-nirapekshata’ the term dharma is actually used in the sense of pantha, majahab, religion, samyradaya. Thus it is pantha-nirapekshata or sampradaya-nirapekshata; and not indifference to duty or moral principles. What is happening here is that the term dharama is being interpreted in a sense it is not intended to. When we talk of ‘Hindu-dharma’, ‘Bodh-dharma’, ‘Islam-dharma’, etc. we are using the term dharma as an equivalent to religion, majham, pantha. One can be nirapeksha of religion without being indifferent to morality. But very often this question is asked to deliberately confuse the debate, rather then as a genuine point in a dialogue. In such cases the person asking the question already knows the different we have delineated above, but still makes the point to show that secularism in impossible. I am not sure if the question here was not just for the sake of asking, rather than being a genuine issue in the dialogue.

That brings us to: what is religion? First I will try to give a short answer and then will try to elaborate upon it. To start with we can say that religion is a system of beliefs. The religious belief-system provides the believer with purpose of life, principles to direct her conduct, principles to organise society and polity, and a world view to make sense of her existence and experience. Humans are sentient beings. Sentience includes at the least: intelligence, self-awareness and consciousness. A self-aware intelligent being can not help but ask such questions as: what am I? Does my life have a purpose? What is this world? What is my place in this world? What is good human life? Though these questions may not be always be asked at a conscious deliberative level, answers to them are always assumed in human life. The religion as a belief-system provides answers to these and similar questions.

Religion, though, is not the only belief-system that provides answers to these questions. There are several other kinds of belief-systems available to modern humans what do the same job, and better, in the eyes of some. For example: atheism, rational belief systems of various kinds that do not use religious belief-systems, science being included. Actually philosophy actively seeks answers to the very same questions without necessarily being religious. Therefore, just by saying that religion is a system of beliefs we are not providing a good enough definition of religion. We need criteria to distinguish a belief system that is religious from one that is not.

But before we jump into these difficult waters lets dwell a bit on understanding what a belief-system is. A simple—but good enough for our purpose—definition of belief could be: belief is a claim about something that we accept as true. Something as simple as “trees need water to grow” is an example of a belief if we accept it to be true. We may take a number of beliefs like: “Trees need soil, water and air to grow. They grow from seeds. Humans use various parts of trees for their own purposes. They purify air. If all the trees die human race will also die out.” These beliefs taken together could be called a belief-system about trees. Therefore, any world-view that we form to make sense of our life, experiences, purposes, desires, et al is a belief-system. As per this definition a political ideology, scientific explanation of the world, philosophical systems, etc. all are belief-systems. As mentioned above, present day humans due to being self-aware and intelligent can not live without a belief-system; be that implicit or explicit to her/him. They form their beliefs on the basis of experience of nature and living in a society. Language plays an important role in all this; perhaps the most important role as a belief can not even exist without language.

Now, perhaps, we can come back to our question: how do we distinguish a religious belief-system from a non-religious one? In other words: what is the difference between, say, a political ideology and a religion? Between a philosophical explanation of the world and life and a religion?

Unfortunately no perfect answer is available. But we can try to construct a reasonable and useful one. Often, it is claimed that the idea of God is central to a religious belief system. But Buddhism and Jainism do not seem to necessarily recognise the need of a God. However, even in them there is a clear tendency to raise their founders and other realised ones to the level of divinity. Still, the God cannot be taken to be a necessary part of religious belief system.

The best indicator perhaps is belief in after-life. All religions have belief in some or other form of life after death. None thinks that the human life ends at death. Hindus, of course, are famous for belief in rebirth, haven and hell. Islam does not believe in rebirth but does hold that humans will attain haven or hell as per their religious merits. Christianity also believes in haven and hell. Buddhism does not believe in haven or hell, but does believe that life does not end at death, unless one attains nirvana. It believes that as long as we live dukkha will remain; the only way to end dukkha is to merge into maha-shunya, nothingness. In sum: it seems all religions believe in life after death, some with hope for better world, some with trepidation. What I have written above about life after death in various religions is rather rudimentary and crude, not a detailed and accurate account. But enough to make the point that all religions believe in life after death. We will see below that this fact has immense psychological importance for religions. So, one criterion for a religious belief-system is acceptance of life after death.

One notices that all religions have some central dogmas which are basic to construct their belief systems. In Christianity Immaculate Conception and Christ being son of God will qualify as central dogmas, among some more. All Christians are supposed to believe in these. Similarly in Islam only one Allah and Mohammad being the last prophet are part of central dogmas. For Buddhism four arya-styas will be part of central dogmas. The nature of central dogmas in all religions is such that they can not be justified rationally, and often can not be even be refuted rationally. Therefore, have to be accepted on the bass of faith and authority. This can be seen as the second characterisation of a religious belief-system: that a religion necessarily has central dogmas that can not be rationally justifies, have to be taken on faith, and can not be questioned.

The idea of central dogmas requires two explanations. One, Hinduism as commonly understood poses a problem: there is no central dogma that all Hindus believe in. The theory of Karma (crudely put that our actions have impact on our live and eventually govern it) is often mentioned as something that comes closest to a central dogma. But not all Hindus believe in karma theory. On the face of it, then, it seems that Hinduism has no central dogma. This, however, can be explained if we see Hinduism not as a single religion but as a group of religions (panthas) with very strong family resemblance and respect for each other. I suspect, (by no means am certain on this issue so would be grateful if some one in the know informs me on this point), that Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Tantra, and other sects of Hinduism may have clearly articulated central dogmas. Another point that we should remember in this regard is that the term Hinduism is much more ambiguous than Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, etc. Hinduism can be interpreted as a geographical term: all people living on the east of Sindhu river in the Indian subcontinent are Hindus; that is how it was employed originally. There is no surprise in fact that this land may have had several religions so close to each other and so overlapping sets of believers in them that outsiders could not see the subtle differences. Without this, or some such qualification, Hinduism as it is today, will hardly qualify as a religion in the Semitic sense of the term. Thus we can still retain the second characterization of religious belief-system if we see Hinduism as a set of belief-systems very closely related to each other.

The second point we must explain here is: rational refutation of the central dogmas. The religious minded make a lot of this fact. They would claim, for example, that the existence of the God can not be disproved rationally therefore the God exists or that there are no rational grounds for atheism. This is a fallacy. Taking lack of rational refutation of a claim to be positive proof will lead us into very serious problems. This is not the place to go into nitty-gritties of epistemology; therefore I will just give a simple counter example and rest the case. Suppose I claim that at this very moment there is a white elephant in your room which can not be apprehended through your five senses and this white elephant is controlling all your thoughts and actions. If you accept that ‘lack of rational refutation of a claim is its positive proof’ then you should believe in the existence of my white elephant in your room now. One who believes in this becomes so vulnerable that she/he can be made to believe almost anything. That will result into a total abandonment of one’s own reason and autonomy in the matters of beliefs. (And that, by the way, is the strength of or problem with religion. Whether it is seen as strength or a problem depends on the point of view one takes.)

Belief in after-life and in a set of central dogmas, then, can be taken as epistemic characteristics of religious belief-systems. Properly speaking one can collapse them into one: belief in a set of central dogmas that can not be rationally established and can not be questioned; as belief in after-life can be taken as part of the set of central dogmas. But then we will loose insight into the psychology of belief, as after-life plays a central role in that. Also, most religions are more open to debate after-life than the rest of their central dogmas.

