Dissent

* Script of speech delivered in a Toastmasters meeting at St.Teresas College (2022). 

Have you ever kept silent and stopped yourself from expressing a true opinion on something, out of fear? Were you afraid of other people's reactions and the risk of losing their liking and approval? It is natural to be afraid to oppose or question the majority. There often truly is much to lose if anyone dares to do so. That is why Abraham Lincoln said, "If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it!" 

When we look back into our past, we find that the first, the boldest and the most costly step taken to conquer and overthrow any great evil or injustice is always the simple but powerful act of "dissent". I call it simple because it does not require great strength of numbers or weapons or might. All it takes is a single voice or a lone act of defiance to awaken change and throw a peacefully slumbering mass of deception into chaos and disorder. "In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot!" In 1955 in America, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the ‘coloured’ section of a bus so a white man could sit down. Though she was arrested, that single act of dissent turned into a year long boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr which culminated into a nationwide movement to end racial segregation.

Throughout history, men and women have dared to oppose the majority and defy those in power for various reasons. And many have paid the price heavily, often facing death, torture, imprisonment and exile in consequence of their bravery and resolve. But why were they willing to give up so much for the sake of their beliefs and values? I would say that it was solely because they knew exactly what was at stake, and on weighing both against each other, found it to be more important than the sacrifices they would have to make. 

Yes, dissent is absolutely essential, not merely for the sake of rebelling or creating conflict but because as Alan Barth said, "Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidotes to major delusions."

The world that we live in today is no stranger to mass delusions. With the unmatched, wide reaching influence of social media, especially among youngsters, it has never been easier to control what people think and shape their perspectives and beliefs. We live in a progressive culture that has rejected free speech just for fear of causing "offense". We are taught that some views and opinions are unacceptable and that certain words or terms are unspeakable. They cause controversy and outrage. But we must remember that the silencing of any kind of dissent and criticism, even with the best of intentions, is an ominous sign of the approaching decay and death of democracy. Like Sydney Harris said, "One way to distinguish what is right and true from all its counterfeits is by its modesty. Truth demands only to be heard among others while its counterfeits demand that others be silenced."

We must therefore renounce the habit of blindly accepting everything that is taught to us. In a culture that values and glorifies compromise, let us dare to stand up for what we believe in!

Let me conclude with a few lines from the poem, ‘The Present Crisis’ by James Russell Lowell:                      

Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with falsehood,

For the good or evil side;

Then it is the brave man chooses

While the coward stands aside,

Till the multitude make virtue

Of the truth they had denied!

An Open Letter to my Generation✉️

 

We belong to a generation that has rejected and ridiculed the rhetoric of morality and its appeals and calls to the good and honorable. We have despised it on the grounds of its poorly concealed pretentiousness and hypocrisy, the thinly veiled double standards and lies that we have seen permeating the morality of those generations that came before us. And so, in the midst of disillusionment, our recourse has been to find refuge in frank and forthright defiance. What our elders did in secret, we decided to do openly and flamboyantly, to celebrate it even. And by living freely without a masquerade of propriety, without trying to keep up a farce to please society, by making pretentiousness the greatest fault one could be guilty of, we have hoped that any lifestyle, lived to suit one's own desires, is excusable and above reproach. In breaking rules and violating the bounds of acceptability quite openly and fearlessly, our generation has assumed that we have raised ourselves above the hypocrisy of our elders and thus in some way (morally?) become superior to them. 

Strangely enough, to our thoughts and sensibilities, the supreme sacrilege and offense is the crime of condemnation- to pass judgment on someone else's action, is a worse thing to do than the act itself. Perhaps our sensitivity to the insincerity and deceit of human judgements in general, has led us to these dire straits. In a way, it is good even, to be cautious of misjudging and unjustly condemning others- especially since we are all so imperfect and wholly unaware of an individual's inner heart and unique circumstances. 

But I have felt a real and urgent need to caution this generation, of which I am also a part, of taking this fear and hatred of hypocrisy too far. We, of this age, are labouring under a most erroneous presumption that morals- the law of right and wrong, are nothing more than a creation of society. To us, morality is an artifice, it is only deception and trickery. I know most of my generation will disagree with me quite vehemently if I dare to insist that morals are more than just a social pretense. But I entreat you to be patient and hear me through, and you can leave with your beliefs unscathed and intact. 

In his conversation with Euthyphro, the Greek philosopher Socrates made a startling pronouncement, “Social conventions don't make morality. It is morality that judges social conventions.” How this statement will grate upon our generation's hostile ears! So far, we have lived so freely and joyously under the exhilarating accomplishment of having broken out of the old, tiresome patterns of moral binaries that restricted those before us. Can morality possibly be something that is independent of society?

