Student Indiscipline

M K Ratnakar
Some recent happenings at a number of university campuses in India  like  JNU , Delhi , Hyderabad university or NIT , Srinagar , Kashmir  ,  has highlighted the fact that  indiscipline amongst our students has assumed the magnitude of a national problem and requires to be handled as such .
It is no longer merely an academic problem which many of us may opine , because their indiscipline is not restricted to a university campus only , but it can upset a government or seriously dislocate the normal administrative machinery . During the last some months, it has become  a permanent feature of our national  life .
Students are a part and parcel of a society they live in and it will be totally unrealistic if we view them as a community which is insulated from the powerful impact of its environment . They are also carried forward like any other citizen of the country on the stream of national affairs .
This is especially true of a country like India where students at one time were a spearhead of the nationalist struggle for independence and today the same community is exposed to almost all the types of media influences, good and bad  and the vital and very important political influences from almost every political party of the country . So , it becomes necessary to study the problem of student indiscipline in the context of post independence history and the political and media influences of today on their minds .
After independence an unscrupulous scramble for power and wealth began and most of the people who had participated in the freedom struggle tried to cash in what they had done or even not done for the nation . Trading in patriotism and even religion and caste became and has remained till this day the most flourishing means of exploitation and  living in India .
Old ideals disappeared, the new ones , those of planned economic progress and social and economic equality and freedom failed to inspire loyalty in the country . This created an idealistic vacuum , in which corrupt and all sorts of disruptive forces got free and unrestricted hand and field to play the game of their interest
The disastrous failure of the new ideals to ignite the fire in the mind of the Indian  people became the saddest thing to happen in the history of India during the last more than one and a half decade . Corruption , scams of every sort  and graft have grown year after year and the administrative machinery of the government has become weaker and weaker  and inefficient to discharge the burden of the growing activities of the state .
The other most important feature which has both created and aggravated the situation is the sudden rise of newly rich class during the same period  . During these years economic activities were remarkably accelerated, prices shot up to a crushing height and profiteering and black marketing flourished on an unprecedented scale .
This unscrupulous and uncivilized class of rich,  whose main purpose is to amass wealth by any means  cheat and  deceive the  common man of the society or corrupt any officer / department of the government  and also exploit the poorest of the poor of the society for money . They not only earn money by deceitful means , but they  even harass the well educated , honest and learned .  What I mean to say is that as a result of corrupt and deceitful  practices with no respect for the law of the land , this culture of newly rich people with the generous patronage of the different departments of the government , the old honest educated  class who has appreciation of our rich culture and are highly disciplined has disappeared and this new class has stepped in their shoes .
The people are so fed up , frustrated , embittered and disillusioned that all the tall talk of our politicians and rulers about the ideas and achievements of their government sound terribly hollow and insincere. A feeling of apathetic resignation prevails in the country .
Though people can write directly to the Prime Minister of India , Mr Narender Modi  regarding their grievance and the Prime Minister of India has launched pmindia.gov.in and there is other grievance portal namely pgportal.gov.in in addition to other ways of making your grievances known to Prime Minister of India / Chief Ministers of the state and other departmental heads , but unfortunately the grievances of the people find place in the dustbins of the departmental heads or are being tossed from one desk to the other with an idea to shift the responsibility from one officer to the other and the same leaves the complainant high and dry
In an atmosphere which breeds despair and irresponsibility , the youthful energy of students fails to find any creative expression in it . Lack of idealism makes them an easy prey to the evil designs of unscrupulous politicians of our country who are found in abundance and at every place trying to find one and every opportunity to exploit the youth on the pretext of one or any reason , even not hesitating  to sell the idea of making Bhagat Singh out of Kanhaya ; the bouncing vigor and vitality of youth bursts into bouts of riotous activities wherever and whenever the same find a demand .
Approximately , in the last two decades , politics ,with its restless pursuit of power came to dominate the public life in India .Besides what became more unfortunate for the country that all the politicians irrespective of the party which they belong to ,  willfully forget that there is a code of conduct even in the political field and do not hesitate to stoop too low where national interest has no meaning . To speak ” Bharat Mata Ki Jai ” becomes a sentence for all the politicians to play with . The media , particularly the electronic media does not lag behind and to run their shops they invite experts or supposed to be experts from any and every field including the religious Gurus to have endless verbal fights which sometimes end in physical fights in the studios of these media houses itself . As a result ,confusion and anarchy born of a ruthless conflict of highly  motivated selfish interests prevail in all fields of life .
Very clearly , when we castigate students for indiscipline , why do we forget that it is merely a part of wider indiscipline which prevails all around us ? As such , it is useless to preach to them the virtue of discipline . Politicians , irrespective of the party or the religion they belong fully know about the appropriate timings to ignite the flame in the minds of the students to make the students act in such a way which can defame the government and the country not nationally , but at international level as well . Our leaders , especially those leaders and politicians who are the most powerful and vocal among them with a firm footing of the religion at their back and who are conspicuously lacking in virtue exploit the people particularly the student community to their best use . They preach what they want to with great apparent fervor even if the same is detrimental to the unity and integrity of the country . The politicians  also know that there is total inaction on the part of the government as there is total inaction on the public grievances .In an interview to Pakistan television , one of our senior politicians says that Modi is an impediment to Indo – Pak relations on which he was asked about the solution for the same . He without mincing words very clearly said , “MODI HATAO ,”. There and then came a befitting reply from the anchor , ” that is your job , not ours  , “. These politicians who call themselves as very senior leaders are not ashamed of their actions . Why should a leader of India speak against his country and the Prime Minister of his country on a foreign land ?
These politicians  are also fully aware that media houses in order to run their shows will pick up  some words spoken by them , whether spoken in a particular context or not and will play upon these words again and again for days together and hold endless discussions with experts from known or  unknown fields to speak on what the politician said and what did he mean by saying what he said ? The politicians thereafter enjoy these TV shows at their homes watching the supposed to be fools holding discussions on not so important words or points . What I mean to say is that , it is an open secret that our unscrupulous politicians and unscrupulous media people as well who were a party to it after failing to achieve something out of coining of words  like ” Intolerance ” and  “Award Wapsi” have turned to student community to incite them to acts of indiscipline to serve their narrow ends .
India is passing through a crisis of culture today . The old social and economic structure has totally disintegrated and the painful process of transition has already begun . Continuous desire for an ever rising standard of living has released forces of materialism with such vehemence that it has become very difficult to check its unhealthy effects . Grabbing , looting , cheating and the deceit to amass wealth has become the order of the day . Show of wealth irrespective of the source has become the password of the families.
There is widespread corruption every where . Influential connections rather than the ability have become the criterion for success everywhere . Copying is rampart in the examination halls . This has created an anguish of frustration and injustice among the younger generation .
The figures of unemployment keep on mounting in spite of all economic planning and the continuous inflationary rise in prices have merely aggravated the situation and introduced a tormenting sense of insecurity in their lives . While the students are not directly touched by the situation , they cannot escape being  affected by its oppressive influence which enters their lives in hundred indirect ways .
Thus , the problem of indiscipline  among our students requires to be viewed as a part of larger problem . This does not mean that the people and the existing government should sit tight about it and do nothing ,  but it definitely indicates that students are not entirely responsible for what they are doing .
(The author is former Deputy Director General, Doordarshan)
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