Religions, however, are more than just epistemic belief-systems of academic interest. They are social practices and organised associations of humans as well. The belief-system has to be expressed in social life as well as guarded from enquiring human intellect. This is achieved through: 1. Formal articulating the central dogmas in a scripture; 2. having official interpreters of the scriptures; and 3. creating rituals and social practices that identify the believers from non-believers.

These three characteristics of religion as social practice have immense impact on the lives of believes as well as non-believers sharing socio-political and geographical space with them. Therefore, it is in order to make an attempt at understanding them a little better.

Religions have their scriptures that articulate the central dogmas and their implications in the social life. These scriptures are so deeply respected that they can not be criticised. The sanctity of the scriptures is a necessity to protect the central dogmas from being critiqued and questioned. They are embodiments of the central dogmas. One can easily understand this if looks at the reactions of Hindus—it is a relatively modern phenomenon—on a deviant interpretation or critique of Ramayana these days. Or, if ne notices the response of Muslims to any questioning of Koran. Perhaps Buddhists are the most relaxed in this matter.

Similarly, all religions have their official interpreters of the scriptures and dogmas. If a common man/woman tries to interpret religions scriptures in one’s own light he/she encounters a general refrain from the religious minded and their sympathisers that ‘that is not what Gita or Koran or Bible means’. One can not understand its true meaning without studying with the official interpreters. And the official interpreters develop a whole shastra called theology to interpret and rationalise the scriptures. The interpretation of the scriptures then is closely guarded, by violent force is necessary.

All religions also have their ways of worship or dhayana specific to them. Some of them specify the object of worship and its rituals very strictly; while others might be more relaxed about them. But all do have some form or other of worship. Form of worship may also change over time; a religion which has very strict specifications may relax them over time and may even change. Vedic Hinduism is a case in point. Islam admits Allah the only object of worship, and Allah even visits punishment on those who worship anything else. On the other hand, Krishna in Gita declares that whomsoever you may worship, all of it will finally go to him. Still Hindu forms of worship can be easily recognised from Islamic forms, in spite of the ‘openness’ exhibited in this statement of Krishna. These social markers of believers do not end with distinct form of worship alone. They further guide believers in their ways of living: what to eat, how to dress, how to great, and so on.

If the above analysis has any merit we can look at religions at two levels: a. At the level of belief –system; and b. At the level of social practice. Both are closely associated with each other. Historically speaking it is not necessary that the belief-system emerges first. It may have been the case in some religions that the social practice was established first and the belief-system was formulated later. The other way round is also possible: to oppose or change a prevalent social practice the belief-system may have been formulate first, to begin a new religion. But all modern religions do have these characteristic.

To summarise then, religion is a belief-system that:

  1. Accepts after-life, or in other words, life-after death.
  2. Has a set o central dogmas that can not be justified rationally, has to be accepted on faith and can not be questioned and criticised.

Religion also has a social practice aspect that is characterised by:

  1. Scriptures that articulate the central dogmas and workout their implications for life.
  2. Authorised or official interpreter(s) of the scriptures and the dogmas.
  3. A set of social practices and behaviour patterns that distinguish its adherents from other people.

I am aware that this is becoming rather long, tedious and boring for a blog. But we can not properly answer questions regarding place of religion in schools without understanding what it happens to be. Before going to the third set of questions listed in Part 1, then,  we still have to deal with two issues: 1. The impact of religions on their believers and on socio-political life in general, and 2. Contribution of religion(s) to the development of humanity. These will be the subject of part 3 in this series.

To be continued….

******

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Place of religion in public schools: Part 1

July 3, 2013

Rohit Dhankar

Recently, I had an occasion to be part of a discussion on ‘place of religion in public schools’ with the teachers. This article uses the glimpses of the discussion. The idea, here, is not to report the discussion as it happened, but to reflect on some salient points that emerged in course of the discussion.  The teachers were of a school that proclaims itself to be a secular school in strict sense of the term. The occasion of discussion was created because the teachers and coordinators in the school had some doubts, confusions and disagreements. None of these doubts, confusions and disagreements seems to be philosophically and politically profound. Rather, they have emerged in course of day to day dealings with practical situations in the school and it appears that the opinions, concerns and doubts of these teachers were representatives of cross-section of larger community of the teachers in India. It, thus, goes beyond the concerns of a single school in question and makes these un-profound doubts of the teachers worth discussing and reflecting upon. The note from the organizers of the discussion put forth two questions:

  1. What is the place of religion in a public school?
  2. What should be the view and attitude of teachers towards religion in a public school?

The term ‘public school’ here is used to distinguish the schools from avowedly religious schools or schools run by religious denominations. It includes all government run schools and all schools recognized by the appropriate authorities which are not in the category of religious schools even if run by private parties.

I was supposed to lead the discussion. To start with, I found the two questions articulated above too general, and therefore, presenting a danger of making the discussion removed from actual concerns. So I asked the teachers to articulate their own problems and concerns. The issues and questions raised and articulated by the teachers themselves could be organized as follows, though these are not their exact words:

  1. Meaning of secularism—
    1. What is secularism?
    2. Can a person (teacher) who is deeply religious and has his/her religious beliefs firmly set in his mind behave as a secular person in public?
    3. Can a person who is deeply religions be secular in his private and family life?
    4. If a country declares itself to be secular how can it give freedom to preach various religions? How can it allow its citizens freedom to practice religion of their choice?
    5. Can people actually be secular? Does not everyone necessarily have a religion?
  2. Meaning of religion—
    1. Isn’t dharma the knowledge of right and wrong? Then how can we be secular? Every one needs the knowledge to distinguish right from wrong.
    2. What is religion? What is the difference between ‘religion’ and ‘dharma’?
  3. What should the school do if the children come half a day late every Tuesday on account of pooja in Hanuman temple or leave every Friday at lunch time to participate in the Jumma Namaz? Should it allow them, or try to dissuade them? Or simply prohibit coming late or leaving early?
  4. Display of religious symbols and behaviour in the school—
    1. Should teachers be allowed to display their religious symbols like thick moli dora on their wrist? Or tilak on their forehead in school? Should children similarly be allowed to display these symbols in school?
    2. What if a female teacher, while in school, covers her head every time she hears azaan from nearby Mosque, though normally she does not keep her had covered? Should children be allowed similar behaviour?
    3. Should teachers be allowed to preach their religion in the school? How are the above activities different from preaching their religion?
  5. Religious behaviour of teachers outside the school—
    1. Should teachers be allowed to preach their religion in the immediate community in which the school is situated and from which the children come to school?
    2. Should teachers be allowed to work for better adherence to their own religion amongst their co-religionists in the community, though do not preach it to the followers of other religions?
    3. Should teachers participate in public religious activities like keertan or namaaz every day or very frequently?

I was somewhat surprised at these questions. Many of them would not have come up in my own schools—where I studied—in late 50s and 60s. People would not have cared about them anyway. But then I remembered that when I recently visited my own Higher Secondary School I was surprised to find a Hanuman temple sitting on one of its entrances. There was no temple when I studied there. It seems the public discourse on religion is changing or has changed. Any ways, I did not answer these questions directly in the discussion, rather tried to develop a dialogue on them. But in this post I am articulating my own position and not trying to reproduce the dialogue. Perhaps in present day educational discourse these are important questions. I would be very much interested in readers’ (if there are any) views on these questions and my own position on them.

I will try to take these questions one by one below, more or less as I articulated my views in the discussion. I am not sure if the teachers were convinced by the answers that emerged in the discussion or by my views on these issues, most probably not.

Meaning of secularism

What is secularism?

