In No Man's Land
For a nation like India that mixes tradition and social system with anything and everything, it is hard to imagine that the next Bill Gates would come from the country. The system is so water-tight that the individual has no option but to follow in absolute silence.
The youth is accustomed to live in total submission to the existing customs, without being allowed to initiate any change essential for progress. They are discouraged from thinking out of the box. Worn-out ethics still rule the nation. Each person is tied down to responsibilities that are mostly redundant.
The expression ‘academic freedom’ is rare in India’s schools.Students are forced to study a set of subjects and are not allowed to make a choice. The changes that have come up in the education system lately are mostly cosmetic.Students were once evaluated on the basis of marks. Now grades do the same job. A pupil with high grade is considered brilliant and others,however creative, are nowhere in the scene.Parents and educational institutions put tremendous pressure on students. The current system hardly boosts their creative abilities.They are not encouraged to think and express freely.
Even when it comes to the system of marriage, a person has to go with the society’s mores to earn a ‘good name’ in the community.A youngster has no option but to study to earn good grades, then get into a good engineering or medical college, get a job that brings a heavy pay packet and finally, settle down with an opulent marriage. So youngsters are not encouraged to be torch-bearers of change,but made human clones who eat and breathe grades, marks and placements.
Individuals who rebel against the preset social norms are seen as people who fail their parents and bring their family dishonour.They become outcasts. Fear of isolation and need for a social environment make them stick to the thousand commandments of society.
Out of the 113 crore Indians, hardly one per cent would be ready to question and overcome the prescribed conventional model. So from the majority, we cannot expect a Bill Gates. But there is hope from the meagre percentage, on whom the rest,who will still be glued to their hopeless mores, will latch on for glory. Forever.
