Risk !
I recently wrote to a friend’s group my recent realization that I am very judgemental towards other people. And somehow it has to do with my own puritanical conditioning. I judge myself most of the times, and I go on trips of self-guilt feeling miserable or scared.
That makes me very reactive to other people’s shortcomings when they don’t match up to my high-ideals etc.
Recently in my classroom, when a student wanted to speak on the recent politics in Maharashtra, another student objected, because he belonged to the party that was about to be criticized. And even though I allowed views to be expressed from both sides, the student party-member would just not allow his classmate to speak. The trigger that set me off was when he tried to gag the entire classroom, by trying to call some high-profile party member on his mobile to send across people to the Institute!
That trigger set me off. And I challenged him if this land was anybody’s “Jaagir”. I told spoke with deep conviction about the Right to express oneself, and the need to allow students to discuss the political conditions in the region (which anyways also affected them).
With a rage that came out of the repulsion against gagging up of masses in the name of politics, I questioned the Party’s stand on attacking common immigrant people instead of the bungalow of the Chief Minister of that state who spent unnecessary vast amounts of money on her mentor’s birthday when she should have been developing her State for the people.
Later, though the student saw his mistake and apologized to the whole class, today another student who belonged to the party belonging to another State’s Chief Minister, and who was absent yesterday landed up at the institute sorting clarifications from me!
And though my whole motive has been to let them know the values of democracy and they have understood me, I wonder what the future has in store for me- as I criticize everyone – the Mullahs and Imams from the Mosques, the Gujarat Chief Minister, the Maharashtra Politicians etc.
My only purpose is to wake up this generation of adolescent youth to critical thinking for a better tomorrow.
