About a month ago, the feud between the student organizations of two political parties turned into such an uproar in the Nepali community that it began to welcome questions concerning the education that we have been imparting and its moral implications in the community. Shortly after one of the groups stabbed their target with a khukuri in the back of his neck, the group rushed to celebrate their mission by setting ablaze the nation's oldest library, BP Library. It all happened in an instant inside Tri Chandra College forcing the school authorities to be morally responsible for letting the armed students wreck havoc in the college. I had heard of vandalizing computer labs but never burning down an entire library!
The news generated such an alacrity among the students and parents in the social media that it flooded with claims to punish those involved. It brought us a dark reality which we had most feared: Is our education system living to its full purpose or are we just fooling ourselves by taking a pride in the increasing literacy rate which does not even give a picture of the moral fallacies that we often condemn?
There are certainly a lot of issues which have their roots in the way we erudite folks give meaning to the actions around us. The foremost loophole in our education system is the inspiration we get from the actions of the politicians. Such is our affinity that we immediately think about carrying out a terrified strike and setting ablaze to everything we get a hold of; classroom furniture, tyres, shops and now the incident that we never ever thought would be carried out by a literate-burning around 5000 books! That is what we are learning from our political system. Most of you have learned to create sister organizations, give a lecture or two on why you should be followed and the next day some of you just order your hooligan colleagues to act as the messenger of absolute peace. It is as simple as that. It turns out that peace is necessary but the means of establishing peace is too inhumane.
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| Firefighters take control of fire at Tri Chandra College's BP Library. photo credit: www.myrepublica.com |
The second loophole is the conviction that we literates have: whatever we do, there is absolutely no way it is wrong. But sometimes the insanity reaches such an extreme level that we have nothing to do but regret our very actions. A student knows that burning down a book is a serious crime that pollutes the soul of the readers. The brutality is exemplified to such an extent that it shocks the whole family of students that a member could commit such a heinous crime. Right now, I feel ashamed to be a student. At least, people who are deprived of education have a sense of moral judgement and they would be cursing us for receiving such a moralless education.
Adults have taught these students to get involved in a strike and just give a damn to the public properties that stand in their way whenever any disputes arise concerning seniors. Sooner or later, the seniors will teach this concept to their juniors and hence the vicious cycle will begin. It won't change unless we change our mindsets regarding dealing with such critical issues in a genuine and exemplary way. And by that, I imply using absolutely no forms of violence but dealings just based on hearing each others' opinions out and reaching a bilateral understanding with the measures taking place immediately. Although one might argue that no such measures will come into effect immediately, it will be based entirely in the system that we have created and we just have to be more serious about changing it.
If we want to witness bigger changes in the country, we just have to emphasize in the smaller yet very significant issues. It is necessary that we learn to make the best of our education by not just limiting to text books but also by feeling morally responsible for the actions carried out by us and those around us. We should realize the chain impact that an incident like above can have on the mindsets of the citizens. The moral fallacies that arose due to poor education has to be addressed immediately so that we never have to go through such incident again.
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