The teachers had a range of views on secularism: from respecting all religions equally to being totally indifferent and unconcerned about religions, to taking any anti-religion stance. They also saw secularism as an ideology of the state and of an individual.

It seems to me that the term secularism mainly addresses the issues of relationship between the state and religion and of public behaviour in general. Secularism is an ideology that claims that humans are capable of solving their social and political problems on the basis of their experience and reason in this world. They neither need to wait for life after death nor for any divine intervention. The state and society should organise their policies in a manner that they are not influenced by religious dogma or practices. That the state is indifferent to all religions, and further it treats all its citizens equally and fairly according to its own rule and policies and does not discriminate on the basis of their religious beliefs and affiliations. Secularism has no problem with citizens’ beliefs and religious practices as long as they do not interfere with other citizens’ rights. Religious beliefs of citizens are their private mater.

In India, however, there seems to be a debate on two significantly different meanings of secularism. One view of secularism is “state being equidistant and unconcerned with all religions”, that is what I will mean by secularism in this article. The other meaning is “equal respect for all religions”, which I will call sarva-dharma-samabhava here. Difference can be illustrated by an example. Recently, I have heard (am not sure), that the Madhya Pradesh government has decided to make financial support available to senior citizens for char-dhaam-yatra. This decision is against the idea of secularism, as state has got to do nothing with religions and char-dham-yatra of its citizens is their own private business. But if one takes sarva-dharma-samabhava as the state ideology, then the state provision of financial support to citizens from all religions—haz for Muslims, pilgrimage for Christians, Gurudwara pilgrimage for Sikhs, and so on—it becomes acceptable.

The idea of sarvadharama-samabhava is said to be propagated by Gandhi. He called it equimindedness or equal respect towards all religions. The present-day interpretation and practice of sarvadharma-samabhava is different from how Gandhi viewed it. Let’s dwell on this difference a bit. To understand Gandhi’s idea of sarvadharma-samabhava we have to begin with his understanding of relationship between religion and reason. He has written much on the subject. I will give just two examples to make the point here. Gandhi did not preach blind faith in and following of scriptures. In response to Mr. Andrews he writes “I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality. I tolerate unreasonable religious sentiment when it is not immoral”. (Emphasis added, CWMG Vol.21, Young India, 21-7-1929) In Young India 19-1-21 while writing on untouchability he states “[T]he devil has always quoted scriptures. But scriptures cannot transcend reason and truth. They are intended to purify reason and illuminate truth. I am not going to burn a spotless horse because the Vedas are reported to have advised, tolerated, or sanctioned the sacrifice.” (CWMG vol.22) Thus he is prepared to submit religious scriptures to the test of reason and morality. In connection with an incident of stoning to death in Afghanistan, he wrote “[W]hatever may have been necessary or permissible during the Prophet’s lifetime and in that age, this particular form of penalty cannot be defended on the mere ground of its mention in the Koran. Every formula of every religion has, in this age of reason, to submit to the test of reason and universal justice if it is to ask for universal assent. Error can claim no exemption even if it can be supported by the scriptures of the world”. (Young India, 26-2-1925, CWMG Vol.30) He obviously was not scared of expressing his views on what is conjoined in scriptures be they Veda or Koran.

All religions accordion to him are man-made and imperfect because man himself is imperfect. “Religion of our conception, being thus imperfect, is always subject to a process of evolution and re-interpretation.” (September 23, 1939; CWMG Vol.50) In the same article he goes on “[A]nd if all faiths outlined by men are imperfect, the question of comparative merit does not arise. All faiths constitute a revelation of Truth, but all are imperfect and liable to error. Reverence for other faiths need not blind us to their faults.” Thus Gandhi’s idea of equal respect emerges from three key assumptions: one, all religions are man made and therefore imperfect. Two, all have both errors and truths. Three, religious dogmas can be revaluated and reinterpreted in the light of reason and morality of the day. If that be so, there is no reason to respect any one of them over the others. As a result his sarvadharma-samabhava is an appeal for open-mindedness and critical examination of religion; it is not for blind faith but for healthy scepticism about one’s own religion and healthy recognition of merits in other religions.

But modern-day Indian sarvadharma-samabhava is equal capitulating in the face of all religions. One can not interrogate and raise questions about religion. Hussain, Taslima Nasreen and Salman Rushdie are victims of this mentality. The current interpretation of sarvadharma-samabhava bans critique of religion, kills freedom of expression. It sets all religions in competition with each other for more and more preferential treatment from the state, more and more freedom to create public inconvenience in the name of melas, poojas, namaaz and muharram. If one religion encroaches on the road to build a temple, the current sarvadharma-samabhava attitude does not allow the law to take its course and declare that as an encroachment and act to remove it. Rather it prefers abject surrender to encroachment in the name of Mosques, Chapels and Gurudwaras constructions as well. It is a mindless bowing down in front of religious force and can not be justified as a kind of secularism or even as Gandhian sarve dharma sambhava at all. However, the Constitution of India correctly interpreted, and if implemented in spirit, still has the strength to uphold secularism in its true spirit of equal distance from all religions.

In the schools, therefore, we should prefer secularism in the sense of school policies being totally independent of religious considerations and feelings. That brings us to the second question in this section.

Can a person (teacher) who is deeply religious and has his/her religious beliefs firmly set in his mind behave as a secular person in public?

In the discussion with teachers I crated a fictitious example. Suppose there is a judge, she is a deeply religious person; she lives a religious life and does her worship (pooja, namaaz, ardas, attending mass, or whatever). Actually lives her personal life according to the tenets of her own religion, and believes in her religious dogma. As a judge she has to adjudicate according to the legal framework of the country. The question is: is it possible for her to act strictly as per the secular legal system of the country in spite of her personal belief in her own religion? Some teachers thought it is possible without any difficulty, some others thought it is not possible. Those who thought it is not possible did not think that this person is going to pass her judgment on the cases as per her own religious laws. For example they did not think that she will award different punishments for the same crime (say murder) to a shudra  and a brahmin, as stipulated in Manu Smriti, even if she happens to be a devout Hindu. Or that she will award punishment to a thief as per Koran rather than as per Indian Penal Code if she happens to be a Muslim. In this they all agreed that she can actually act as per the current legal framework. Their problem was that she is going to be biased in favour of her own co-religionists and if a matter between the religions arises will be tiled towards her own religion. But that is a human failing, and has nothing particularly to do with religion. Favouritism can happen on grounds of caste, political affiliation, kinship or friendship basis. Her being religious does not necessarily make her any more biased than her other affiliations.

Therefore, at least theoretically there is no contradiction between a person being deeply religious in her personal life and acting as per the secular principles in the public affairs. A teacher can be religious in personal life and be secular in fulfilling his responsibilities in the school. He can teach, for example, history in a manner a true historian would do.

The possibility of leanings towards one’s favourite ideology, be that religious, communism or atheism, perhaps can not be totally ruled out. But in a school, or any other work place, with clearly laid down norms of behaviour, collective responsibility and transparency; society can control this tendency and keep it within harmless limits.

Can a person who is deeply religions be secular in his private and family life?