The explanations I could give in favor of this proposition would go on endlessly. So let me only use one delightful concept to illustrate how this could be so. Interestingly, this idea of the philosopher Emmanuel Kant, conceives of morality as a path to freedom from society! He called it the 'Categorical Imperative'- the knowledge of what one ought to do in a particular circumstance, sometimes even against one's own desires or what his society expects of him! According to Kant, to arrive at a knowledge of what one ought to do, is to thereby make an accompanying judgment that one is capable of doing it. This awareness places us outside the cause and effect pattern of our sensations, impulses, desires and the social circumstances or expectations that control them. It brings me a recognition of something greater and nobler, situated outside my immediate circumstances and bodily impulses; something to which I am held accountable and which thus reveals to me a higher calling which transcends that of the finite world (both physical and social) in which I am situated. Kant says that this stirs within us both reverential awe for the infinite and a feeling of deep purpose, for we thus gain insight into our own human nature- “We are finite beings, belonging to… and determined by the laws of causation. And yet, we belong too to the world of freedom; we can choose freely, our will is unconstrained.”

During the Second World War, there was an incident involving two farm boys from Germany who had refused to join the SS (a Nazi organization formed by Hitler for the mass murder of all political and racial enemies of the regime) and consequently faced execution. On the day before their murder, they wrote to their parents, “Both of us would rather die than stain our consciences with such deeds of horror. I know what the SS has to do." This is a perfect example of human action undertaken in response to a higher calling that transcends the limits placed on how one could act within the compulsions of social circumstance and self-interest. The boys, even now, inspire respect in us, because in exercising their moral freedom to live as they were capable of living and doing what ought to be done, despite the pressures that their society exerted on them, they became truly free…

It is to this now neglected and forsaken, even unknown dimension of morality that I wish to call our generation's attention. We need not think of morality in black and white- as a projection of society and human trickery- something solely oppressive and restrictive. Morality can also be conceived as a call towards freedom and individuality, to swim against the tide in spite of what society or friends (and foes) might think and say! It could take the form of something as simple as refusing to cheat in an exam even though you might fail and your peers are compelling you to join them in doing so. It could be speaking the truth in spite of knowing that it can hurt you and earn the disapproval of others. And it could even be humbling yourself enough to apologize to someone although it will wound your pride. 

It is unfortunate that the past corruptions and failings of mere human beings, weak and fallible like ourselves, have poisoned our conceptions of the moral standards or certainties that they claim to uphold. A beautiful and precious jewel lying trodden and hidden in the dust and grime of the ground, would not lose its true authenticity and value because of the filth that it is encompassed in. Similarly, it is time for this generation to understand that the defilement caused by human error and hypocrisy is not a test for the beauty and nobility of virtue in its purest form. The hypocrisy of a liar who exhorts others to speak the truth always,  reflects only upon his own character, not upon the rightness of the ethical proposition he is making. His personal failures are not a valid reason for us to question the virtue of honesty. Thus, the law of virtues and vices exists independently of human (mis-) behaviour and social opinion.

Displaying our shortcomings publicly and proclaiming our faults without apology does not release us from moral obligation or make us in some way superior to those who accede to it. Certainly, no human being can perpetually and unfailingly do what is right and honorable. But there is a certain nobility even in striving towards this end even though one fails again and again, and in holding oneself up to certain standards even when one knows how miserably one falls short of it.

As someone once said, "Your character is who you really are; while your reputation is merely what others think you are." It is not sufficient for us to live as we please and merely appear nice, accepting and loving in front of others. The truest and most honorable kind of moral observance is not one that carries with it the intention of appearing good, but to actually be good. Such an order of virtue is not subservient to the manipulations of society, nor is it answerable to its approval or disapproval. A truly moral man with integrity of character is therefore never the darling of his society or the masses; on the contrary he is a blight and a menace to it! 

For us who are young, and yet so depressingly disillusioned, with none of the idealism that should mark our youth, it is time to look at the world of morals and ethics with fresh and hopeful eyes. To perceive once more the beauty and glory that girds virtue with an ennobling and elevating mist that must flood our young hearts with awe. I maintain with renewed earnestness this extremely 'unpopular' opinion- that there is more, much more unexplored depth and substance to morality than what our generation has been deceived into thinking…

“Far away there in sunshine are my highest aspirations.

I may not reach them,

But I can look up and see their beauty,

Believe in them and try to follow where they lead…”

~ Louisa May Alcott

ONLY REMEMBERED FOR WHAT WE HAVE DONE (A Tribute To My Teacher)

* This is the script of a speech that I gave as a tribute to my teacher who passed away (2022).

My teacher who taught me Sociology in 11th and 12th STD passed away this month on August 3rd. She was forty four, and an alumni of St.Teresa's from the Sociology department. Everything that I'm about to say is a tribute to my teacher who loved me and did much for me.

