Unscientific approach to language continues to keep the tree ugly

The science of linguistics exposes this flaw, and can help make the system truly beautiful!

Okay, now on to the second flaw which made the tree ugly. I have already said what it is, in brief: it is the flaw of applying highly unscientific methods in language education and in the medium of instruction, most conspicuous in South India. I have also argued that this is an offshoot of the first flaw in some sense, and that most commentators on Indigenous Indian Education have failed to see this because of being either ignorant or repentant of the inherent linguistic differences between North Indian and South Indian languages. Also, it was the British who seem to have recorded the first negative criticism about these unscientific methods, while we Indians seemed to be very happy living in the darkness which had dissolved reason. I am referring to the responses to Governor Thomas Munro's educational survey of the Madras Presidency in 1822-26. An understanding of this second flaw is all the more important today since it continues to plague today's education system.

I wish to add a disclaimer, once more, that I can only speak for education in the Kannada medium in terms of this second flaw, because as a Kannadiga it is Kannada and the Kannadigas that I have studied most. This does not mean that this second flaw did not (or does not) corrupt education of the speakers of other South Indian languages - I believe it very likely did (and continues to do). However, it is the task of my friends in the other South Indian states to take up this research and ascertain for themselves to what extent this did corrupt their education systems before the British, and if it continues to corrupt today. I believe Tamil Nadu is somewhat relieved from this second flaw today, although it has at its own peril become a linguistic island - a decadence which could have been avoided by, again, nothing other than the application of reason.

If I may hazard a guess, this second flaw was probably not so much a corrupting agent when it came to education in the languages of North India, and could have been easily overlooked by those (especially North Indians) who either ignored or repented the linguistic diversity of India in a rush to display undivided Indian unity to our colonizing power. Once one realizes two things - (1) that South Indian languages belong to the family of Dravidian languages while most North Indian languages belong to the family of Indo-Aryan languages (of which Sanskrit is an early example), and (2) that Sanskrit was heavily employed in high-schools in both North and South India, it is possible to mentally simulate the existence of this second flaw in South India.

Let me describe what this flaw was, a bit in detail.

First of all, it is a fact that nearly all elementary schools in South India imparted (or tried to impart) education in what the British described as vernacular languages - meaning languages such as Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, etc. Thus, Kannadiga children first went to Kannada-medium schools. These schools were basically privately run - as Prof. Tooley has rediscovered - and taught (or tried to teach) basic reading, writing and arithmetic using Kannadized versions of Ramayana and Mahabharata. The teachers in these schools were almost always poor Brahmins far removed from the secular sciences, and only a few were rich Brahmins deriving state funding (i.e., funding from the King).

High-schools, on the other hand, were devoted to "higher learning" which basically meant the study of more advanced Sanskrit religious texts, and unanimously used Sanskrit as the medium of instruction. The students in them were all Brahmin students, and certainly so the teachers. Readers will recall that the non-secular form of education before the British introduced their system is the first flaw I have discussed at length here, and that the social exclusion of non-Brahmin students in high-schools is a much-researched evil of Indigenous Indian Education. I will not revisit this evil again in this article, since it has now been fortunately eradicated by the secularization of education, a process begun by the British and gladly continued by free India. Suffice it to say that the entire elementary school system was singularly focused towards preparing Brahmin boys (yes, not girls, not students of other castes) for high-school which taught religion instead of this-worldly sciences.

Most researchers are content to note that nearly all elementary schools for Kannadigas were run in the Kannada medium, and do not probe into the quality of the imparted education. Chest-thumping my-country-right-or-wrong nationalists never tire of pointing out that indigenous Indian education did care for Kannada (they also erroneously believe that the British were the ones who neglected Indian languages like Kannada - a total distortion of facts which I have somewhat addressed here). But they fail to realize that the two flaws described here rendered those schools really ugly. The second flaw - which is the subject of this article - so severely distorted the Kannada they taught, that the chest-thumping appears in vain to a student of Kannada linguistics to whom it is clear that indigenous Indian education was utterly unscientific when it came to the teaching of Kannada.

Even Prof. Tooley in his 2009 book does not question the quality of the indigenous schools before the British, and only asks how economically the schools were run (as if economy is synonymous with quality!). Actually, I'm not blaming Tooley here - he is perhaps justified in making the quality assumption because our own Indian researchers, educators, politicians and philosophers have fallen prey to the exact same mistake.

Was reading and writing effectively taught in those elementary Kannada-medium schools? Did the students who attended those elementary schools graduate with good reading and writing skills in Kannada? The answer is an emphatic no, as recorded by Collector A. D. Campbell of Bellary (whose statements have lived in the blind spot of most researchers, including Tooley). This is what Campbell wrote in reply to Governor Thomas Munro's educational survey:

The whole of the books, however, in the Teloogoo and Carnataca schools, which are by far the most numerous in this district, whether they treat of religion, amusement, or the principles of these languages, are in verse; and in a dialect quite distinct from that of conversation and business. The alphabets of the two dialects are the same, and he who reads the one, can read, but not understand, the other also. The natives, therefore, read these (unintelligible) books to them, to acquire the power of reading letters, in the common dialect of business; but the poetical is quite distinct from the prose dialect, which they speak and write; and though they read these books, it is to the pronunciation of the syllables, not to the meaning or construction of the words, that they attend. Indeed few teachers can explain, and still fewer scholars understand, the purport of the numerous books which they thus learn to repeat from memory. Every school boy can repeat verbatim a vast number of verses, of the meaning of which, he knows no more than the parrot that has been taught to utter certain words. Accordingly, from studies, in which he has spent many a day of laborious, but fruitless toil, the native scholar gains no improvement, except the exercise of memory and the power to read and write on the common business of life; he makes no addition to his stock of useful knowledge, and acquires no moral impressions. He has spent his youth in reading syllables, not words, and, on entering into life, he meets with hundreds and thousands of books of the meaning of which he can form not even the most distant conjecture, and as to the declension of a noun, or the conjugation of a verb, he knows no more than of the most abstruse problem in Euclid. It is not to be wondered at, with such an imperfect education, that, in writing a common letter to their friends, orthographical errors and other violations of grammar, may be met with in almost every line written by a native.