This is difficult to define what secularism in personal and family life would mean. Secularism is more of a principle for functioning of a state, and perhaps, of functioning of individuals in a multi-religious society and its public affairs. If the state policies, laws and rules of governance are not influenced by the religious doctrines, they are applied in spirit and they are non-discriminatory to its citizens, it is a secular state. A functionary of the state behaving as per those rules and principles is a secular citizen. Beyond that, what citizens believe in their personal lives is not really a matter of secularism. However, there might be people who prefer company of their own co-religionists and shun contact with believers of other religions. State can hardly do anything about it, even if this is an unfortunate attitude and eventually will fragment the society if majority of its members develop such attitudes. This kind of attitudes can not be corrected through laws, they are a matter of understanding. Friendship is definitely a personal matter. And religious beliefs may influence it. But there are umpteen numbers of examples where religious people do develop very close friendships with people from religions other than their own. A person who has this kind of biased attitude certainly can not be called secular in their social behaviours. But neither could they be corrected through making rules nor is it necessary that religious belief is going to promote such attitudes among believers.

Family life is a different mater altogether. The way of living, decorating one’s house, daily routine, visits of religious places, teaching of children, regulating one’s relationship with family members are all too personal for the state or any external agency to intervene. If a person is religious, his family behaviour will definitely be influenced by his religion. All one can expect in the name of secularism perhaps here is that a religious father or mother refrains from imposing his/her own views on other family members. That is very difficult, and perhaps religious people tend more to impose their views on their children than secular people do. But that is a matter of empirical study. In a democracy, all citizens have right to choose their own life and parents have no rights to impose their own choices on their children.

If a country declares itself to be secular how can it give freedom to preach various religions? How can it allow it’s citizens freedom to practice religion of their choice?

There have been secular states which don’t give freedom of publicly professing, practicing and preaching one’s religion to his/her fellow citizens. Peoples’ Republic of China has been one such state, and is one even now, in spite of relative openness compared to earlier times. Freedom to profess, practice and preach one’s religion for all citizens comes from the ideals of democracy, not from those of secularism. The fundamental principle of democracy is freedom to choose the kind of life one wants to live. And this freedom has to be extended to all citizens. For many people religious belief is a central issue in deciding the kind of life they want to live. And therefore, freedom to profess, practice and reach one’s religion can not be divorced from democratic values. Also, there is no necessary contradiction between secularism and believing in any particular religion as we have seen above. Therefore there is no reason for a democracy to curtail its citizens’ freedom to practice religion of their choice. A democracy necessarily has to be secular; however, a secular state may not necessarily be a democracy. The nation states which have a preferred religion are not true democracies, even if they claim to be so.

Can people actually be secular? Does not everyone necessarily have a religion?

This obviously is a mistaken question, in spite of the fact that it is asked ever so often. First, we have seen above that being religious and secular in public behaviour are not necessarily contradictory. Therefore, people who do believe in any particular religion can also be secular simultaneously.

But that is not the actual meaning of this question. The real questions here can be understood as:

  1. Can there be a person who does not believe in any religion?
  2. Can there be a person who does not believe in God?

These are naive questions very often asked by religious minded and theist people. It seems such questions arise out of unwarranted generalisations on the basis of one’s own state of mind. It is premised on ‘Since I am believer, therefore, others also must be believers’. Often people assume that moral principles are impossible to emerge but from religious belief. And since living in a society entails morality of some or other kind, therefore, everyone has a religious belief. But if we accept that there could be secular morality then necessity of religious belief for moral behaviour is no more there.

Actually the more forceful question is the second: it is assumed that human beings necessarily believe in some divine power. Often in teachers meetings—not in the one I have referred to here—people cling on such simple utterances as “he Ram” or “ohh God” as proof of belief in God. Another popular assumption is that every one believes in something or other, whatever that person believes is his God. This emerges out of ambiguity in the concept of God. One wonders if these questions are really worth engaging with. They seem to be results of confused state of mind regarding the meaning of religious belief and the God.

To be continued….

******

30th June 2013

Rohit Dhankar, Azim Premji University, Bangalore and Digantar, Jaipur

Rohit.dhankar@apu.edu.in

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Assessments: please put the djinn back in the bottle

June 16, 2013

Let’s start with reiterating a truism: to state that “A has learnt X” necessarily presumes that assessment has happened. Otherwise the statement is an expression of worthless declaration. Let’s also remind ourselves that the goddess of child-centric educational discourse ‘learning’ necessarily implies standards. For A to have leant X means: (i) that A could not do/understand/feel X at some earlier time and now A can do/understand/feel what is involved in X. Doing/understanding/feeling necessarily means coming up to some agreed upon standards. If A has leant to ‘read’ (X) then A has come up to certain standard of making meaning out of black (generally) marks made on some surface. (ii) Some one who is making the statement “A has learnt X” has grounds to declare that, and therefore there is an assessor. To repeat: learning necessarily assumes standards, assessment that those standards are achieved, and an assessor who has ascertained the fact of achieving those standards.

It is commonly stated that education is concerned with learning, and often education is equated with learning. The later is plainly wrong. Learning happens all the time and spontaneously and often unknown even to the learner. To call it all ‘education’ will render the concept of education useless by over generalisation. The first part—education is concerned with learning—is true enough but is often misinterpreted. Education is concerned with development of capabilities to know (understand), to do and to feel in certain ways. Education in how to ‘feel’ includes values, emotions and dispositions. Learning is a—actually the only acceptable—means to achieve the desired standards in chosen areas of knowing, doing and feeling. Therefore, the only useful and defensible meaning one can attach to the phrase “learning assessment” is: assessment of acquired knowledge, abilities (to do) and values and dispositions. All this—in this and the paragraph above—is common knowledge restated to start a little discussion on assessment.

On the basis on the above two paragraph we can say that education per se may be possible without assessment but a statement that ‘some education has happened’ is not. Education is not a one shot activity started and finished on a fine morning. It is a long drawn process; and gradually and cumulatively happens. To know go to the next stage requires assumptions regarding achievements set for the pervious one. Thus assessment is necessary for ascertaining that the desired education is happening. Those who think that one can be certain without assessment that education has happened are deceiving themselves. We can not do away with assessment in education, even if we dislike it; and the animal called assessment as it roams the educational terrains today is dislikeable enough.

Now the question arises who can do assessment and how? And how far is it possible? Let’s note that assessment of knowledge and values involves ascertaining the contents of other’s mind. The assessor is ascertaining the contents of the educatee’s mind. The contents of another mind are not directly available to us, they can not be. We can directly know the contents of our own mind only. So what we do in assessment is watch and record the performance of the educatee and infer the contents of her mind. In case of assessment of skills and abilities (paper folding, applying algorithms in mathematics, carpentry) this performance is ‘doing something’ successfully, as per preset standards. In case of values and dispositions this performance is behaving in a certain manner with others on the basis of some consciously chosen principles. In case of knowledge and understanding ‘doing something’, ‘behaving with others’ and responding to questions set in language.

It seems the performance in skills can be assessed easily and reasonably reliably, as it has heavy dependence on doing and relatively little with understanding. But we do not actually teach or assess skills in schools. The skills we do teach and assess there are mostly intellectual skills (algorithms in mathematics) and they have very important knowledge/understanding aspect to them. Actually most of intellectual skills are of very limited value shorn of understanding. Therefore, educationally important skills have the same challenge as assessment of knowledge and understanding. We will come to that presently.

The moral values (we will not take up dispositions in this little piece) necessarily have two parts: the performance (behaviour with or treatment of others) and intentions. The intentions are governed by general principles. Therefore, assessment of values requires observed data on performance as well as on intentions and principles that are basis of behaviour exhibited in performance. Let’s note that one single observation of behaviour can not be sufficient, therefore, substantial amount of observation is needed. The principles and intentions, again, have the same requirements as those of knowledge and understanding. In addition they have the substantial problem of possible pretention. I can behave in a supposedly correct manner in a give situation deliberately, even if that be counter to my general behaviour and my normal dispositions. Similarly, I can state supposedly correct principles of behaviour (usually called moral values, like sada sach bolo) even if I do not believe in them. As a result, assessment of values becomes extremely difficult without very long association in non-threatening conditions, even if the challenge of assessment of knowledge and understanding is somehow ignored.

