Before proceeding further, I would love to relate a folk story that reads: “One gray evening, a middle-aged man with a neat and clean dressing approached a sailor on the riverbank and asked him to transport him to the village located across the river. The sailor refused to entertain him and said that boats operated only till sunset as the security situation was very poor and the local magistrate had banned shipping after nightfall. In the meantime, the man noticed another boat advancing towards the subject’s route and asked the sailor to explain the reason. The sailor replied that the passenger was Patwari Saheb of the village and such government officials and VIPs were carried along any time they wished. The man smiled and told him that he was also a very senior government officer and must be served accordingly. The sailor reciprocated accordingly, bowed down to the man and got him seated with reverence and the journey kicked off. During their voyage, the sailor humbly asked him if he was a tehsildar. The man replied ‘No, I am much senior in grade’. The sailor became highly inspired and asked if he was a Sub-registrar. The man replied, ‘No, I am much senior than a magistrate, assistant commissioner or even the deputy commissioner.’ The sailor was about to faint and shouted, ‘am I so lucky to have a commissioner in my boat?’ No, I am the principal of your village’s newly established degree college’, the man replied proudly. Feeling infuriated and thinking himself duped, the sailor shouted back, ‘Oh! You are a schoolmaster, not an officer. Go to hell! You wasted my time.’
So, this is the status and esteem of a teacher in our slavish society where people respect others on the basis of their official status, socio-political dominance, oppressiveness, awfulness and, above all, the capacity to humiliate the commoners. Unfortunately, we have been conquered and ruled, not only by foreign emperors and dynasties but by their slaves (Slaves Dynasty) too. Thus, it would not be wrong to assert that we are the slaves of the slaves. The last episode, British colonialism, in this regard, has played the most perpetual role in the finishing, shaping and crafting of our psycho-mental moulds and transforming of our socio-cultural values by leaving behind a legacy of a state and a system of governance that works by adopting a hostile and humiliating approach towards the masses. We, as a nation, have developed an attitude to revere and bow to everyone who looks down upon us and insult everyone who bows before us. So, we respect those authoritative personalities who subjugate us and degrade those who embrace us, train us, educate us, groom us, and, above all, enable us to stand on our feet, with benevolence and care.
Even a cursory glance at our socio-morally lapsing society and the prevalent culture will lay bare the fact that the status of a teacher, in our part of the world, is, regrettably, very pathetic on socio-economic levels. Adding salt to the wounds, the unbridled galloping of privatization of higher education in the society, during the last two decades, the curse of capitalism has also been yoked together with slavish mentality and culture. Thus, the teacher is just a salesman and the university management is merely a client for those being taught so that they can solely maneuver the matter of job security and retention policy of the teaching faculty.
Factually speaking, a teacher is, unquestionably, an architect of the society and the creator of the auspicious and progressive values, ideologies and principles that sail a nation towards the accurate route through stormy currents of the socio-intellectual degeneracy. A teacher is, beyond any cavil, an incarnation of a legacy, a set of principles for life and an everlasting guiding spirit for not only his associated society, but for the whole universe. It is highly ironic to discern that all the statesmen, elites, politicians and civil, military and judicial bureaucrats consider the teachers inferior, yet they can neither repudiate the veracity of being the products of the teachers nor help sending their succeeding generations to the teachers for grooming, learning and career building.
Unfortunately, we never have paid heed to the matter of welfare or even the matter of survival of the teachers who are the essential driving force behind this training and education campaign. Every other day, you will find news, notifications, advertisements and amendments in rules and regulations concerning education and academic policies issued by federal and provincial ministries, departments and institutions including Higher Education Commission (HEC), but you will never come across any such document that addresses the job security, promotions and salary policies, basic rights and stress and conflict management issues of the teachers, especially those who are working in private institutions under a typical Seth (capitalistic) culture. Whether it is a matter of providing NOC to, monitoring, ranking or upgrading any higher education institution, the concern is confined to policy making, syllabi and course designing, improving infrastructure and provision of the state-of-the-art facilities only. If a university hires a Ph.D. qualified candidate, who is in dire need of a job in the backdrop of a mushroom growth of the Ph.D. scholars in the country, at a monthly salary of Rs. 40000, the state does not have any tension.
There is a famous Sanskrit language aphorism that when an arrogant lady makes her husband a slave, she becomes a slave’s wife and the one who treats her husband as a King, becomes a Queen and enjoys life. So, if you are experiencing a slavish society with slave-groomed generals, justices, bureaucrats, politicians, doctors, engineers, technocrats, intellectuals, policemen and the statesmen, do not blame the Jewish lobby, Indian media or international powers for hatching conspiracies against you, just resort to self-mortification and mend your mindset.
(The writer is an Author, Educationist, Analyst and TV Anchor, can be reached at muttahir_khan@hotmail.com)