It is easy for the aforementioned chest-thumping my-country-right-or-wrong nationalists to discard the above as the racist remarks of a colonial officer, but such discarding would be a terrible mistake. Why? Because what Campbell says in the above paragraph is true even to this day in Karnataka. Again, this can only be sensed by those who are ready to approach Kannada linguistics with a scientific bent of mind. It would be also wrong to discard the above paragraph selectively, as is often done (the Macaulay example is here), and happily admit, as both Dharampal and Tooley do, as gospel truth Campbell's own praise for the economical nature of the schools (with writing on sand and monitors assisting teachers in the class). Such are the blinding ways of a my-country-right-or-wrong ideology, or in the case of Tooley, the lack of understanding of the nitty-gritty of the Kannada language in particular and South Indian languages in general.

Tooley - to be fair to him - rejects Campbell's report not because of any my-country-right-or-wrong ideology, but because he doesn't provide a Microsoft Excel table with data on schools like the other collectors did. The only thing I have to say here is that objective information is not the only valid information for a researcher. Subjective information is very important, and much of Sociology rests on such information. Yes, there would be reason to doubt subjective information if it is not backed by science or experience, but Campbell's subjective statements have the backing of the science of linguistics - something I don't see Tooley being too concerned about or well-versed in - as well as experience which is available even to this day if one were to see with open eyes. One needs to be doubly blinded - by ignorance of Kannada linguistics (and Dravidian linguistics in general) and a my-country-right-or-wrong ideology to not see with such open eyes.

Although Campbell was clearly unaware of the reasons why few teachers can explain, and still fewer scholars understand, the purport of the numerous books which they thus learn to repeat from memory, or why it is to the pronunciation of the syllables, not to the meaning or construction of the words, that students attended to, to him goes the credit of at least identifying that such was the pitiable nature of language instruction. While Campbell points out that students spent their youth in reading syllables, not words, he does not enquire into the reasons why it was so. Let me paraphrase what Campbell saw, for brevity: He basically saw that students spent most of their youth in reading syllables and "perfecting" their pronunciation. He saw that they were committing many, many verses to memory, but were unable to understand what those verses meant. In fact, even the teachers were unable to understand what they meant - although it was all supposed to be Kannada!

And what makes Campbell's observation all the more relevant is that the exact same flaw exists in the Kannada-medium education system today, although we have moved from verse to prose.

Today, we know why the status of education in Kannada (and Telugu, but I leave it to the speakers of that language) schools was as pitiable as Campbell describes. But many deny the science on whose basis we know why it was so, and their my-country-right-or-wrong attitude, mixed with the age-old bias that everything any Britisher ever said is racist, even prevents them from acknowledging that it was so, let alone understand why it was so. Because these people decide the content provided through the Kannada-medium education system even today, the Kannada medium education system continues to be a system where students spend their youth in reading syllables, not words and few teachers can explain, and still fewer scholars understand, the purport of the numerous books which they thus learn to repeat from memory.

The science on whose basis we know why Campbell saw what he saw, and why the same can be seen in Kannada-medium schools today, is linguistics. Of course, I could also argue that the lack of appreciation for diversity, and the urge to neglect or even look down upon it, is by itself an important reason. This latter reason can prevent many from recognizing that the problem existed or exists today. It is not the objective of this article or within my field of expertise to go into the details of Kannada linguistics here, but I will give a summary of what I have learnt from the great linguist Dr. D. N. Shankar Bhat who has devoted a good portion of his life for solving some age-old problems in Kannada linguistics - problems which date back to thousands of years ago. We at Banavasi Balaga are fortunate to be working very closely with Dr. Bhat in some of his recent research, and learning from him things which have been obscured from the knowledge of Kannadigas for thousands of years.

To summarize the message of Kannada linguistics which lends credibility to Campbell's subjective statements, and explain the low quality of Kannada-medium textbook content even to this day, then, it is this: Kannada is a language which is very unlike Sanskrit. Yet, Sanskrit had a very dominant influence on Kannada, its alphabet, and unfortunately also on those who wrote Kannada grammar. And of course, as already pointed out, this was the language to be used in high-schools for Kannadigas anyway. While Kannada grammar in reality is very, very different from that of Sanskrit, even to this day, the former is taught to be a subset of the latter. Many alphabets in the Kannada language, even to this day, are not needed by Kannada and have been introduced in order to write Sanskrit words as they are written in Devanagari. Also, Sanskrit words have been a little too profusely used in Kannada literature (especially in religious literature), however difficult they may be for Kannadigas to pronounce them (for e.g. the maha-pranas). It was considered as a defect of the Kannadiga tongue to be unable to pronounce Sanskrit words by schools then and is considered by schools now. Thus, the unscientific overabundance of the influence of Sanskrit in the alphabet, words, as well as in the grammar of Kannada had rendered the Kannada taught by schools then to be unintelligible to Kannadigas themselves (as Campbell observes). Thus, the use of Sanskrit where un-necessary had rendered the Kannada taught in the schools before the British unintelligible to Kannadigas themselves. And instead of reforming the education system, the schools seemed to have deemed the students too stupid to be able to pronounce Kannada, their own language.

The pity is, of course, that this is the status even today - nearly 200 years after Campbell wrote his letter to Munro.

And yes, we at Banavasi Balaga are devoted to removing this flaw from the Kannada education system. Coming back to Tooley's book, I'd like to end this series by saying that the second flaw - of highly unscientific methods in language education and in the medium of instruction - rendered the indigenous education system of Kannadigas before the British ugly. The tree, as far as I can see it, was ugly and not beautiful, and continues to be ugly even to this date due to this second flaw. The good news is - as long as one is committed to work towards transforming the status quo by approaching it with a scientific outlook - something which has been missing from the ages in the field of Kannada linguistics and Kannada-medium education - the future is bright.

<< Part 3

Neglect of secular education made the tree ugly

That education system which imparted religious education at the cost of sowing the poisonous seed of neglect of this-worldly sciences in Kannadigas is not beautiful. It is the embodiment of ugliness.

In the previous article, I argued that two flaws severely limited the quality of India's indigenous education system before the British, and that one of them continues to do so even today. In this article I will go into detail about the first flaw, which can be called as the neglect of secular education. Note that by this term, I mean the neglect of this-worldly sciences. I do not mean that principles of all religions should have been taught (to mean this is actually a corruption of the term secular)! This flaw characterized education all over what is called India today before the British took over the education system.

Gladly, this first flaw no longer persists in today's education system, and I'd say mainly due to India's brush with western civilization - what Tagore called as western society. Why talk about this flaw when it no longer persists? For two reasons: one, to clarify history; and two, because although this flaw does not persist any more, teaching methods and instruments used when this flaw plagued India are still in vogue. In fact, I could argue that the second flaw goes hand in hand with the first, and persists because of the hangover of the first.

