This, That, and That too!

 

This, That, and That too!

It is not very often that in a day’s newspaper I can put my penny worth of thoughts in three different articles/reports/opinion etc. This happened on Dec. 18, 2024, exactly a week before Christmas, my Christmas Gifts.

Each of these items was not long enough for me to write an eight hundred word thesis on it. I could, of course, make an anthology of these, and that is what I have done here. I could not come up with a title for my post as the items were truly disparate each in its own universe: One, public distribution system (PDS) in Odisha; two, sewer and septic tank cleaning–an occupation–based work; three, higher education–NEP 2020.

THIS

The ruling party at the centre seems to be in a go-slow mode, leading to “deprivation among marginalised communities”, and deaths too.  People ate gruel made of mango kernels (I did not even know these are edibles–shame on me). The losses appear to be among, if not exclusively, Adivasi people. The proximate cause? Digitisation of PDS, including making e-KYC mandatory. “The victims are to blame for their food practices and improper storage.” Blame the victims, be it rape or starving. The kind of society we are living in?

  Mango kernels gruel is a traditional food (of low nutrients?)  (to get over the lean months). The remoteness of PDS stores, as much as 10 km (irregular bus service, difficult trek, etc.?) is another emasculating feature in the lives of these Adivasis.

I know a few families with the erstwhile bread-winner of the family who live a comfortable life, staying with their profitably employed, sons and daughters who cling to their entitlement cards for PDS benefits. I do not, even though I have zero income beyond my interest income from my savings. I am not holding myself up as a model, I hasten to add. Think on the above.

THAT

 This THAT is about what kind of work is sewer/septic tank cleaning is. GoI has apparently classified this kind of work as “occupation–based” rather than “caste–based”. You must know that GoI is putting the money where its mouth is, and the above revealing classification comes from a survey it commissioned.

There are more revelations from the numbers churned out by the survey: 68% are from SC communities, 16% from OBC, 8% from STs and general categories each.

Before I write the meaty part of the revealed data, I do wish to take to task the newspaper. It has given the percentages to double digit decimal accuracy. The total respondents are 54,574 citizens from across the nation. The percentage for SC communities is 68.91% which amounts to 37061.20 people! For OBCs, 8584.49 people. I thought only GoI statisticians would do a Solomon (cutting a baby into two halves) on people. No, Indian media too tries very hard to be as accurate as possible, distilling meaning out of the numbers!

The stated aim of this survey was severely utilitarian: “[P]revent deaths due to hazardous cleaning work.” The NAMASTE programme [National Action for Mechanized Sanitation Ecosystem] (the ‘A’ after the ‘M’ in the abbreviated is missing and so also the ‘T’ after the ‘S’, somewhat similar to the ‘hanging preposition’, acceptable but may not be kosher). NAMASTE replaced Self-Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers. Perhaps Dr. B. R. Ambedkar did have an effect, however much delayed it is.

Are there any manual scavengers in India? Do not ask GoI, but check for yourself when you take a stroll on urban streets in high noon in summer when this activity could be at its peak as there are fewer even air-conditioned vehicles on the road. Road safety of the workers!

And, THAT TOO!

Education, the occupant of the last available seat at this dinner table. The number of courses thrust upon students in higher education institutions (HEI) is unconscionable, the article says. Yet, the raising of the conscience arises not out of any concern for the students’ physical and mental health; rather, comparison with the academic load on them in the US and EU. Does this mean that load “Shalt be the norm”, Kant’s moral imperative?

If students are to be introduced to life–stresses, why can they not be stressed academically? The writer claims that Indian students of HEI lack incentive to be involved in learning continuously, and I agree. I have seen this during the nearly ten years I taught in a private university. At best, students learn only when they are to be tested, an exam looms.

Yet, the writer fails to develop his thesis completely, contextualizing it. Are high school students taking the so-called Board Examinations at the end of Class X term exposed to such needlessly high pressure periods in their lives till then? What I have heard about Tamil Nadu State Board secondary school examinations is that only when they come to Class IX they are exposed to such a pressure, pass or fail. That is, they are ill prepared in Class IX and all classes higher. Then, they have just one more year for such acclimatization before they hit the dreaded Class XII Board Examinations.

You let the drag horses go their own way for eight years, and then you yoke them. Expecting them to pull the weight now and for the rest of their education is like looking for the liquid state in a sublimating material, like camphor. I have seen students of first year struggling on this count. The writer skipped this.

“[D]esigning the course...” is the prerogative of the teacher for subjects only for courses beyond the first year of college, even in the US. There, sometimes the faculty teaches a student body of more than 3,000 (I have an article on this, on biology, a compulsory subject); yet, the class is divided into a sufficient number of sections in which what is taught in the class is explained, debated, students tested ... In CalTech, the number of students in a class taught by Richard P. Feynman was an order less, still there was an army of tutors! Can Indian private universities afford this bloating of instructors, even if they were to suborn researchers?

Yes, I understand the thesis, but not the analysis.

I come to the end of the smorgasbord. Thanks for sticking with me, even if you did not enjoy the fare.

Raghuram Ekambaram