I graduated from the Teach For India fellowship last week.
With these lofty ideas that somehow I had helped mould the future for some
children. And that these children will be the leaders a few years hence and
their strength, courage and wisdom will be a deterrent to the darkness and
monsters that run rampant now. I must admit, I was so preoccupied with the
graduation ceremony, my part in it, what I’d have worn to it that for the days
preceding it, I did not care what was happening in the country that I had so
proudly helped (in my opinion) to shape.
Serves me right for living in a bubble.
The news incidents of the last couple of weeks have been the
biggest antidote to my complacency of thinking that (attempts to) teaching
children values like respect, empathy, friendship, grit, awareness is going to bring
even the tiniest deviation in where we are headed as a people. For anybody to
have a future, there is a precursor of surviving the present. Which is what
seems most bleak now.
One of the things that we had learnt as a part of the
fellowship was that to truly guide children to a better future, it was
important to understand their truth. Only then would we be able to
contextualize the hope that we could provide to them. Take out the truth and
the hope might be false or not make sense. Take out the hope and the truth
would suffocate them.
Cut to the present – in the last week itself, there have
been numerous distressing, disgusting and depraved news incidents coming from
all over the country; of people conspiring towards, committing or condoning
violations like no other. And these were just reported cases. Who knows how
many never got reported? Amidst news of people supporting, justifying and
pardoning acts of rapes, murders, riots and massacres, I’ve been struggling to
give myself even a sliver of hope.
And that reminded me of the balance between truth and hope.
Before I try to find that elusive bit of hope, I probably need
to understand the truth behind these acts.
Now I’m asking this question to whoever can give me an
answer with substance – What kind of human does one have to be to dehumanize an
entire class of people based on their religion, social status, skin colour or
gender? Forget a class, how does one dehumanize even one person? Is it something
circumstantial? Psychological? Pathological? Genetic? Would something have gone
wrong in their childhood? Or in their education?
I am trying to look for trends. Gender doesn’t classify –
there are males and females alike. (Maybe the third gender will be our
saviour. Who knows?) Maybe belonging to a particular Faith or Spirituality?
Again, it doesn’t help. These perpetrators have included various spiritual
leaders themselves (regardless of faith or being self-proclaimed or appointed).
Educational background doesn’t seem to help either – we’ve had doctors,
lawyers, police officers complicit in this. The only clause in educational
background is that we don’t have set standards in or even a proper definition
of education.
At this point, I don’t have any other clues. Hence the
question – what does it take for one human being to look at another human being
but not see them as humans? Until we understand, I doubt we will be able to
devise deterrents or punishments. And until we understand this truth, any hope
that we give ourselves will be as shallow as these threats to humanity
masquerading as humans themselves.
Someone had better start talking. And soon.
~K.