The second flaw, for those looking for a summary, is the flaw of an unscientific approach towards language education and medium of instruction. When I talk about this flaw, I have only Karnataka in mind but much of what there is to say about this flaw is applicable to the whole of South India.

This second flaw continues to plague the education system in Karnataka today. However, I cannot claim this of other states, because my knowledge of the quality of education in other Indian states (that too, those outside South India) is negligible. Based on the little I know, I can only conjecture that the situation is possibly very similar in all South Indian states because all the major South Indian languages belong to the family of Dravidian languages which has nothing to do with Sanskrit (which was generously used in South Indian schools, especially high schools). Tamil Nadu, very likely, is not plagued by this second flaw any more, although that state is making a mistake in trying to completely isolate itself from the influence of other languages.

Most philosophers, educationists and politicians who have made sweeping claims about the "high quality" of education in the whole of India before the British (such as M. K. Gandhi, Dharampal and now Prof. Tooley) have been either ignorant or repentant of the linguistics of South Indian languages, and have therefore overlooked the second flaw. The first one is easy to overlook if one is blinded by the need to portray everything in Indian history as golden. India is big and mindbogglingly diverse, and eludes the knowledge of its tallest leaders and brightest thinkers. But I digress; I will return to the second flaw in the next article.

Returning to the first flaw, the first thing to note about it is this: it is difficult for us - I mean the post-independence generation - to imagine an education system where only religious and ethical education is imparted. It is difficult for us to imagine not having secular education, not having to learn basic mathematics and science in elementary school. Yet, this was exactly the case in elementary schools all over India.

I have no doubt that M. K. Gandhi actually referred to this first flaw - beautiful in his mind - when he described indigenous Indian education as a beautiful tree. To Gandhi, I am sure, India's education system was beautiful because it inculcated mainly religious and ethical principles in students, whereas the British "uprooted that whole system" and replaced it with secular education. Gandhi would rather have schools teach the principle of Ahimsa and spin Khadi using medieval apologies to spinning instruments instead of studying Calculus or Thermodynamics (as an aside, I'd like to point out that Rabindranath Tagore differed with Gandhi bitterly here). He probably considered as literate anybody and everybody who could tell the tale of the Pandavas in Mahabharata. That's religious education to be sure, but that's not what the world calls as literacy.

I must hasten to add that I have nothing against religious education as long as it does not eclipse secular education, i.e., education in this-worldly sciences. I understand that Gandhi's primary objective was to actually move youth away from this-worldly sciences so that they can completely subjugate themselves to the ideal of India's independence; perhaps he could not have done better, but the point to note here is that we did not have secular education before the British came! This-worldly sciences were considered too inferior to be taught at schools all over what is called India today, and religious education was considered the only true education. Even reading and writing were taught using religious texts such as Ramayana and Mahabharata all over India. In fact, workers who indulged in their own secular professions saw no need for literacy, since literacy was so linked to religious education. If the Kannada alphabet is meant for studying Ramayana and Mahabharata, it does not benefit a potter or farmer in his professional pursuit. For him to be motivated to send his children to learn the alphabet, the education system needs to be secular, it needs to show the promise of a better this-worldly life. Religious education is good, thank you, but the blacksmith needs a better life in the here and now first. Since schools couldn't provide it, the gap between the schools (together with the Brahmins who taught therein) and him was never bridged.

Many have described the singular focus of indigenous Indian schools on religious education as a beautiful aspect of Indian culture. But it is time, now, to question whether that is beauty at all. I would not describe as beautiful anything which threatens to wipe out Kannadigas from the face of this planet, for that is what ignorance of this-worldly sciences shall ultimately achieve. Kannadigas cannot, and must not all attain Moksha by way of Sanyaasa at once; nay, we must live here, bound to this very earth, and live great lives of comfort in the here and now! That education system which imparted religious education at the cost of sowing the poisonous seed of neglect of this-worldly sciences in Kannadigas is not beautiful (nor is it fully compliant with Indian philosophy). It is very, very, very ugly. That education system is not of a high quality, however economical the methods of instruction might have been. It is of a very low quality. Personally, I am convinced that neglect of this-worldly sciences can arise only due to a misreading of our great Indian scriptures. The Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita do not ask people to neglect this-worldly sciences. Yet, indigenous Indian schools made this colossal mistake.

As I said earlier, this flaw has gladly been discontinued in today's education system, but its ghost continues to haunt it in the form of the second flaw. More on that in the next article. And yes, since this series of articles is triggered by Prof. Tooley's book, it is only apt to return to it and say that the author has no clue of these two serious flaws - and therefore attributes a high quality to indigenous Indian education.

<< Part 2
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How beautiful was the tree, anyway?

Two flaws severely limited the quality of India's indigenous education system before the British, and one of them continues to do so even today.

For those who tuned in just now, we're talking about The Beautiful Tree, a new book by Prof. James Tooley arguing that the world's poorest people are turning to low-cost private schools throwing away free government schooling. Tooley takes India as an example to profess his theory, and one sees him arrive at wrong conclusions about the education system which prevailed in India before the British.

In the previous article, I argued that these low-cost private schools which Tooley is so fond of are good only until they don't discard mother-tongue education - which discarding they do openly and blatantly. This open defiance of the very fundamentals of good education does not seem to excite the slightest disappointment in libertarians like Tooley. Before I proceed further, I'd like to add that there's no proof that this phenomenon itself is happening at such a large scale as Tooley's book could have you believe.

Okay, now on to examining how beautiful the tree was, indeed. The term beautiful tree was metaphorically used by Mahatma Gandhi in a speech given at Chatham House, London, on Oct 20, 1931 to describe the Indian education system prior to the British (italics on the term mine):

I say without fear of my figures being challenged successfully, that today India is more illiterate than it was fifty or a hundred years ago, and so is Burma, because the British administrators, when they came to India, instead of taking hold of things as they were, began to root them out. They scratched the soil and began to look at the root, and left the root like that, and the beautiful tree perished.

It is a well documented fact that Gandhi could not provide any proof of his claim about literacy in the above statement even after an 8-year long debate on the issue with a certain Sir Philip Hartog who did happen to succesfully challenge his figures.

