Oslo, 2-5 September 2004 - The Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or
Belief
Indian Perspectives
By Ameeta Mulla Wattal (Mrs.),
Principal, Springdales School, Pusa Road, New Delhi, INDIA
India is a multi cultural and multi plural society, where when one talks of education, one thinks in many ways of the community, its’ ups and downs, its conflicts. A community is not supposed to be defined by the boundaries but by the sharing of life.
The pursuit of education at the present time tends to be indifferent to the kind of society and nation we dream of. We are mandated by the Constitution to be a socialist, secular and democratic polity. Socialism calls for a minimization of social cleavages and disparities. It puts the spotlight on social justice.
It can be argued that Indian secularism today stands at the cross-roads. Evident signs that the state apparatus is being communalized stare us in the face.
We are a democracy punctuated by religious plurality. The essence of this democratic creed is the incomparable worth of every human being. Defining the worth of human beings in terms of caste, creed or gender is incompatible with the ethos of democracy. Education is a key input into fostering an authentic democratic culture. This works in two ways. (a) Education enhances the worth of every human being. To deny education to someone is to disable him from realizing his full worth and potential. (b) The mark of an educated person is the willingness to recognize and respect the equal worth of all human beings. As a matter of fact, only a person who respects the worth of others can believe in his own worth. In this respect too we seem to have missed the mark.
Till recently before the current elections, those who were at the forefront of corrupting and corroding our democracy were not illiterate but educated people. The educated urban middle class, as of today, are the main sponsors of communal politics which is anathema to secular democracy. Perhaps this points to an ironic truth. The so-called secular paradigm of education, marked by its neglect of the moral and spiritual resources of religions, cannot sustain and fortify secular democracy. A great deal of spiritual maturity is required to be able to keep an‘equal distance’ from all religions in a society of gross religious inequality. Where this maturity is not obtained, it is easy and tempting to manipulate the religious loyalty of the masses in order to capture political power. Spirituality is the source of all positive values. Under pretext of secularism, spiritual values have been excluded from the public domain, leaving the field clear for communal game-plans and machinations.
However with the coming in of a progressive secular Government that has weeded out fundamental forces, a breath of fresh air will blow through the corridors of educational institutions and hopefully restore a more sensitized educational focus within the country. The core values that we plan to propagate are:
(a) Responsible
Citizenship. What this amounts to, in practical terms, is nurturing a service
orientation in students in their attitude to the nation and the people.
(b) Commitment to Human rights. The seed of human rights movement is the spiritual insight that every human being has incalculable worth, undimmed by the
accidents of birth and religion, in the sight of God.
(c) Respect for Creation. Spirituality is a realm
of responsibility. We are responsible for the health and wholeness of the earth
we live on. We are mandated to care for the world in which we live. While we
are free to derive our sustenance from what God has created, we are obliged to
respect the integrity of creation and take motherly care of the earth and its
resources. In doing so, we are required to be sensitive to the needs of our
fellow human beings as well.
(d) Compassion. It is all the more important that today we make a special
effort to nurture compassion through education, in view of the rising tide of
hedonisti consumerism and indulgence in our midst.
(e) Tolerance. The cohesion of
spirituality would be superfluous in a world of undeviating uniformity.
Tolerance as integral in our school system, entails not onlytolerance of those
who agree with us but also of those who do not agree with us. The inability to
live with differences is a serious flaw in character formation. It is not only
for the sake of others that we need to practice tolerance, but also for our own
sake.
(f) Commitment to social justice. Thinking school is
the eagerness to apply its skills and resources to solving the problems of the
diaspora of students that inhabit the community. Social apathy is a sign of
spiritual illiteracy. Reinforcing the foundation of justice and peace of one’s
society must be deemed a basic duty of anyeducated institution.
(g) Freedom from discrimination. The goal of
education is liberation. At the most primary level, it is from ourselves that
we are to be liberated. The mark of a liberated person is the ability to
transcend divisive and discriminative considerations like caste, communalism
and exclusivist ideologies. The Indian
Constitution mandates equal respect and opportunities for all people, though we
are still a long way away from this egalitarian goal, which reflects poorly on
our approach to education so far. An inspired sense of our universal kinship is
the best anti-dote against discrimination.
(h) Freedom of conscience and
religion. Only a person who is religiously free in a two-fold sense –free
from the prejudices bred by the priestly class and free to know the spiritual
core of his own religion- can respect the freedom of conscience and religion
that others are entitled to. We are trying to inculcate in students the freedom
of the spirit to respect the rights of others to pursue their religion without
hindrance.
(i) A dynamic work culture. To educate is to
activate and empower the potentialities latent in human beings. Knowledge and
skills are never ends in themselves, but are valuable tools. They are to be
used in the pursuit of human welfare.
(j) Selfless service. A wish to be served
is innate in human nature. What needs to be cultivated is its opposite: the
motivation to serve others.
(k) A culture of peace. Peace is the most
desired value in theory. The learning experience made available to the students
must include opportunities to cultivate the strengths required to love in peace
with all sorts of people. This calls for the ability to live in harmony with
differences and contradictions, the capacity to think objectively, and the
willingness to respect the sanctity of the life and liberty of others.
The purpose of education is to enable people to live meaningfully and fruitfully in their society. For this goal to be achieved, it is not enough to see education as a means for propagating knowledge. It is imperative that students be enabled to develop a spiritually wholesome personality that relates to the society in terms of give-and-take. The keenness to take, without the grace to give, degrades human beings into predators. It is not educated wolves that we want. Education must, in turn, transform wolves into lambs. And it is doubtful if this can be achieved without a radical change in our idea and practice of education.