And how true do we find it today. But sadly, we Indians have a habit of creating great theories and philosophies, attending religious and spiritual discourses, reading and agreeing with almost all the scriptures in the holy books but we never, never do we act on them. First of all, what are the discourses, philosophies and holy books telling us? They all sure do differ in content and quantity of it but if you consider the quality, they are all the same. They all want us to be wise and inculcate civilised methods of living in ourselves. So how do we gain wisdom? There's only one way in today's world, education."Education is the sole defence of a nation", said Burke, an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher.
A common man (and woman) would say, "the world today is extremely materialistic and as a result of that the education dispersed in various institutions has become corrupt towards wisdom. We cannot enhance our wisdom through what is taught in schools and universities. The meaning of real education does not exist anymore in this age." Yes it's true, but the essence of education is still not lost. Even today an educated mind is more open to changes and able to adapt to given situations more easily. Educated men and women can handle problems in a more rational way than uneducated ones. Education continues to inculcate the habit of reasoning which is completely absent in the uneducated class. It comes as no surprise that the uneducated are burdened with grief and sorrow most of the time as compared to their counterparts and one of the most significant reasons of this is a strong belief in superstitions. I would like to narrate a story here regarding this point:
There was a temple in a rural part of India. The priest used to conduct daily morning and evening prayers without fail. However, he faced one nagging problem. There was a cat which would give the priest and his disciples a hard time while conducting the prayers daily as the cat would move around the temple disturbing the setting of the rituals involved during the prayers. It would spill the oil from the lamps, lick the holy sculpture of the Lord and so on. This made the priest order his disciples to catch the cat and put it in a cage during the prayers. The disciples followed his orders and the prayers were now conducted very smoothly with no problems at all. This continued for several years.
Unfortunately, one day, the priest took ill and died of the sickness. So one of the disciples of the priest was made the head priest now and it was his duty to take care of the prayers which were taking place since several years. The priest carried out his duties pretty well and pleased everyone. A few days later the menace in the face of the cat died too. There was no need of a cage now but the priest and his disciples had something else in their minds. The head priest said, "Our teacher had a holy habit of caging a cat while conducting the prayers and that cat has unfortunately died. However, his ritual shall be carried out with all honor and sincerity. Let's find another cat and cage it during the prayers and honor our great teacher." And this is exactly what they did.I do not need to mention that these priests were uneducated and pathetically superstitious.
But it is not just superstition that acts as a parasite on the uneducated class of society, it's the unwillingness of many people across the uneducated world to avoid educating themselves and their relatives. It's pretty common in India to hear from a successful business man saying to his son, " पढ़ लिख के क्या कर लोगे? जो धंदा मैं कर रहा हूँ उसी पे लग जाओ, करोड़ों में खेलोगे और अगर पढाई करोगे तो अपने (कोई सम्बन्धी) की तरह हज़ार रुपये की तनख्वा में रह जाओगे." (what will you achieve through education? Take over my business and you'll earn in millions and billions and if you go for studies you'll end up like your (relative) earning a thousand bucks only). The father here doesn't realise that he had to pass through a lot of dark and difficult times to establish such a great business. The son would take over the great empire as it is but will never be able to expand it and there are high chances that he'll lose everything his father leaves behind for him as he wouldn't be having the required open mind ready to grasp the knowledge of the changing business world and adapt to the changes. While attending business meetings and conferences he wouldn't be able to stand up and speak in front of so many people most of whom are likely to be educated. If attending an international business meetings or conferences, it gets worse. He is likely to treat his children the same way he was treated by his father and we all know, to survive today's competitive world education is the primary requirement. In the end he is most likely to blame his father for not educating him and making him an able gentleman and that's where the family problems start.
Lack of education also prevents people from advancing towards social benefits and makes them unaware of the changes taking place around them. For example, a few days back I used the web cam while talking to someone using Skype and I got a really unexpected reaction from my relatives. It was a kind of technological magic for them. Though web cams have been around since many years and it's become a child's play to use them, my usage of this facility made my relatives give credit to my computer engineering skills (now why the heck should I not accept compliments!!).
These are just a few among many instances of what lack of education does to us. The rising population, poverty, unemployment, corruption, are all due to absence of education in the Indian society. Here is a link to the list of countries by literacy rate as included in the United Nations Development Programme Report 2009. I'm honestly not surprised by India's position in the table (Note: Pakistan has been featured twice in the table, don't ask me how and why. I didn't create the table). The vast population also has to be blamed for the figures dropping but the vast population has to be blamed for the lack of quality education among the people. Even if it is present, it's not utilised because we are Indians. We do not believe in bringing changes ourselves, we expect a foreign party to do it for us. Even if an Indian takes charge of doing it himself/herself, he/she would never be allowed to do it, not by the society, not by the government and not even by his/her family, because we all lack education.
I was reading some success stories on Reader's Digest and it's sad to say that none of them were about an Indian. One thing that I noticed from those stories is that the people had become successful doing what they believed in. They did something which no Indian would do or would be allowed to do. One of them started out picking garbage from houses and now owns a recycle company profiting in millions, one of the fathers left his job and along with his family went on a trip and created a website to post details about the trip. It became so popular that this became a full time job and they are now earning in millions through the website. Their children help them too design the website with wonderful ideas. No one ridiculed their decision and let them do what they wished.
This became possible because the family was well educated and knew the basic fact about success of a business in today's world, the Internet. They were well educated about how to design a website and use it well. So, education is extremely necessary for development of any society.
I hope I was able to bring forward the importance of going to schools and having a passion for gaining knowledge through this article. This article is not to hurt anyone's sentiments but just to spread awareness. Please do not confuse education with the so called higher and richer class of the society. There are many rich people living in posh areas of India but are uneducated.
There is nothing that an uneducated person can teach an educated person and no matter under what conditions and lifestyle an educated person is today, tomorrow's always better for him/her and tomorrow's always worse for the uneducated.