Tooley borrows the term beautiful tree from Mr. Dharampal, a Gandhian who quotes the above passage from Gandhi in his The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century. Tooley's impression that the indigenous system was of a good quality is based singularly on the economical nature of the methods adopted. I am not denying that the methods were economical; but that alone does not characterize quality. In fact, in things that really characterize quality - and I will address those in this and future articles - our system was found pitifully wanting. Perhaps it is difficult for a libertarian mind to think of anything other than money and economics even when it comes to education?

I will argue that the tree, if it was worth calling it a tree at all, was certainly not beautiful.

Many others, notably Prof. P. Radhakrishnan of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, have in effect argued that the tree wasn't really beautiful from a different point of view than what I shall presently employ for my proof: that of the exclusive nature of pre-British education wherein students of higher castes were preferred by the system. It is a well known fact that only the higher castes (chiefly Brahmins) got as far as what was termed as higher education. This is surely a serious flaw in the indigenous education system which the British did reform to some extent. At least, they recognized it as a flaw worth reforming – something our cultural programming had prevented us from doing from time immemorial. It is perhaps apt to refer to this flaw as the evil of social exclusion in the indigenous system.

However, my proof for the lack of beauty in the indigenous system is of a different kind and draws chiefly from two facts regarding the indigenous education system, the first relating to what was taught therein, and the second relating to how it was taught. Readers will appreciate that this is what characterizes quality, not simply the economical nature of the schools. These two facts - either acting together or independently - lend an ugliness to the system which remains even when the evil of social exclusion is removed, as has been done today in independent India. The first of the facts I am to quote is no longer prevalent in today’s education system in states like Karnataka, but the second continues to loom large on it, thereby continuing to keep the system ugly. Those two facts are: (1) that it was severely limited to religious and ethical education with little or no focus on this-worldly sciences, and (2) that severely flawed methods were adopted in the context of language learning and medium of instruction.

Both these facts have been blissfully ignored by most commentators on Indian education prior to the British, definitely by Indian Nationalists, and certainly so by Tooley. Besides, the second of these facts applies more to South India than to North India, since the languages of South India are very far removed from the language which was generously employed in schools therein – Sanskrit.

Tooley being immersed in libertarian economics and clearly uninformed about the principles that govern South Indian languages is content merely to seek how many of those schools existed and how economically they were run. The very term Indigenous Indian Education makes no sense unless one appreciates the linguistic diversity of India. Unknown to Tooley, the above two facts severely crippled the quality of our schools, notwithstanding the export of the admittedly good practice of monitors assisting teachers to England. And yes, it is a fact that it was the British who brought any semblance of secular education (education in this-worldly sciences) to Indian schools, and that is the very reason why Indians flock to the new system today.

Not surprisingly, Tooley fails to attach the importance due to the statements of, nay even ridicules, Collector A.D. Campbell of Bellary who gave the most detailed description of the second fact - the fact of unscientific methods adopted in the teaching of languages such as Kannada and Telugu - in reply to Governor Thomas Munro’s educational survey of the Madras Presidency during 1822-1826.

I will take a deeper look at the above two facts in follow-up posts.

<< Part 1 
>> Part 3

Libertarian thinking on education: what's applicable to us and what's not

Low-cost private schools are good, but only as long as they adopt mother-tongue as the medium of instruction.

Encouraged by articles on education on libertarian blogs such as CATO@Liberty, I procured a copy of The Beautiful Tree, a much acclaimed new book written by Prof. James Tooley and published by the CATO Institute, Washington D.C.

Tooley's research and field work shows that the world's poorest people are turning to private schools even when free government schools exist (yes, Kannadigas are among the world's poorest people as are other Indians, the Chinese, as well as the usual suspects in Africa). While the central point of the book is well taken, the book is disappointing when it comes to the issue of medium of instruction. While educationists are shouting at the top of their voice that mother-tongue is best, Tooley expresses no disappointment and takes no action about the fact that these private schools are mostly run in the English medium.

That the poor are turning to private schools certainly appears counterintuitive, as the book argues, since the poor are expected to be poor and incapable of paying for private schooling! Tooley shows that this conventional wisdom is being proven wrong the world over, as parents understand the importance of schooling and are unwilling to send their children to low-quality government schools.

Tooley gives empirical evidence that private schools are better than government schools, and that the poor worldwide are turning to the former and dumping the latter. He argues that government schools suffer from many ills such as absentee teachers, distant teachers (both geographically and socially), poor conditions, low standards, and failure to even reach the poor. Those who have ever taken a peek into government schools in Karnataka don't need to be told these things. Yes, these things are a given in government schools. Private schools, on the other hand, solve nearly all the above problems simply because the school is accountable to the parents who actually pay for its services.

So far, so good.

My grouse about the book began when I realized that the author neglects the fact that the private schools he loves so much have all dumped mother-tongue education in open defiance of the very basics of effective education. I see no disappointment in him while he observes that most of these schools are run in the English medium. Tooley seems to be least concerned about this crucial aspect of education. In fact, he is even appreciative of this decadence because he observes that it seems to be what parents want (English medium). While government schools offer that which parents apparently do not want (Mother-tongue medium), Tooley argues, it is private schools which offer what they want. It is here - in talking about the medium of instruction - that I'm afraid Tooley ceases to be an educationist; instead, he appears only to be an advocate of free-market economics irrespective of whether the people who want or don't want things know what their liberty means to them at all.

Libertarians need to explain why they questioned the judgment of American schoolchildren when Barack Obama addressed them recently. If libertarian thought basically takes what the public says as gospel truth, why did they question the judgment of schoolchildren? And how can they not question the judgment of parents when it comes to medium of instruction, especially when there is a sea of scientific evidence that shows that mother-tongue education is best? Why didn't they leave the children to decide for themselves what to learn from Barack Obama and what not, irrespective of what he planned to say during the address? Why bother to fight to get portions of his planned address edited out? If the answer is that they're only children, I would argue that those parents (mostly illiterate themselves) who do not understand the importance of mother-tongue education are only children too - when it comes to these matters. Why is puberty being used as the dividing line between those whose wants can be taken at face value and those whose wants' validity can be questioned? Utterly illogical - once you see that there is equal illiteracy on both sides of this artificial dividing line.

Also, Tooley's research hasn't even scratched the surface of what parents really want. Will they really want English medium education if say Kannada medium education was good enough and promised a fruitful career? I have no doubt that the answer is no. Tooley's fieldwork is left wanting in this respect - he does not ask this question; he does not question the judgment of those parents at all. That's being 100% libertarian, alright, but is that being an educationist?