Our knowledge, generally speaking, is composed of concepts, relationships between concepts and principles that govern those relationships. Examples: tree, water, air, life, growth etc. are concepts. “Trees need water and air to survive” is a statement of relationships between the concept of tree, need, water, air and survival. This is expressed as a knowledge claim. “All knowledge clams need to be based on evidence” is a principle used in generating, assessing, and accepting knowledge. All this can be expressed in language and as knowledge claims. Therefore, the important question for an assessor becomes: how to ascertain the kind of knowledge claims the educatee as acquired? As mentioned above knowledge clams are internal to a persons mind, we have no direct access to other people’s minds. But knowledge clams are made in language, and we can, presumably, understand each other’s language. Therefore, assessment of knowledge and understanding becomes a paper-pencil test through asking and answering questions.

Now, let’s note a little commonly known fact about knowledge claims: that they never can stand alone, they always depend on each other. My claim (commonly called belief) that “humans are thinking animals” depends on host of other such beliefs. For example: my concepts of humans, thinking, and animals. Also recall that knowledge claims require evidence (justification), they are worthless without justifications. So many other beliefs will be required for justifying my clams that humans are thinking animals. The simple statement that “Humans are thinking animals” is of no educational value unless my assessor knows that (i) I understand the meaning of that statement, (ii) I have adequate evidence for the statement, and that (iii) I understand principles that evidence necessarily required to make a knowledge claim.

All the above would be useless unless the edcatee can make proper use of this in her real life problems. Therefore, the in addition to understanding all the above, the assessor also need to know that I can make use of this repertoire of acquired skills, values and knowledge. This will require setting up real life situation, watching me in those situations and also understand my reasons behind dealing the way I deal with those situations.

To summarise, then, a worthwhile educational assessment requires the following:

  1. In skills
  1. Performance of a task/act. This will demand detailed observation of performance at multiple times. [Observation]
  2. The leaner’s behaviour with others. Again, detailed multiple observation are required. [Observation]
  3. Moral principle guiding the behaviour. The assessor will need information on principles behind that behaviour. [Narrative statements of dialogue]
  4. Concepts acquired by the learner. [Mostly narrative, may be performance of intellectual tasks.]
  5. Knowledge claims acquired by the learner. [Mostly narrative, may be performance of intellectual tasks.]
  6. Principles of knowledge claims acquired by the learner. [Mostly narrative, may be performance of intellectual tasks.]
  7. Interconnections and mutual interdependence of between the knowledge claims. [Mostly narrative, may be performance of intellectual tasks.]
  8. Performance in real life situation, not for proving or showing anything but just living. [Observation]
    1. The learner’s knowledge base for that skill. This will require information regarding her beliefs on that particular skill. More complex the skill more complex and larger the set of belief behind it. [Narrative statements or dialogue]
  1. In values
    1. Sincerity. Information on whether the person assessed is pretending or not. [the assessors judgement arrived on grounds of behaviour and narrative/dialogue. Will always remain doubtful.]
  1. Knowledge and understanding
    1. [All that is written in 3 (a to d) can be formulated as knowledge claims.]
  1. Ability to use skills, vales and knowledge in appropriate situations.
    1. And all that is written in points 1 to 3 above.

Now the question arises: Who can do it? And how could all this be done? In the present educational discourse there are too many purposes and too many candidates who want to do learning assessment. In this little piece I will consider the duty and clams of the teacher and claims of the large scale assessors.

First, the claims of the large scale assessors. They usually carry standardised paper-pencil tests, when really large scale multiple choice questions. Observation and dialogue with the learners are used only on a minuscule scale. Through the paper-pencil test one can find out only the statements (knowledge claims) preferred by the learner. Understanding of the entirely of belief system that gives meaning and justification to that statement remains hidden to the large scale assessor. As a result she is assessing what Andrew Davis calls thin knowledge, and can never reach with reasonable reliability to deep knowledge. But it is the deep knowledge that is required in real life situations and further growth of learning. Gerard Lum has convincingly argued that large scale standardised testing methods necessarily have to take what he calls “prescriptive” route to testing. Meaning that there are questions and pre-set answers to them. If the child reproduces the desired answer than gets full marks, is does not gets no marks. This makes the tests ‘highly reliable’ in what they are testing, e.i. ability to produce desired answer. But what is the educational worth of that answer? To understand this he creates some right/wrong scenarios. A good right/wrong scenario in geography context could be: suppose you ask a child “who is the Prime Minister of India?” Suppose further that the child answers: “Dr. Manmohan Singh”. She is of course correct and gave the desired answer. Now suppose that she also believes that Manmohan Singh is from BJP. Then her answer in spite of being correct does not carry much of understanding of the political situation in India. This kind of right/wrong scenarios are a plenty in science, maths and social sciences. But you can never discover them unless you ask further questions depending on the context. The method of asking further questions in context Lum calls “expansive” and opposed to “prescriptive”. Expansive route could be taken only by the person administering the test. And that makes the testing more valid in terms of representing the child’s state of knowledge; but less reliable as the subjectivity of the situation will seep in. There could be other reasons related with cost of large scale testing that do not allow the researchers to use expansive mode. But academically speaking even if they are prepared to bear the additional costs the problem of reliability will remain. Thus, as far as knowledge related issues are [in the list above: 1(b), 2(b and c) and 3 (a to d)] the large scale testing seems to be much less satisfactory than usually assumed.

The remaining: behaviour and values are eve more difficult in large scale testing. Therefore, one can safely conclude that as far as educational worthwhileness of the things that can be tested reliably remains vey low in large scale testing. This raises doubt about the claims made for ‘evidence’ based policy as far as that evidence is generated with such methods. One can of course say that there is a high correlation between the prescriptive standardised testing and the ‘actual’ understanding of the children. But the protagonists of large scale testing build their arguments on the research based evidence, so where is the evidence that proves this later claim?

Now we come to the second candidate as assessor: the teacher. I need not spend much time on arguing that the teacher is best suited for the worthwhile assessment of the learners. A glance at the list we have generated above will suffice to convince one that the required evidence and opportunity for further investigation is readily available to the teachers. How can they do it? Answering that questing will require another short article; but one thing can be said readily: in the process of their actual teaching in the classroom, no separate efforts are required. What one needs to do is understand the pedagogy properly and keep some minimal records. If we consider the activity of teaching then we can immediately see that without observing the child’s ways of activities, and without spotting and eliminating her right/wrong scenarios one can not teach at all. Therefore, continuous assessment is a necessary ingredient of a pedagogy aimed at developing the child’s capabilities and understanding. That would be much of more worth that all the noise being made on continuous comprehensive assessment and so called quality measuring large scale testing.

If this common sense analysis is accepted then the djinn of student assessment as inflated by the large scale standardised testing should be put back into the bottle of pedagogy where the teacher can deal with it suitably. We should all work to drive the standardised testers out of business. Not with the malice for them in our heats; but with suggesting them a better field of research: how to make it possible that the teachers keep reliable records of their own assessment and how to collate them to generate reliable knowledge on the health of schools and even health of the system. Figuratively speaking: how to use the activities of the numerous djinns properly capped in numerous bottles to gain reliable and valid insight into the collective functioning of all these djinns? This is the issue people in love with scale and moved by desire to influence policy should engage with. At present they seem to be marching confidently in the wrong direction.

