Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Life Without take off

Speaking from personal experience let me put it this way: People who are deprived of a quality education right in time have their lives never started.It applies even for the fortunate ones endowed with inborn wisdom.
It is a vicious cycle - ignorance leading to all manifestations of deprivation.
A human being suffers on both counts- intrinsically as well as extrinsically for lack of proper early education.
I attach special meaning to our right towards proper and quality basic education which is being denied.to majority of the population. Victims are children who lack power to enforce this right. Their so called spokesmen are the real villains.
No education is far better than bogus or fraudulent or evil education.
A  school which has teachers who do everything except educating. A teacher who utters something  not even remotely connected to text book or knowledge and pretends to teach only on hearing the approaching footsteps of Head Master with a long stick.A teacher who spends entire time in self praise.A teacher who only educates for students enrolled for private tuition. A teacher who supplies answer sheets to tuition students or leaks question paper.
A teacher who teaches good moral values by taking you to a nearby village Meela vittan from Tuticorin and instructs you to tell parents and HM that you were taken to Vaigai Dam for picnic.THUS and in this process
The student gets kicked up to tenth standard where he finally faces the Government Exams.Now prophecies are made one after the other by so called elders on the impending disasters and traumatic failure awaiting the youngster.
It is these elders who are suckers who fail to see talents for the children are not imparted uniformly.
That is the vicious cycle. Ignorance breeds ignorance.
Why we had forced family planning sometime back? Knowing well it  never works that way?t is obviously because of the reason that we lacked the awareness that having a small family will prevent production of  educationallyDISABLED persons.Newly added members in the already overpopulated families confront stark realities of fraudulent or bogus education.
When we speak of justice and when we speak of freedom let us realise we have none of it in a environment that does not guarantee quality education for its citizens.(Individuals cannot enable this) A person without quality education is not expected to contribute good to the society. He himself is threatened with extinction. There is no place for expressing true sense of freedom of thought speech belief and action.There is no scope for broadening one"s objectives and his social commitments. And hence there is no take off in his life. There is no meaning for such life.

Monday, April 18, 2011

LINGERING INJUSTICE

                                Successive Governments and Judicial Institutions continue to cover up the gross discrimination perpetrated against minority Dalits in the name of their religious affliation.This  has been excellently brought out in a recently published White Paper By Mr.A.M.M.S.Xavier a noted writer thinker and social activist who belongs not to the group that has been discriminated against.


Humanity has never ever encountered such preposterous and cruel stratification of human beings which paved way for perpetual subjugation and inhuman life. The author of the White Paper has unfolded the sad tale: of how  the occupiers relegating the dirtiest jobs to Natives and then call them dirty and designate them as untouchables.

To cut a long story short I am asking this question: Don"t the Governments and Judiciary know that no religion that came after Hinduism has suceeded to address or cure this malaise and rotten disease which is worse than AIDs? The disease inherited by us and deeply rooted to our culture and environment for many thousands of years. Are we really fools to beleive that those thousand years habit is done away with sixty years of religious identification. I dont think so.

All of us are either victims or culprits one way or the other for poisonous and vicious cycle of shame passing on from one generation to another. We have still not found any clue for nipping in the bud the very tendency of caste identity.

I can recall my first day in Government Office.I was overwhelmed by the spontaneous affection shown by my
casteist colleague by welcoming me with  an embrace which hardly I realised was intended to locate if I am wearing my holy thread! Nor have I for gotten how my good friend Jana took me to his house for a cup of coffee much to the disapproval of his mother who did not hesitate to sprinkle water and did cleansing ritual even  before I could leave the place!
In denying the justice for dalit minority of whichever religion it could be, one cannot rule out vindication of religious fundamentalism as justifiable if pursued by Majority.

Matsyanyaya is a concept well accepted by law makers  where a big fish can devour small fish.
It is a legitimate right of majority to exterminate the minority according to the concept.

Prof.;Amartyasen * I have discussed this in one of my blogs*  in his "Idea of Justice" has brought out the excellent theme of right way of rendering justice. Politicians and Judges are required to meditate over this priniciple.

Amartyasen says in classic Sanskrit it is called Niti(In Tamil NEETHI) and Nyaya ( NIYAYAM in Tamil).
True rendering of Justice is by rendering Nyaya . As Plato has envisaged one who is possessing high degree of social awareness sense of justice,purest noblest and most righteous  will see what is happening to actual lives of the people than interpreting statutes.Failing which as one English Judge remarked in 18 th century "your judgment may be right but reasons are certainly wrong.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Walking backward

This write up describes an early experience or first encounter with Powers that be. One who is drunken with power becomes a monster. The powers are half legal and half illegal. The whole world knows this. It inevitably makes one unjust and unprincipled.Your henchmen are all your yes men. In that process you destroy all and sundry who don't matter to you.