In reality, private schools exist in the darkest of slums in the world today because they are run in the English medium, and because illiterate parents are unable to differentiate between good education and English. To them, a few words of English learnt by their children suffices as proof of good education - because of the imperial history of these people and the general eulogization of everything western / european. What is this, if it is not an open defiance of the laws of science? Given this, the fact that the world's poorest people are turning to private schools - which provide English medium education - is really not so counterintuitive after all!

Note that I am not denying the ills of government schools, or that those ills accelerate parent movement towards private schools. Far from it. Of course government schools have all the problems which Tooley points out, and of course low-cost private schools make sense. I'm only pointing out that a true educationist needs to know where to draw the line when it comes to accepting everything people say as gospel truth. Rectifying the thinking of people is what education is all about. If you consider everything people already know as gospel truth, what's the point in a school?

Also, there is a reason why governments run schools in the remotest of rural areas: private schools cannot sustain themselves there. If private enterprise could have entered those rural areas and displaced government schools, it would have already happened. Despite all their ills, only governments are able to provide any sort of education in those areas. Even to this date, 69% of all schools in Karnataka are directly run by the government, and a further 14% of all schools require government aid to run (source: http://schooleducation.kar.nic.in/sch0708.html). If the government of Karnataka were to pull out of education today, 83% of Karnataka's schools would have to be shut down, with no private enterprise picking up this market share. There is a reason, too, why the government runs Kannada medium schools in Karnataka: it is impossible to find enough teachers to educate Kannadigas in the English medium (not that it is scientifically the best thing to do even if it's possible). Also, it is impossible for Kannadigas to be educated in the English medium effectively - and that's one stone from the mountain of evidence available about the effectiveness of mother-tongue education.

Lastly, the very thesis that developing countries are doing the right thing when it comes to education is laughable. Why should Karnataka turn to Somalia or Nigeria to understand what's the right thing to do? Why should Karnataka not learn from developed countries such as those in Europe and the US itself - where schools are run predominantly by the government? Sure, even there the ills of government schools surface; but Karnataka would become heaven overnight (okay, relatively - compared to what it is today) if its government can rise from the darkness and corruption it currently languishes in to making the mistakes which the government of say Sweden or Texas or California makes when it comes to education. It would be a great graduation if the government of Karnataka can stop making the fatal mistakes it is making today and start making the mistakes which the governments of developed countries make! Why should developing states learn from how the poorest people in the world are educating themselves, and not look up to how the richest people in the world are educating themselves?

In summary, educationists cannot overlook the scientific fact that mother-tongue education is best, even if that's what the public wishes to do (there isn't sufficient evidence that that's their wish, either). Also, public opinion - when it contradicts science - cannot be taken for granted by educationists, whether they're libertarian or non-libertarian. Thus, it makes no sense to accelerate the proliferation of low-cost English-medium private schools anywhere in Karnataka or indeed, anywhere in the developing world (which mostly speaks no European tongue). Those low-cost private schools have to be run in the mother-tongue medium to be effective and to be compliant with the basic laws of the science of education.

Note: I'll follow up with another post on the term Beautiful Tree itself (Tooley borrows it from M. K. Gandhi), and examine how beautiful the tree really was, if it was at all. Stay connected.

Part 2 >>

The first principle of colonization: call natives "fringe"

This is the second and concluding part of my reply to Mr. Raghavan's article in the DNA, arguing that the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (I believe this is what he means, not Kannada Rakshana Vedike as referred to by him) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena are fringe groups, and that there are two "solutions" for eliminating the natives vs. migrants argument. In the first post on this topic I showed that this argument must not be eliminated at all, in the first place.

Mr. E Raghavan refers to the KRV and MNS as fringe groups and accuses them of drawing the line for cultural compliance, making outrageous demands which amount to emotional extortion.

First of all, on what basis does Mr. Raghavan refer to the above organizations as fringe groups? Are they fringe because they stand for those who form an undisputed majority in their own states - the natives? Are they fringe because they stand for the rights of the natives, the language and culture of the natives? Are they fringe because they stand for the protection and development of the natives? On what basis can anybody call them fringe?

I'll tell you the answer. It's on the basis of a deep-rooted intolerance of human diversity and the dangerous and baseless belief that unity is achieved only by the destruction of diversity. If India speaks in two dozen tongues, that is the reality of India. But once one dislikes that reality, everything which downplays that reality starts looking sacrosanct and mainstream, while everything which upholds that reality starts looking base and fringe.

What is the best way of downplaying that reality? It is to call both those who are the cause for that diversity (the natives) as well as those who protect that diversity (organizations of natives) as fringe! As soon as you call the protectors of human diversity as fringe, you become the mainstream! And since the single most important trait of the natives is that they stay put in their own states, that itself becomes fringe behavior, and to migrate becomes mainstream behavior! Extending this logic, the trivial migrant population becomes Mainstream India and the majority native population becomes Fringe India. And then it is argued that Mainstream India should be given preference over Fringe India. What a smooth swapping of titles!

With natives and those who stand for the rights of natives becoming fringe, so become the native language, the native culture, the native skin-color, the native food, the native attire, the native everything. And by the same token, everything migrant becomes the non-fringe, or the mainstream: the language of the migrants, the skin-color of the migrants, the food of the migrants, the attire of the migrants, everything of the migrants! By the above logic, 95% of Indians (who stay put in their own states) are fringe, and the 5% who do migrate for food, clothing and shelter are suddenly mainstream!

Remember one thing: when everything native is being discarded as fringe and everything migrant is being elevated as mainstream, what is in progress is colonization. Nothing less. Accepting this is accepting colonization. Accepting this is accepting death of the natives. Accepting this is accepting the argument that the Europeans are the mainstream and the native Red Indians are the fringe - in the land of the latter!

The first counter-argument which arises in the camp of Mr. Raghavan and his friends is that he's calling only the groups (KRV and MNS) as fringe, not the natives as a whole. Now this does not make sense at all, because whether you like it or not, these organizations stand for the rights of the natives in their respective states. These are legitimate ways in which the natives organize themselves to address their concerns. The natives have every right to organize themselves, don't they? If the natives are not fringe, why are their organizations fringe? Who gave Mr. Raghavan the right to decide what is mainstream?