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The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change: Really?

June 16, 2013

One often reads and hears the old adage “The only thing that is constant is change”, perhaps with good reasons. It has the authority of a very old philosopher, Heraclitus; and makes eminent sense when we look around ourselves. We are born small, vulnerable, and totally dependent on caregivers, with no ideas and not much mind to talk of. And then, at least in our own eyes, we grow big, strong, full of ideas and opinions, and acquire a powerful mind. Our feelings, looks, behaviour, ideas, relationships—every thing changes. Then we grow old and feeble, our memory starts deluding us, mind starts making serious mistakes and grows confused. Bodily we wither, shrivel and finally die. Yes, the only thing that is constant is change. Everything else comes and goes.

We see others around us, and they suffer the same fate. New people come in our lives and some of the old fall out. With those of the old who stay our relationships change, often for good, sometimes for bad. Those who cared and protected us themselves become dependent on care and protection from us. Friendships, love, work-relationships, everything is in a flux. Humm, again Heraclitus seems to be right.

The world around us also changes all the time. Sociopolitical and economic conditions never remain the same. Sociopolitical ideologies, formations and movements come and go. Leaders come and go even faster. Physical world is in a state of content change. So yes, nothing is constant but change. Heraclitus seems to be right.

But, then, is he? After all, do all the changes listed and hinted above—and all others of the same kind—really substantiate his strong statement? “The only thing that is constant is change”. Could it be that this word ‘only’ might render this claim implausible or even meaningless?

Let’s think. What is change? What are necessary conditions for change to happen? Suppose the world or part of the world under investigation is in state x1 at time t1. Change would mean that at time t2 the state of the part of the world we are looking at has transformed into x2. In short: from [state x1 at time t1] to à [state x2 at time t2]. This could happen at the least in two ways: one, the thing[s] in x1, say a-table1-at-t1, have changed. That would mean that the table1 still retains its identity but has changed somehow. Say at t1 it was new, shiny and whole; at t2 it is old, rough and one leg is broke. But the table1 still is recognized as the same table1. So the identity of the table remains constant, it did not change. It seems here that to note any change in table1 we have to assume its identity to remain constant. That means, it is not only that the change is the only constant, but also that change can not even be noticed if the identity did not remain constant; so change actually requires some or other constant! It can not stand on its own feet!! [The issue of identity of things is very complex. We can not go into details of it here. so are using it at its commonsense level.]

Alternatively, it might be the case that all the things in the ‘part of the world under our gaze’ have been replaced by a totally new set of things. Say at time t1 the world was composed of things s1, s2, s3, …. and so on. At time t2 it is composed of things sa, sb, sc, sd, ….. and so on. Well, even in this case to notice that the things {s1, s2, s3, …..} are replaced by things {sa, sb, sc, ….} we must recognize the ‘part of the world under our gaze’  to be the same, to have remained constant. Again, it seems the change requires some constant (identity of the part of the world under gaze)! The poor thing can not sand on its own feet, again!!

One can generalize both these arguments to the whole universe, and they will still remain valid. Therefore, we can state that: the notion of change necessarily requires something that changes to be constant, having the same identity at t1 and t2.

But there is more. Who notices this change? There has to be some sentient consciousness to be aware of things at time t1 and well as time t2. Of course the state of this consciousness may change, but till the consciousness has to be aware of itself, that it is the same one that noticed the world at t1 and t2. Therefore, here we have another condition for the change to happen: a sentient consciousness noticing the change.

There is an old objection to this last argument. Say, a person named Sthai Lal (‘SL’ for short) feels that he is the same person who lived in a village called Sthaigram in his childhood, went to school Sthaishala when he was five years old, and now works in Sthai & Co when he is 50 years old. One can say that SL is the same person all through Sthaigram to Shaishala to Shat & Co. A very weak and easily disposable argument against this claim is that: SL has changed, he was 5 year old when went to school, did not know much about the world, did not have much experience of the world, had a smaller and growing body; but SL in Sthai & Co. at age 50, is a man of knowledge and experience, with grown but deteriorating body. So he is not the same person. True enough, many things are changed about SL, but he and the society around him still recognize him as the same person. He takes care of his old parents, because he thinks that he is the same boy born to them. The society condemns him as selfish if he does not care for his old parents because the society believes that he is the same person who was once born to them as a small incapable baby. So there is something very constant beneath all this change.

A stronger form of the same augment is that SL is under an illusion that he is the same person, actually he changes every instant. Well, we will not go onto details of this argument. All we will say is: even if this be an illusion; one, SL can not get rid of this illusion, it is part of his being, no illusion no SL. And two, to notice the change in anything this illusion is a necessity. So if SL is not constant then at the least SL’s illusion is constant. Either way, change requires SL as a sentient consciousness, be that illusory or real.

What we have noticed is that change necessarily requires at the least two constants: one, constancy of the thing that changes, and two, constancy of a sentient being that notices the changes in the thing. If one of them is removed there is no change. Therefore, “The only thing that is constant is change” is only an attractive slogan, which does good job in certain situations, and so is useful. As a general claim it can not be defended.

This short note leaves many questions unexplored. Two of them: how about the change across the generations? How is that noticed, if it depends on the continuation of a particular sentient consciousness? And two, was there no change in the universe before humans evolved into sentient beings? To my mind both of these questions can be answered in a manner that the arguments in this note remain valid. But that will remain for some other time.

******

16th June 2013

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Where are we taking our democracy to?

June 10, 2013

[I am aware that this piece may sound polemical, which it is; and cynical, which it is not. It is not a well argued treatise, only a quick expression of opinion. Most views expressed can be backed by argument and evidence to my belief; but that would take a lot more time. So!]

Bhartiya Janata Party after a long agonizing—for it alone—wait has finally announced the inevitable: Narendra Modi of 2002 Gujarat fame is its Prime Ministerial candidate for 2014 general elections. We need no such announcement from the Congress: the succession line is clear enough. These two are the biggest players at the national level, the regional fiefdoms go with one or the other depending on the size of the chunk of proverbial pound of flesh they are able to extract. Another player at the national level is a conglomerate of what is called ‘left’; they are more of a nuisance with their strange religion-like theories and boundless personal ambitions.

If we look at the history of the Congress since 1920s, in spite of its successful steering of the freedom struggle and enormous contribution to nation building, the feudal character of the organization is unmistakable. From 1920s to about 1946 Gandhi dominated it and no dissenting voice was ever allowed. The succession of Nehru after Gandhi was not dynastic but was neither democratic. It was simply the fulfillment of the wish of Mahatma Gandhi. Any danger to Nehru’s succession was seen far in advance and curbed at the very nascent stage; treatment of Subhash Bodh can be seen as a case in point. Nehru, in spite of being a great democrat neither dismantled the feudal character of the organization nor did much to develop the democratic imagination of the population. He was the true controller and malik  of congress from 1947 till his death. A possibility of Congress party coming out of Nehru family’s grasp emerged after his death but was quickly led to rest by Indira Gandhi. The second attempt to wrest congress out of Nehru-Gandhi family was made by Kesari after Rajiv Gandhi’s death. But Kesari had neither the vision nor support of congressmen, so failed and dispatched to oblivion. Now the Congress party is a complete fiefdom of current Mrs. Gandhi (Sonia) and her children. It was often the case in medieval kingdoms that while the king was a minor some close confident ruled in his place. Sometimes these surrogate rules rebelled and started their own dynasties. The congress has perfected the system to the point that the surrogate rules can not even imagine such a rebellion.

