Pin Drop Silence

Tony Blair was the Prime Minister of UK then. I vividly remember watching the news that day. Nothing out of the ordinary. He was visiting a school in one of the London Boroughs. He walked alongside a bunch of children, tweeny teeny kids. They were chatting as if he was just another guy from the neighborhood. It was a certainly a culture shock for me, who had just moved to this new country from India. What is it about schools that suddenly makes your spine go straight, to the point of being stiff.

Things have definitely changed. It is heartwarming that the next generation kids in India are more confident, questioning and sans inhibitions. Learning blossoms where there is no fear.

It is precisely why the news of our PM addressing the kids in schools on Teacher's Day triggers mixed feelings. It is a welcome sign that the Prime Minister of our nation wants to interact with the future generation. It will be a vocational training session. So many from the audience would want to be PMs in future. It will also be inspiring and educational.

What is disturbing is the atmosphere created around the whole episode, the language used in the directorate of education circular, the strict instructions given to the teachers and administrators to make the necessary arrangements. For example, schools with no electricity,  have been told to hire generators and  screens to telecast the PM speech live, just for that duration. The least it brings out is a laugh, a wry laugh that is.

Much has been politicized about this event. The HRD minister calling it 'voluntary' for schools to participate, the tone of the circular notwithstanding. The DMK chief Karunanidhi's objection on "Guru Utsav" term being used as being hegemonic. TMC ignoring the directive, and planning to go ahead with its own program in West Bengal. Media too has debated the issue in detail.

One thing nobody seems to have noticed is the precedent we are setting for the children of our country. Day in and day out, they face a lot of compulsions at school. Freedom of expression, freedom to talk, walk, run around, is thwarted by a single expression 'pin drop silence'. So much so that it echoes in their subconscious mind through their grown up years. The silence that exists in the present government, its cabinet and ministers could be a reflection of the same.

Children are individuals, and we as a country have a long to way to go to realize that. Wait in school for extended hours, follow discipline, listen to the live telecast, ignore those rumblings in the tummy for which no arrangements have been mentioned in the circular.One school has gone a step ahead and decided to evaluate and grade students on the content of the speech in upcoming tests. Why not give them a space to breathe. They can choose to watch the speech in their own time.

When Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was leaving to join as a professor in Calcutta he was taken all the way from Mysore University to the Railway Station in a flower decked carriage pulled by his students. Later he became the President of India. Teacher's Day is celebrated on his birthday. Which direction are we pulling our children, is a question we could ask ourselves.