The second counter-argument which arises is that these groups are fringe because they indulge in emotional violence (Mr. Raghavan himself argues that they do not indulge in any real physical violence). Now this is a very tall claim. If what these organizations do is emotional violence, what do you call the slow colonization of the states by Hindi speakers? What do you call the slow, state-supported colonization of Karnataka and Maharashtra by Hindi speakers? What do you call the higher status conferred to Hindi speakers by the Constitution of India itself? Is that the milk of human kindness poured on the natives in Karnataka and Maharashtra? If that is the milk of human kindness, why is this fringe?

If it were not India's political system which created the mess in which Karnataka and Maharashtra are today, there would probably never have been any KRV or MNS. Migration, as I have argued in my first post on this topic, is absolutely fine as long as it is not state-funded, i.e., polluted by the Nation. The government of India and state governments in states like Bihar fund migration in broad daylight. That is a form of forced juxtaposition which ultimately leads to hatred. It's a pity that many urban Indians do not understand that migrants are no more Indian than the natives. It's a pity that even in the 21st century, natives and their organizations are relegated to the fringe in the open, while migrants are openly described as mainstream. It's a pity that parts of India are colonizing other parts in broad daylight, and attempts to stop such colonization and uphold life and liberty are being described as fringe.

Now, there is no point in going to the two "solutions" which Mr. Raghavan proposes to stop the migrants vs natives argument. I will gloss over them only briefly, since the very attempt to stop that argument is colonial in nature and therefore unethical.

The first "solution" given by Mr. Raghavan is to go by the book, that is, the constitution of India - as if the book is sacrosanct and immune to amendment. That itself is childishness to begin with, especially given the fact that an amendment is certainly due which strips Hindi off its sole official-language status. It's only a matter of time before this amendment becomes a reality. According to Mr. Raghavan, since Indians have the right to go and settle anywhere, nobody has the right to stop anybody from settling anywhere. So far so good, and all correct. But does the constitution give the right for migrants to destroy the local language and culture? Does the constitution give the right for migrants to go about openly denigrating the sentiments of the natives? Or does the constitution deny the right for natives to organize themselves against such crimes? The answer to all these questions is 'no'. So much for the "first solution".

The second "solution" that Mr. Raghavan gives to that non-problem is to convert Bengaluru and Mumbai into city-states, because, he argues, that gives them the "necessary" economic and geographical independence. Now this is the exact claim of a colonizer: "Give me this piece of land and make it economically and geographically independent from the rest of your property"! This also openly betrays a serious lack of concern for the natives because of which Mr. Raghavan wants a separate colony for the migrants.

Neither "solution" is worth anything, nor can the migrants vs natives argument be eliminated. The real problem is the atrophy of the urban Indian mind and the growing indifference to nearly a billion of our brethren - the natives who stay put in their own states, speak their own languages and are steeped in their own cultures; a majority of whom never have the need to cross inter-state boundaries ever in their lives. It is this atrophy which needs to be eliminated.

Truly, it is the collection of atrophied urban Indian minds which is the fringe, not what Mr. Raghavan from that fringe describes as such. The KRV and MNS have legitimate goals in front of them - of upholding the rights of the natives. They have the democratic right to protect the interests of natives, and are directly fathered by the historical neglect of natives in the Indian political system. It is high time the atrophied urban Indian mind realizes this. It is high time the growing gap between educated urban Indians who really care for the natives (who form a majority in India) and such organizations is closed by a process of mutual understanding.

When wrong hands control taps

KINGSHUK NAG has a revealing piece in the Times of India today. According to him, an important reason for the disastrous floods this time is that the keys to water resources lie in the hands of ignorant and corrupt politicians in the three states involved: Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh - politicians who don't realize the impact their excursions outside the limits of ethics have on human life and property. Kingshuk Nag's article reconstructs the events leading to the floods and the role played by these politicians.

In short, Nag's thesis is that the politicians force their states to collect unreasonable amounts of water in the dams without realizing that they're storing death in liquid form with sufficient potential energy to wipe off entire civilizations. And when it rains heavily and the dams cannot hold the water any more, they have no option but to release the water. There is no question of collaboration between states in working out a release plan since action must be taken immediately.

So, while the rain water could have simply flown to the sea, ignorant and corrupt politicians holding the keys to dams in the river's path can create floods which kill hundreds of human beings, destroy lakhs of acres of crop and render thousands homeless.

Yes, I wouldn't blame God for this at all. He gave us water when we needed it most and where we needed it most. It took brain-dead and corrupt mis-users of power to convert that very water into poison. Another feather in the cap of Indian politics. This is, if you will, the forced juxtaposition of water accelerated by corrupt political machinery. While water would have organically flown to the sea, it took a corrupt political machinery to force-juxtapose it in the flood-affected areas. While man and water can generally evolve a relationship of cooperation and harmony, it took politics to convert it into non-cooperation and hatred.

No, I don't mean we shouldn't have dams. I mean - we shouldn't have those ignorant, brain-dead, corrupt politicians. And no, I don't mean we shouldn't have politicians in general. I mean - those politicians shouldn't be ignorant, brain-dead and corrupt.

Are natives any less Indian?

E RAGHAVAN of the DNA makes an oft-made claim in the English media that the locals vs. migrants argument must be eliminated. There are huge mistakes in Mr. Raghavan's understanding of India and its problems, and his analysis and conclusions are at best childish. If implemented, his recommendations will end up destroying India.

Firstly, the author does not quote any rhyme or reason why the natives vs. migrants argument should be eliminated. Why should it be eliminated? What are the implications of eliminating this argument? Has he given any thought to what sort of an argument this is, in reality? I refuse to use the world locals; the word natives is a more accurate representation because these people are the original inhabitants of the states - like the Red Indians of America. Trying to eliminate the Red Indians vs. Europeans argument is nothing but legalizing imperialism and the use of force and governmental machinery to eliminate human diversity. Yes, it has been legalized and the United States of America is now erected. Yes, the Red Indians have been sent to their graves together with their cries for justice. But is that license for the same crime to be repeated in India? Should India be built on the graves of nearly a billion native Indians who live in their own states, graves which resonate with muted cries for justice, liberty and equality?

Please note that I am not against the admixture of the different peoples of India at a cultural level - in celebration of the spirit of Tagore's societies. In fact, such admixture is beneficial to all. What I am against is the entry into these matters of the Indian Nation with its skewed political and commercial interests and the consequent harm done to the native inhabitants of India's states. It is when the wrongly defined Indian Nation enters the scene that organic evolution turns into forced juxtaposition, cooperation and harmony into non-cooperation and hatred. I have argued earlier that the very concept of Nation need not be ulterior; we at Banavasi Balaga dream of a truly federal Indian Nation where life and liberty are upheld in all participating states. The Indian Nation need not be wrongly defined.

