The demon of terrorism & violence is expanding its wings very fast. Many countries around the globe are facing its heat today in some form or the other. Even powerful countries like US are no exception. And their target is innocent people. Humanity and human values are at its all time low. Even they don’t spare one year old kids. Why can’t we help ourselves in this situation rather than being a spectator and often eye witness at times? We see mass murder in the name of cast and religion. Can you ask the people who cause such acts, whom we refer as terrorists? Who are they? As better I know, they are also human beings. Terrorism is the enemy of humanity and the entire human race, not the terrorists. Can we call it a holy war killing innocent people in large numbers? There is no place for violence in any religion. God gas never created any distinction among human beings. It is we people who are responsible for this discrimination. This way we are not killing human beings but humanity as a whole. We can have a great debate on this to find out its root cause and its associated factors. I will not delve deep into it. Let’s analyze its significance in the context of our topic i.e., the importance of moral and value based education. I read somewhere that “morality is the domain of the hypocrites” written by a very well known columnist. I don’t want to name the person just to avoid controversy and i am also not blaming anybody for such contents. He is a very honorable person and a renowned writer. Only thing i can say about him from the contents of his script that he might not have understood morality in its true sense and might be lacking the requisite value based education.
We (not I) realize day by day that there is no place for good people in politics. They play dirty politics blaming each other. The only aim for them is to reach the top position someway and have absolute control and authority over others. Forget about right or wrong. Somewhere I read “everything is fair in love and war”. I’d like to add politics here. They are not worried at all even if they lose their values and conscience here. Times Of India is campaigning for “lead India” and not worried at all for its contents published in Bangalore times. I have not seen such contents in any other supplements in other leading Indian dailies. Apart from Bangalore times, I have not seen such contents from times of India in our native place. Are they playing politics with us? What I observe here is they feel such content are ok in Bangalore and not quite acceptable to people in Bhubaneswar where they are very traditional. Our young people among whom we are planning to find our future leaders are kept in darkness. The same person who has never seen such contents published in TOI, Bhubaneswar finds it shocking to see those in Bangalore. Are we looking for a global culture acceptable to everybody where all will feel safe and protected or a city based culture? The only reason I find here is to gain cheap popularity as soon as possible and be the market leader and of course to make money in that process. They forget their social responsibility in this process. I can compare media people with politicians here in this context though they do not rule us directly. But they affect a larger section of the society by their writings. They have the biggest social responsibility. Let’s ask ourselves, how are we responsible for this transition? We are also responsible when we do not raise our voice and watch quietly something going wrong as if it will not affect us and its not our business. Is it my business to generate social awareness among people and think about you? Why? Am i a fool? Am I getting any monetary benefit out of it, then why am I doing all this?
Social work is nothing more than foolishness. Degradation in human values in politics is not at all good for our country men and to the human race as a whole. Promises are like fireworks now days. They do exist at one moment and nonexistent at some other like fire crackers after they explode, only to cause smoke and sound that gives us momentary pleasure but harmful in long run. Increasing incidence of dowry deaths are like epidemic these days that we read and see in newspaper daily. We find this in our educated society among highly educated people some of whom are in top positions. Forget about illiterate village people. Is it not a misfortune for our society in this twenty first century?
Right education sharpens our attitude and behavior and helps us attain higher goals of life. It disciplines our life and gives us correct living standards rather than our standard of living. Because its very much important to live with correct standards and not to find our standard of living comparing to that of people around us in terms of money and their possessions. Unfortunately, when I see young people today, I don’t feel like they have received the right education. Is it because of our system? We can’t blame people of our young generation for this tragedy. From where do they learn? It’s from their elders, the media and their surrounding environment. Result of this kind of education among young people we see in the form of smoking, drinking, kidnapping, rape to name a few. We observe increasing incidence of physical torture to junior students from their peers in the name of ragging. Is it not a sign of degradation in moral values in our education system?
Now students want to pass their exams anyway with shortcuts. They do not think copying as a form cheating anymore. Even parents encourage them in this process. They want their children to find a place in some good college/university that can provide him a good placement somewhere after the completion of their education. That became the sole purpose and basis for education today. Forget about values and career building which was once the purpose behind any education. Can this help us attain our goals and generate moral values among our people if we fail to impart the right education? No way. This will only show them a wrong direction and they will be more and more vulnerable to dangers and challenges coming their way. They can’t face it gracefully and confidently. I don’t believe in degrees and institutes anymore. I had a conversation with one of my professors at IIM, Calcutta two months back. He told me after this discussion now i feel like you people are studying hard to learn things unlike what i find here among regular PGDM students. I could not understand anything at first and was a little curious to know more. When enquired, he told students here are more concerned about finding a good placement rather than learning a subject well. Obviously they will get good placements from here but they don’t show much interest in learning and building a career that they can get from us. We are well known worldwide only because of our faculty and the quality of education we impart to students. But students these days seem to have different career plans and choices rather than gaining knowledge. The situation was not like this some fifteen years back.
In a time like some of us feel that strong moral and value based education is the only solution to all such problems. It’s up to you to analyze the truth behind this statement. When the true purpose behind any education is character building and personality development, we someway misinterpreted it and are not in the right track. How to pass examination with good numbers became the purpose behind education now. Right education has to be imparted at school level. When we teach humanity and human values to children at school level, it can have a long lasting effect. If we fight among ourselves like the Kauravas of Mahabharata epic instead of trying to find a solution, no body can prevent our human race from extinction.
* First published at http://writersatchatterati.blogspot.in/ on Monday, 24 September 2007
B +Ve!! 