Her name was Boney Ma'am and she was very special to me. Being her student for two years, receiving so much of her love and becoming intimate with her has taught me some important lessons that I came to realize only after her death. These are the thoughts that I would like to share with everyone today.

It is only now, as the memories of those two years came flooding back to me afresh, that I've come to comprehend how precious my teacher was to me, how much she did for me back then and the depth of the gratitude and love I have for her.

In 11th std, as a new student, I was terribly shy and quiet. I know I'm still shy now, but back then in the beginning of that year I was so withdrawn that I would hardly speak a single word to anyone. I was cocooned in my own shell all the time, but right from my very first day at that school, Boney Ma'am took me under her wing. She was so kind and loving to me, and her love was so precious because there was never a time when I needed it more. I took a very long time to make friends and to feel like I belonged in my new school. It used to be very difficult for me to bond with people and to demonstrate any friendship or affection, but my teacher treated me with great kindness, warmth and understanding, without expecting me to respond in the same way. If she ever saw me sitting alone anywhere, she would come and talk to me and somehow she behaved like she loved talking to me even though I never said much in the beginning. And I remember that she would sometimes hug me without any reason. 

Boney Ma'am never missed any opportunity to show me that she loved me. For a long time, I was so quiet and withdrawn that I often seriously felt like I was invisible in school, and it was my teacher's untiring, persistent friendship and affection that made my life there for a large part of that year much happier than it would otherwise have been. 

She was very encouraging of my writing and I would show her all of my new poems. She would often make me recite them aloud in class, and once or twice she asked me when I would write a poem about her. After Boney Ma'am heard me speak during a class presentation, she tried hard to get me to talk publicly on stage on different occasions. But I would refuse each time and would not budge, no matter how much she tried to coax me and encourage me into doing it. I have always loved public speaking, but at that time I was too afraid to expose myself to the risk that would inevitably come with speaking before an audience in my new school. 

The second year, when I finally settled down and came out of my shell, Boney Ma'am had a serious talk with me about participating in the school's programs and activities. She asked me what she could do to finally get me to try something and I told her I would speak publicly if I could do a declamation of a famous speech in history. All my life, I've secretly loved oratory and I even used to recite historic speeches at home in front of my mirror. When Ma'am heard this, she said I could do a declamation of Nehru's Tryst With Destiny for our Independence Day program. The responsibility for hosting the celebrations actually went to the 6th std students and Boney Ma'am being their class teacher was in charge of organizing it. And even though it was only the students of her class who were supposed to be performing that day, she created that opportunity specially for me and let me have my chance along with them. But both my teacher and I were apprehensive of how I would do and she went out of her way to help me prepare. She took me to an empty classroom and I practiced my speech there. After I finished she would clap for me enthusiastically though we were all alone, and tell me there were goosebumps on her arms. She made me say it twice before my own class and finally she even took me to the huge auditorium where the actual event would be held and took great pains to listen to me practice again. When I finally performed the declamation on stage, it was a grand success and Boney Ma'am could not have been prouder or happier. She even called my mother secretly and told her that I had done a great job. My teacher had faith in me and what I could do, even when I found it difficult to muster up the courage to believe in myself. 

After that I spoke publicly quite a few times but I was still quite fearful and reluctant to try new things despite being encouraged to do so. It is only recently in the span of a year that I began taking risks and stepping out into the unknown. I've changed a lot from those days and I've done things I would have never imagined I could do. But I wish Boney Ma'am could have seen it all and enjoyed the fruit of her labour because I never got to share the last two years of my life with her or tell her everything that had happened to me. I had made plans to visit her after learning that she was sick, but she died before I could see her and talk to her and I really do wish that I could meet her just one more time.

But when I thought about it, I realized that it is not possible to hold on to the people we loved at various times in our lives, forever. We can only love, cherish and then let go. This is a difficult truth about life and perhaps some day in another world, it will finally make sense to us and our longings, heartaches and emptiness will be quenched and the purest joys of love eternally restored. 

All of us have either experienced death or will undoubtedly face it in the future. Recently, as I was reading something that one of our classmates wrote, a particular sentence struck me as being very profound. She said that she had 'underestimated' death. It is when my teacher died and I too had an encounter with death, that I understood the deep meaning behind this statement. All the people in this world live as if they are immortal. From our very childhood, we are groomed for the future and our adult lives as if the things we are chasing are imperishable and permanent. Money, status, fame, material accomplishments– we strive for them as if there is nothing more important in life. But in the face of death, all else pales and fades into oblivion. I found that death and its cold, grim finality makes a mockery of everything that the world holds most dear– riches, fame, honour and achievements. It laughs at and triumphs over all of these. But there is just one thing and only one that alone can outlive and outlast death. And that is love. There is a line from a marvel series that many of you must have watched: "What is grief, but love persevering?" Even our sorrow at a person's death is a powerful expression of our love for them, thereby proving that death can do nothing to eliminate love even after it has vanquished everything else. Elizabeth Elliott said, "Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; It can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that stands when all else has fallen!"