The political and commercial interests of the Indian Nation today are skewed for three reasons: (1) because the Indian constitution itself accords a higher status to the speakers of Hindi and languages close to Hindi, and (2) because the central government is not truly federal in nature, and (3) because of rampant corruption in politicians who operate from the Indian parliament - politicians from both the Hindi states and the non-Hindi states. No system of politics or commerce has the right to dislodge the native inhabitants of a state or snatch away their right to life and liberty, to education and employment. Yet, Indian politics and commerce today have been granted the right to indulge in this crime. Biharis being paid handsomely by the the Govt. of Bihar to migrate to Bengaluru the night before the interview to obtain jobs in the Railways is not the mating dance of two well-meaning societies intending to develop ideals in cooperation with one another! It is a perfect example of the greedy Nation goading neighbouring societies in greed of material wealth (in the case of India, the goading is internal and the greed is of a sub-nation, that's all)! This is not right or ethical from any established definition of right and ethical.

Secondly, it is utter disregard for the interests of the masses, together with a flawed idea of India which drives people like Mr. Raghavan to prioritize the unreasonable whims and fancies of migrants over the rights of natives. Why should political and commercial systems be built which prioritize the unreasonable whims and fancies of migrants over natives? Who said only migrants are real Indians? Who said natives are Indians of a lesser God? In reality, these migrants - who form a trivial percentage and who must form a trivial percentage in non-barbarian, non-nomadic countries - are the fringe, and the native inhabitants of India's states are the non-fringe or the core.

While people like Mr. Raghavan feel they're contributing to India's unity by dancing to the whims and fancies of migrants at the cost of the rights of the natives (possibly because of being migrants themselves), they are in reality only aiding to the disintegration of India and unknowingly becoming signatories to the very crime committed by Europeans in the USA about two to three centuries ago. They are unknowingly becoming party to the crime of forced juxtaposition and endangering the process of organic evolution. The way to unite India is not by legalizing ethnic crime. The way to unite India is not to position migrants as children of a greater God and natives as children of a lesser God.

Again, I am not against migration in general. There is nothing wrong in migration which is free from systemic/political/constitutional encouragement or the sanction of a polluted Nation (to use Tagore's terminology), where the interacting groups themselves uphold or reject whatever is perceived as worth upholding or rejecting - even in the realm of commerce (Tagore wouldn't license commerce like me here, though). However, what I am completely opposed to is the use of governmental machinery to accelerate the forced juxtaposition of one people on another. I am against the use of governmental machinery to legalize the upholding of the whims and fancies of migrants over the rights of natives. Anyone thinking with a clean mind ought to be against it, too. After all, India is not just its trivial migrant population. Systems of governance, education and employment which are detrimental to the natives and beneficial to migrants are not worth building.

Natives aren't any less Indian. Nor are migrants any more Indian. However, a flawed idea of India and disregard for the native masses and the diversity therein can turn anybody into a non-Indian, even anti-Indian.

Note: I will post a follow-up article on Mr. Raghavan's statements about the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (I believe this is what he means, not Kannada Rakshana Vedike as referred to by him) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and his two "solutions" for eliminating the natives vs. migrants argument - an argument which I have shown should not be eliminated at all. Stay tuned.

We need to graduate from flood-relief to flood-control

It's that time again. In the last three days alone, floods in North Karnataka have taken 156 lives (officially), rendered tens of thousands homeless and destroyed lakhs of acres of agricultural crop. In the decreasing order of deaths reported stand Bijapur, Bagalkote, Raichur, Gulbarga, Koppal, Bellary, Davangere, Chitradurga, Gadag, Belagavi, Uttara Kannada, Bidar and Dharwad. These districts cover nearly 50% of the total land area of Karnataka. The flood has hit Andhra Pradesh too, but the losses there are considerably lower.

Hundreds are dying in Karnataka as I write this, and tens of thousands losing everything they have. Let's not forget this: we are experiencing a bloody, huge, flood.

The whole pattern of heavy rain followed by water released by dams in Maharashtra, followed by Government of Karnataka applying to the Central Government for help for even petty things such as helicopters - is not new. The Government of Karnataka is openly helpless in protecting its own people from these almost predictable disasters.

The Central Government, too, has failed in ensuring that neighbouring states work out a decent plan for handling river water excesses. Why wasn't Maharashtra asked to stop releasing Krishna waters before all these lives were taken? And why were helicopters not kept close to flood-prone areas? Flood relief efforts are so badly organized that these helicopters, which fly in from faraway areas, run out of fuel when they get to the spot! Does it take rocket science to station them locally? Or does it take a highly centralized administration (which converts state-governments into havens of low-calibre people)?

Of course, all this is still flood-relief. It's high time we start using the other term: flood control. States which take the lives of their citizens seriously do flood control, not flood relief. While floods caused the Netherlands to start (and yes, complete) the Delta Works and England to build the Thames Barrier, our heads of government, at best, to go to the river to offer prayers to the River Deity!

We have a long way to go before we learn how to live exist.

Picture courtesy: AFP

The India of our dreams

To Rabindranath Tagore, the very concept of Nation was ill-founded and based in greed of material prosperity. A Nation, to him, was that aspect which a whole population assumes when organized for mechanical purpose. By mechanical purpose must be understood material purpose, which Tagore referred to as ulterior. To him, society was far more superior, since it was a natural regulation of human relationships, so that men can develop ideals in cooperation with one another. He wished for a world of no Nations, but only societies. Tagore defined society as a spontaneous self-expression of man as a social being; a natural regulation of human relationships, so that men can develop ideals in cooperation with one another.

However, one need not consider material purposes ulterior. An example in point is the material purpose of a hungry man who wants to earn his daily bread. There is nothing ulterior about that. Of course, it becomes ulterior when greed sets in. It is not necessary that a natural regulation of human relationships must help develop only ideals in cooperation with one another. It is perfectly ethical for human relationships to help develop tangible material products and services, again in cooperation with one another, as long as greed is out of the equation. Material pursuits are valid pursuits of life as long as they don't tread on the life or liberty of others.

