Representational Pic
The meaning of contraception here is not literal, but metaphoric. Disturbed by an abnormal trend of breeding amongst the poor, a school of sociologists sees a creative role education can play in such societies. Since their child-bearing and child-rearing capacities are pathetically disproportionate, they need to control their number. Those who can’t afford a meal for themselves only produce children to let them die of hunger. Such people need some immediate measures. There are experts who suggest not to emasculate these poor and hungry, but to educate them. Once they are educated, they will themselves see where lies their profit and where loss?
Our debate here is not family planning, but nation building. What concerns us is the universal value of education. It’s a single and the most assured treatment to all our ailments. Collective and individual, political and social, cultural and religious – concepts are inherent in our sense of being educated. Education is the key that will unlock the treasures for us.
We are a typical people and ours is a uniquely woven society. Whenever we broach education as a subject, it evokes suspicion. Suspicion that education is used as a distraction (which can’t always be so). Suspicion that education is a red herring deliberately projected to dissuade us from our political sentiments (which can be a situational response and can’t every time be the case). Therein lies our tragedy. We see our national aspirations opposite to our educational goals.
All our worries are rooted in our ignorance. We as a people need light to see things as they are. It’s only a sprit to educate that can lead us to emancipation which is the soul of freedom. There is no doubt that we have been occupied, dominated and suppressed for decades and we stand mentally and intellectually stifled. But what better and what more liberating a solution to our problems is there than to educate ourselves and make education as a movement. By education we don’t mean a strait-jacketed regime we call curriculum, by education we mean a larger goal that nations propose for themselves and follow it relentlessly. An enterprise to liberate our minds not from one kind of slavery but from all kinds of slaveries. This education is to be seen beyond literacy. Literacy is a means, not the end. All our educational institutional starting from schools to colleges to universities have to be the agencies of change. Education is to be seen and understood beyond conflict, beyond dispute. Let disputes be contested, but let’s not make our land a fertile ground for ignorance. No matter we seek freedom or not, no matter where do our aspirations lead us to and no matter what fruit our resistance is going to bear, there is one thing that will and must remain constant. That is education. Our hunger to educate our nation must not end even if we are starved of all rights. The day we learn to set apart education from the rest will be the day we celebrate freedom.
[“Source-greaterkashmir”]