Such violent deaths of basic rights of ordinary people and encroachment on their freedom of existence is caused by pursuing policy of favouritism which is nothing but worst form of corruption which invariably results in corruption of moral values in human life.

This is a case of a vice chancellor which office he earned as a political appointment through his M.P. relative in the ruling party those days.With unlimited powers vested with him as first Vice Chancellor (with Statutes and Regulations of the Varsity yet to be written) this all powerful "vice" chancellor misused his position day in and day out to remove people and bring his stooges to significant position.

An youngster was directly reporting to this tyrant; one who is supposed to write out many of his illegal orders.The youngster is conscientious filled with ethical integrity. But definitely not clever not smart not practical.It was Emergency which he had forgotten that there is no fundamental right and there is no right to approach Court of law .
These  days PhD are earned at Libraries.Relevant Doctors know this. I have no need to elaborate.In order to bring his own man to this post of Chief Librarian Gazetted Post they say) this "vice" chancellor issued orders of dismissal to  one handicapped Librarian who was highly qualified and highly experienced than the stooge of this man. Reason for dismissal: having lost a book in this Varsity library containing millions of books.

Youngster rose up in revolt. He organised Union and addressed meetings.Employees came with great support. A hunger strike was organised. But the dismissal order was not withdrawn. Instead the youngster was packed to a distant destination as punishment transfer while he had a kid of three months old. He was later reduced in rank to the post he originally joined eight years back through Public Service Commission.The youngster left the job in disgust.

This is story of an youngster who cannot compromise in his principles even an inch to avoid displeasing others but this is how his adventurous mission  open defiance and rebellion attitude was crushed to pieces.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Values

This piece of writing is dedicated to my Grandchildren Karen Christopher and Mila Mendez.

Everyone of us has a value system. Despite various things happen in course of our lives, we cling to them as a child clings to her mother.It so happened that agnostic cum atheist and down to the earth rationalistic approach to problems of life have  become second nature to many of us probably because of reasons that thinking and liberal environment in which we were born  or brought up with, i am not sure . But deep inside, one is always reminded by a value system a conscience keeper placing a check in each of our moves in this ever competitive world- the inner voice to tell you and warn you to act above utter selfishness, retrace your steps reform yourself and to find out alternative path that brings purity of your character and inner harmony to your life.
From where this value system has originated?

Digging deeper I realise that these values have been fed into my system by my mother.From where she got these values? I have to unambiguously and whole heartedly confide with you that these are Christian Values.
I was constantly reminded of these values by her not directly but indirectly in her daily conversation with Jesus -an impromptu family prayer that was a daily ritual in my childhood.

We are prone to mistakes.We are all  made that way.Christian values recognise this and help us end this vicious cycle.

Christian values for the first time in the history of mankind solves this vexed issue of helplessness on the part of the man who feels guilty about mistakes he has committed and does not know how to proceed further.

First of all forgiving a sinner was unthinkable in our pastoral past. We have now come to realise that selfish gene or self preservation is a defence mechanism built upon us by our genes culture and environment.
We are driven by this mad instinct pursuing our lives with greed jealousy anger and endless fighting.
But the defence mechanism we understand that is put in place to prolong the human race in this planet.We do not actually fulfil this objective by drawing borders of nation or religion or ideology and wage war against one another to bring human race into extinction.
.We have often misinterpreted our selfish instincts to pursue mindless egoistic path regardless of the injustices we commit in that process to
rest of our brethren .The ethical bias within ourselves make us commit more and more sins and we continue to fail in compassion and indulge in self pity.

Christian values make you realise this! It does not stop there. It offers magical solution to enable us to come out of this mess! Man by virtue of having been endowed with natural instincts of self preservation is bound to commit sin. Christianity understood the need to guide him away from this vicious cycle of reward or price system in this world.A huge difference has to come , a huge effort is to be made in this direction to alter this mindset.

Christian Values offer repentance and forgiveness as two indispensable tools to end the cycle.To close the old account and start a new account in our lives on any point of time.
Christian Values allow and enable this process of making a new beginning.We repent our mistakes and ask those to whom we have erred against and ask them to forgive us.We also unilaterally and unconditionally forgive those on whom we have grudges imaginary or real and ask them to help us to open new account.In the new account only profits get transferred which are good and noble thoughts. Losses got liquidated by forgiveness and will not find a place in our new balance sheet of our life.

In  unconditional terms I do this now.By doing this I wish to carry forward this value from my mother to the next generation this  priceless value which has given real significance to the noblest soul who gave up his life  for this one and only cause many thousand years back.