Once this is granted, it must be granted that groups of people uniting for material purposes is not ulterior either, again as long as such a unity does not tread on the life or liberty of others. There is nothing wrong for a group of people to seek material well-being. What is wrong, is for it to seek its own well-being at the cost of pushing other groups to levels of poverty and helplessness below its own levels, by taking the life or liberty of others. Thus, material pursuits become ulterior only when they cross the boundary of ethics. Within that boundary, there is ample space for a valid and ethical Nation to be defined.

British India and Britain itself were, of course, invalid and unethical Nations. The British took the life and liberty of people in this part of the world in order to feed the greed of material prosperity of the British.

But that need not bias us against the very concept of Nation, like it did seem to bias Rabindranath Tagore. It is perfectly fine for a set of people (or peoples as in the case of India) to organize themselves for the mechanical purpose of material prosperity, and call themselves a Nation. There's nothing ulterior about it as long as greed does not set in. Thus, a Nation need not be necessarily based on unethical or greedy grounds.

However - and this is very imporant - on those who define the Nation rests the burden of ensuring that there is no compromise of life or liberty not just outside, but even inside it. If this ensuring is not done with due diligence, the Nation becomes invalid and unethical. It is only if this ensuring is not done with due diligence, that a Nation becomes tyrannical and unjust - the Nation which Tagore so hated.

The first symptom of such tyranny and injustice is the disregard and disrespect for diversity; the second is the foolish belief that unity can be achieved by forced juxtaposition of the language, culture, religious beliefs, and whims and fancies of one people on every other; and the third is the legalization of an unfair advantage given to selected people or peoples in education and employment (even if it is unintentional). These symptoms are already seen in India.

The first step towards curing India of this disease is to convert India into a Federation of Linguistic States equal in all respects, and in whom the very same principle of respect for diversity and upholding of life and liberty is in turn enshrined. This is the India of our dreams. Such an Indian Nation is free from the ills of the greedy Nation which Rabindranath Tagore so hated. It is not difficult to build such an Indian Nation. We just need to make an attempt to build it.

British Nation Then, Indian Nation Now

In the last post, we saw how forced juxtaposition brings about hatred between groups which have no natural antipathy to begin with, and how organic evolution brings about cooperation and friendship between the same groups. In this post, I'd like to point out glaring similarities between two recent forced juxtapositions which have plagued India: British colonization of India and the imposition of Hindi post independence. We'll also see what the former achieved, and what the latter is already achieving, albeit slowly.

Unorganized British traders and intellectuals would have simply continued their interactions with Indians until it was profitable to them and probably turned into naturalized Indians if they had lived here. But it took a multitude of traders and intellectuals well-organized as the British Nation to turn organic evolution into forced juxtaposition, and the seed of friendship and cooperation into hatred. It was the British Nation which juxtaposed tens of thousands of Britishers with Indians in a short period of time (yes, a couple of centuries years is a short period of time for these things!), armed them with the right to rule and destroy at will, and ultimately succeeded in creating hatred between the two societies.

When India became independent, the forced juxtaposition of the British was successfully undone, leaving mostly whatever can go on by ways of organic evolution to go on. However, this undoing required the rise of the Indian Nation, that is, a political India which never existed before the British. Rabindranath Tagore was completely opposed to the idea of this Indian Nation, because he saw that as the perfecting of organization and corruption of the power of self-protection which would ultimately make India goad all its neighbouring societies with greed of material prosperity, and consequent mutual jealousy, and by the fear of each other's growth into powerful-ness.

He also held the fear that the Indian Nation would stop Indians and Europeans from learning whatever is worth learning from each other by way of organic evolution - seeds of which were seen in M. K. Gandhi's rejection of everything English - such as education and textile machinery. Even today, there is no dearth of ultra-nationalists in India who look at anything uttered by Europeans as against the national interest of India and everything Indian as for the national interest of India - however steeped in vice that may be. The positioning of Hindi as the official language of India where two other European products (first, of having all state languages as official and second, the English language) are provably better is a glaring example of Tagore's fears coming true.

I have argued earlier that the primary concern of Tagore - that the Indian Nation would goad all its neighbouring societies with greed of material prosperity, and consequent mutual jealousy, and by the fear of each other's growth into powerful-ness has come true not with regard to external societies, but with regard to internal societies. India has not yet risen to that level of greed and perfection of organization and science where it can goad other Nations such as say China or Pakistan or Russia or the United States of America, but the version of India which is enshrined in the constitution has become the license for internal goading. I am referring to the Constitution of India according a higher status to Hindi than every other Indian language. This has become the license for Hindi speakers to literally rule over the speakers of other Indian languages who are less important by definition. This has forcefully juxtaposed Hindi speakers with the speakers of other languages all over India.

Now the Indian Nation has juxtaposed tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of Hindi speakers with other Indians in a short period of time (if a century is a short period of time, 60 years is too short!), armed them with the right to rule and destroy other Indian languages at will, and has ultimately succeeded in creating hatred between the two societies. There are some who believe that having Hindi in parallel with other Indian languages cannot be called imposition - but the fact is, Hindi is the only Indian language in matters of the Central Government, without any parallel Indian language. From the perspective of non-Hindi speaking states, then it was the British, and now it is the Hindis. Not much has changed. There exists in the experience of these states a forced-juxtaposition continuum.

Notwithstanding Tagore's ideas in these matters, the fact is: the solution which finally did undo forced juxtaposition of the British was the Indian Nation which he so hated. Just as a thorn must be used to remove another thorn, it was the Indian Nation under M. K. Gandhi which ultimately succeeded in removing the forced juxtaposition. Of course, it came with all the negatives of the Nation which Tagore so feared (two of which I've pointed out above).

If the past is any indicator of what the future holds in its womb, it appears that the forced juxtaposition of Hindi all over India by the Indian Nation will result in the development or strengthening of state-level nationalisms in post-independence India, which will not rest until the forced juxtaposition is removed. This is already seen most visibly in the Southern and North Eastern states. Also, other types of forced juxtapositions such as that due to which large numbers of speakers of one language are still living second-grade lives in states where they form minorities, and that which state governments themselves engage in, will all aid such nationalisms. Inter-state issues between geographically adjacent states are, of course, due to a bad job done during the reorganization of states. All this, of course, will cost all Indians time and money which are better invested in what Tagore proposed as the solution to India's problems: good education in the mother tongue.

This is the truth as we see it at Banavasi Balaga. The question is - will thinkers and policy makers and men and women of power realize this and take corrective actions?