I also found, after my teacher's death, that the greatest legacy you can leave behind on this earth is the good that you have done toward others. At the time of death, it is unlikely that anyone will remember or give great importance to what you have accomplished– your degrees, your salary, your possessions etc. But you certainly will be remembered for the ways in which you touched people's lives. The lines of a famous song written to remember those who fell in the 1st World War, go like this, 

"Fading away like the stars in the morning,

Losing their light in the glorious sun.

Thus would we pass from this earth and its toiling,

Only remembered for what we have done.

Only the truth that in life we have spoken,

Only the seed that in life we have sown.

These shall pass onward when we are forgotten,

Only remembered for what we have done."

And then the last verse begins, "Who’ll sing the anthems and who’ll tell the story?"

Today, I am singing the anthem of my teacher's life and telling her story because of all that she did for me. When I thought back upon my memories of her, I was struck by one thing. Usually although we will have many happy and joyful memories of the people in our lives, there will also be a few sad or hurtful memories that creep into our minds. But I was surprised to find that whenever I thought of Boney Ma'am and our moments together, I only remember feeling happy, safe and loved. She had given me nothing but love, kindness and joy. 

I thought then that this was a beautiful legacy to leave behind after your death. If the people in our lives can say that they only have memories of how we loved them, brightened their lives and warmed their hearts, that is a great and admirable accomplishment. This is a noble and worthy goal to strive towards and although I know I am far from it, this is what I hope to fulfill in my life. For at the end of it all, all of us are going to be remembered only for what we have done, in the lives of others.

  

Is it Time to Redefine Education?

Margaret Mead said, "Children must be taught how to think, not what to think." If so, are we teaching our children to use knowledge to explore the boundaries of their intellect or are we teaching them to use knowledge simply as a means to ace exams and tests? 

As a rule, the Indian Education System is centred around testing. We have a rigid, structured syllabus that renders it impossible or at least extremely difficult for teachers to be creative or innovative in their teaching. The whole point of both teaching and learning is to write exams. This kind of exam-oriented education constraints and hinders learning, to say the least. 

Because all learning is thus oriented towards exams, we have made the biggest blunder of all. We have forgotten the very purpose of education- to hone the child's natural abilities, to enrich his intellect and enable him to think rationally and with creativity. Instead of focusing on the child, we have spent our energies on creating an inflexible system and expecting the child to live up to it.

I wonder how many children throughout the years have been damaged by the shortcomings of our school system and how many were unable to reach their true potential. How many dreams have been crushed and how many have lived their lives thinking they were failures? Sadly, our education system tries to make each child fit into a perfectly tailored box and any child who cannot be chiselled into shape is rejected and labelled.

What we especially fail to realise is that each child is uniquely different with different strengths, different aptitudes and interests, different perspectives and a singularly unique way of learning. In the face of this diversity, we simply cannot afford to practice inflexibility in education. In the words of Albert Einstein, " Everybody is a genius, but if you force a fish to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing that it is stupid."

When learning is child-oriented, educators can focus on the intellectual stimulation and enrichment of the child rather than on making him absorb the syllabus so that he can cough it up during exams. Moreover, flexibility will allow teachers to make lessons more interesting by using creative and out-of-the-box methods that can capture the child's interest. As opposed to the rigid and constricted atmosphere of exam-oriented learning, child-oriented learning can create an open and invigorating atmosphere which sparks genuine curiosity, discussion and intellectual arousal that truly teaches children how to think, and not what to think. 

Must we then do away with exams altogether? While the idea sounds attractive, it is certainly not practical. Children must be tested on what they have learnt and understood. What I propose is that exams must be considered not as the final goal or the purpose of learning but simply as a part of the process of education.

Today, what is necessitated is for us to evolve a better, if not perfect balance between all the elements of education, one made with the realisation that learning in itself is too significant and valuable to be overshadowed by something less important. 

Socrates spoke like a true philosopher when he said, " learning is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel." John F Kennedy said,"The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth." According to MarianWright, "Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it." None of these people who have done quite well in life seem to have said that the purpose of learning is to do well in exams! But then,maybe this is why Albert Einstein comments,"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

Do we then not have a responsibility to ensure that the education that our children receive kindles a flame in them instead of interfering with their learning? Let us then refuse to conform to the outdated and impractical norms of our education system but rather call for a complete redefinition of what education truly is.