BJP is basically is a party of upper caste Hindus. Its political thinkers—Deen Dials’ and Atals—have always been pigmies as far as political vision goes. Its national imagination comes from the RSS. The RSS certainly would like to have a mono-religious and mono-cultural country. Its vision of Hindutva is to make it a religion with one book, one prophet and one central authority to interpret religious dogma. This imagination is borrowed from Semitic religions and is in reconcilable variance with religious thinking in India; which has emerged more organically and therefore is not amenable to a final central dogma. BJPs commitment to secularism and inclusive polity has always been suspect and with good reasons. Its intellectuals are far inferior to the intellectuals that support Congress. And now it has accepted the leadership of Modi, the worst of the pack.

So what choice do we have: Modi versus Rahul? Free to choose between the devil and the deep sea!

Do we see any alternative? All the regional fiefdoms—that go by the name of various political parties—are modeled on the Congress’ dynastic structure; albeit with the poorer imagination of the nation, more sunk in the caste rivalries; deeper into corruption and blatant use of power. The Congress at the least has the support of sophisticated Brahmin thinking to fool the public and do its corruption in a more elegant manner!

One need not even talk about the left. They always have been living on borrowed imagination, often have been taking orders from outside of the country, their irresponsible piggy-backs to power at the centre have only made them worst, as they tested the blood of power.

At the moment the most recent flash in the pan is created by a bunch of anti-corruption activists, with their own record only half explained and a pedestrian national imagination. They came to fame on the basis of shallow, fleeting, unthinking, momentary interest of the Facebook type crowd.

What is often described as the Indian voters’ wisdom in producing hang governments and rejection of totalitarian tendencies is actually a huge misinterpretation of their behavior. The voter is simply guided by the local and immediate benefits they are promised or given by the local half-politician-half-goons and power brokers. It just so happens that these immediate interests do not add up to any clear verdict. It is an arithmetical result of non-thinking random self-interest and not of any social and political imagination.

So is there a hope for us? Can there emerge a challenge to Modis and Rahuls, both being bad news for Indian secular democracy? Perhaps yes, but not immediately.

A negative hope from the politicians: they are acting in total self interest, we know that. They also love power. Their love for power may result in two positive benefits to Indian democracy. One, they may hold the country together as fragmentation will make their power shrink. Two, they may prevent each other from becoming totalitarian despots, as each one wants that position for himself/herself. Therefore, the unity of the country and a semblance of democracy may continue. This sham democracy, however, is not going to deliver better life and the necessary amenities to the public. Nor will it fulfill the promises of equality, justice, freedom and fraternity. And still, it may give a chance to genuine democracy to emerge.

The second avenue of hope is from the public itself. Humans are selfish, true enough. But they also are capable of imagining long-term selfishness (often called enlightened self-interest) and empathy for the other. The Indian public may learn from its selfish behaviour directed at immediate interests and may include its neighbour in its consciousness. In other words, the public may be arriving at unarticulated conclusions of its own and in its own intuitive manner. There are other ways of development of human consciousness than strictly articulated and debated rational ones. The problem with them is that they are something like the dance of the bees, take too long, are intuitive and instinctive, and hold no guarantee that will progress in the most socially beneficial direction. But still, may produce more evolved civic consciousness and behaviour. The Indian public has been under tutelage of its rulers, caste leaders and religious leaders from time immemorial. The last sixty odd years might be forcing them to realise that they are on their own now, and they may realise the responsibility thrust upon them. If that happens, it will certainly be the most important thrust to the India democracy.

That brings us to the third avenue of hope. The opinion makers and intellectuals in the society may finally be able to articulate the national vision and citizenship responsibilities that make sense to the public in its own intuitive churning. The imagination of the intelligentsia at the moment is bound by borrowed theories, they are busy producing more and more obscure jargon in the name of nuanced articulation; and are guided by academic visibility in their own circles rather than by fidelity to and clarity of thought, and public good.

These three possibilities—one negative and two positive—may save and develop the Indian democracy into a more robust and healthy system. But, one, it will take time; and two, it sounds strangely like waiting for Krishna—yeda-yeda hi dharmasya glani….. and all that. These hopes will take significant nudging to emerge, waiting for Krishna will not do. The one possibility to give that nudging in an organised manner rests with the intelligentsia. Will they take up the challenge?

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The proposed education commission: how can it do some good?

June 8, 2013

Ministry of Human Resource Development is deliberating on terms of reference and composition of a commission on education. Given the state of our education system and its performance at all levels it is a welcome step. An even more urgent need for a commission to formulate a coherent policy of education emerges from the recent flurry of half thought through reforms. However, a cursory glance at the history of Indian education after independence will conclusively prove that commissions (and committees) come and go; education continues on its steeply downhill road as usual. Recommendations of commissions become subject of excited debates in the press and then part of academic discourse; their practical impact never results in any improvement. With this history in mind one naturally wonders if the new education commission is going to be another exercise of the same kind.

The second problem is that the UPA2 government has only about one year left now. The Prime Minister announced the intentions of his government to appoint a commission on education on 15th August 2011; the government took more than eighteen months to come to the stage of deliberations on ToR and composition; when less than a year of its mandate is left. A commission that covers all that is being considered in the ToR, as one hers, can hardly complete its work in the tenor of the present government. And if it does, the quality of its analysis and recommendations is likely to be uncritically guided by current push for ‘education for economic competition’, as that is the dominant ideology in power circles today; or by some particular school of educational thought that might be close to the heart of bureaucrats or their confedents. Again, our recent history tells us that the new governments—if headed by another party—almost never respect such decisions made by the previous governments. Therefore, an education commission set up now will be relegated to very low priority and a new debate on its ToR and composition will begin as soon as a new government is formed.

Before one can start thinking of the ToR for and composition of the commission a reasonable assurance from the system to counter this threat is necessary. Without such assurance setting up a commission on education is nothing but a vacuous exercise, or worst, a political fraud played on people. This assurance can not come from the present day government, nor from any particular party. The only mechanism that may reasonably assure this is perhaps the CABE[1]. If the CABE decides that it will relentlessly push for the recommendations of the commission to be debated in the parliament and in public in a time bound manner, and that also continuously pressurize the government for implementation of the accepted recommendations, again in a time bound manner; the exercise of setting up a commission may become useful, and perhaps effective in improving the education available to out children and youth. Therefore, a firm commitment from CABE is a necessity.

Some general points about the ToR

An important step in tackling the first problem; that is: ignoring recommendations of commissions; can perhaps be taken up in the ToR itself. There is a dire need of studying our political and administrative system to understand why all useful and positive recommendations fail? Just repeating this common truth will not help. We need to understand what is there in the character of our educational administration and political system that reduces all reforms to naught, or worse still, used them for the sole benefit of the administrative structure itself. The recent Right to Education Act[2] is a glaring example of turning it against those who pushed for it. The civil society pushed for this act mainly to force the government to take responsibility and improve its own education system. What is happening in the implementation is that it is being used against all but the government system. The new education commission should seriously study all previous commissions, their recommendations, what happened to those recommendations, and why? It should suggest mechanisms to avoid the same fate of its own recommendations.

Any system—political, administrative, economic—to be true to its policies requires a critical mass of people in it who understand those policies and their implications, who have firm convictions regarding their beneficial nature, and who have qualities of character to take personal risk and responsibility in pushing for them. If the critical mass of such people in a system falls below a certain level—I am not sure what that level is, it is the job of social sciences to study that, the system stops functioning for the values it was created for and stats being used for the benefit of powers within it. It is clear that there are very few people in our education system who understand education, educational policies and have the required strength of character to implement them in spirit and letter. No amount of legislation and systemic reforms in pure organizational and administrative terms is going to be successful unless the critical mass of such determined individuals within it is increased. The education commission should study this problem and suggest ways and means of increasing this critical mass of driving energy within the system.

Another condition for systems in democracies to function well is that they are under the constant gaze of a critical citizenship. It is the job of education; of school education in particular, as the Secondary Commission on Education (1952-53) argued way back; to produce such a critical citizenship. Our education system has failed to achieve this most important goal of education in a democracy. Or, perhaps it is deliberately made to fail by those in power. Education today is not important enough in public perception to influence political fortunes of parties. Though the importance of education for one’s own children is fully recognized by all parents; most of them see it only as a tool for individual competition, and not as a necessity of common public good. As a result those who have means make arrangements for their own children to compete in job market; and those who do not, simply feel helpless. Seen from a democratic point of view, this is a serious aberration. A sate that claims to be democratic is automatically responsible for correcting such serious aberrations in the society. Therefore, this is a responsibility of the state to bring about a change in public perception on education; making it a common public good rather than an instrument of individual competition. The commission should study the public apathy for education, attempt to find its root causes and suggest ways of establishing education as a common need for welfare of all. However, that alone will not work, the commission should also suggest ways of how can public at the local level demand its right to good quality education and force the system to heed that demand. On the front of goals of education, the commission should study why our education failed in producing critical citizenry and suggest measures to be taken in curriculum, pedagogy and school organization that can correct this lacuna.

More specific points and issues regarding ToR

I have heard tat the draft ToR suggests a review of the education system in the context of the goals as articulated in the Education Commission (1966), National Policy on Education 1986 and Plan of Action 1992. If that be the case, it would prove to be inadequate and skewed. The aims of education since Education Commission (1966) are tilted towards using the citizen as resource to achieve national goals as set by the powers that be. Education is seen as an instrument for social engineering. One strong rejoinder to seeing citizens as resources is the Report of Committee for Review of National Policy on Education 1986 (1990). In curricular documents National Curriculum Framework 2005 re-emphasizes development of independent thinking democratic citizen as an important aim of education. Overall, the aims and vision of education as articulated in The Report of University Education Commission (148-49) and Report of Secondary Education Commission (1952-53) are closer to the constitutional vision of India; where the critical democratic citizen who imagines and makes the nation as per that imagination comes in a sharper focus. Therefore, the proposed commission should not limit itself to Education Commission 1966, NPE 1986 and PoA 1992 for guidance in aims of education. It should take into consideration all commissions, policies and important committee reports after independence.

In view of various documents on curricula, teacher education curricula and legal provisions like in Right to Education Act one needs to study the relationship between educational aims, curricula, pedagogy including assessment, and teacher education anew. Many recent recommendations and legal provisions might be creating international incoherence in education from aims to classrooms and teacher education. Coherence between aims, curricula, pedagogy and teacher education is essential for clear and unambiguous decision making and confident practice in education. The proposed commission should look into these fissiparous tendencies in various policy documents and suggest ways of keeping policy decisions clear and coherent in future.

ToR for a commission does not require narrow specifications. Inclusion of narrow specifications in ToR either skews the vision or demands a very long list of such specifications. The commission should be free to workout out an appropriate educational vision for the country which takes into consideration present day needs as well as is imaginative enough to serve long term planning and developing vision, both of nation and education in it. If one takes this view then demanding strategies and recommendations from the commission on ‘integration of sports and extracurricular activities into curricula’ and ‘how to use demographic advantage’ are somewhat inappropriate. They simply express the planners’ specific concerns, which might be ery legitimate and even urgent. But there are many more concerns on this level of specification that might have to be included in the ToR once these once are given a place in it. Therefore, the best way would be to leave the commission free to develop a vision and detail of education for the nation as it thinks fit.

Education is obviously for wellbeing of the citizen, society and nation. That includes economic concerns as well as intellectual and moral development of students. In this context, talking of skill development and vocational education in the prevalent sense is unnecessarily limiting and poor educational thought. An alternative vision of vocational education has to be developed which includes intellectual and moral richness and lateral movement between academic and vocational education at all stages. If vocational education has to figure in the ToR, it should figure for suggestions and recommendations for this richer concept of it.

Structure and composition

A commission with such a broad and comprehensive mandate and having limited time available to it exposes itself to the danger of working with cursory understanding and inadequate analysis of the existing situation, dues to pressure of time. This might result in recommendations of less than adequate depth and worth. Therefore, the commission has to guard itself against this danger.  One way of ensuring deeper analysis could be to develop a structure that ensures adequate study and deliberations on each important aspect. Setting up separate committees on school education, higher education, professional education and teacher education could be one way of ensuring adequate depth of deliberation on various important issues. That means that once the commission is set up it has to work out an elaborate structure to accomplish all the tasks in time.

Research and scholarship needed for serious deliberations on all these aspects of education today is not readily available in our conry. Unfortunately the academic institutions which were created to keep abreast in study of education and research are lagging far behind the times and fall disturbingly short of their mandate. Therefore, the commission would need a number of academic task forces to furnish it with needed information, various academic positions on aspects of education and their relevance for the country. The exact nature and number of such task forces will become clear only when the commission works out its full agenda. But there should be an adequate provision for resources (including time) to form such task forces and allow them to come up with in-depth studies. One such task force should definitely study the problems related with administrative and political will in implementing policies efficiently and without distortion.

The process and procedures for working out a vision for national education should obviously include all voices. Therefore, membership of the commission and committees has to be thought through very carefully. A commission composed of bureaucratic and political favorites can hardly meet the demands of the set tasks. It should include academics, civil society, teachers, private sector, public sector, people from general public, people from corporate world, discerning politicians (if we still have such a species of political animal around) of all hues and administrators.

Functioning

All committees and commissions face a serious problem of adequate deliberations of high quality partly due to tight schedules and partly because often adequate procedural norms for deliberations are either not worked out or not followed strictly enough. Transparent and adequate deliberations should be ensured through adherence to procedural norms and availability of time. Half discussed decisions leave people dissatisfied and remain somewhat inadequately argued, and therefore, fail to make the public impact they should.

In addition of proper and in-depth deliberations within the commission and its committees a wide ranging and open public debate is essential, both to take all views into consideration and make its recommendations acceptable. The public debate should also be used to raise citizens’ awareness of educational issues and to generate interest in education. It could provide an ideal opportunity to turn the provisions of Right to Education, Child Rights, various other policy provisions, citizens’ rights regarding education, etc. into tools in the hands of the public to force administration to provide good quality education. Such a wide ranging debate would require use of all kinds of methods and possibilities. Public meetings, media, websites and electronic media, televised debates, and so on. The commission should make conscious and concerted efforts to start a social churning on education.

Looking at the history of our governments and administration of selective, biased and inadequate action on recommendations and policies, nothing less than an all out effort by public to hold them accountable will work. This is the job of civil society, media and academia to strive to create conditions under which public can make such efforts. Will they measure up to the task? We do not know, but without public pressure recommendations of the proposed commission will not get implemented what ever they might be. So, let’s hope and keep our fingers crossed.

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[1] Central Advisory Board of Education

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