Being a teacher has never been easy, especially if you are the kind who believes that teaching is a calling, and that your purpose as a teacher is not just to teach your students a subject, but also to help them grow up as decent human beings and good citizens. But it is especially difficult being an educator in India today, if you believe in Constitutional values of secularism, equality and fraternity.
For instance, what do you do when students in your class greet you with Jai Shri Ram or insist on telling you why India should be a Hindu rashtra? How do you respond when more and more students feel free to hurl communal and casteist slurs at students from different religious backgrounds than their own? How do you counter fake history originating from WhatsApp University and shamelessly communal media channels?
Teaching high school students for the last three decades has given me a rather unique vantage point from which to view Indian society. One notices things over the course of a decade that one might not have spotted over the course of year. Kids are, sadly, often the “canary in the mine” and amongst the first to reflect deep societal shifts. One of the saddest things I have noticed is how many things are now said freely and openly in classrooms and staff rooms that were anathema in educational spaces till even ten years ago.
But regardless of how much Indian society may have become polarised and vitiated, the conscientious teacher, now more than ever, has an important secular duty to perform.
Here are a few field notes, gleaned from personal experience, which I hope will help in tackling situations that are relatively recent phenomena.
‘Jai Shri Ram’
It is important to remember that ‘Jai Shri Ram’ is a Hindutva war cry more than it is a greeting. As journalist Akshaya Mukul explains in his book Gita Press, “The Ramjanmabhoomi movement did away with the traditional Awadhi slogan ‘Jai Siya Ram’ and instead adopted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ as its slogan.” The slogan was central to the movement, embodying a new, aggressive and masculine Ram.
When greeted with ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in the classroom, I explain to the students that the original, time-honoured greeting is, in fact, ‘Jai Siya Ram’ or even ‘Bol Siyavar’, and that Ram has always been mentioned in conjunction with his wife, Sita.
Also read: The Last Barrier Against Communalism in India
I then go on to tell the class, “If you must say ‘Jai Shri Ram’, then you also need to say ‘Allah-u-akbar’, ‘Buddhham Sharanam Gachhami’, ‘Sat Sri Akaal’, ‘Praise be to Jesus’ and ‘Jai Jinendra’, because the last I checked, India is still a secular democracy where all religions are equally important. Now, I’m guessing you don’t have time to say all of that every time you greet someone. So, what if we just greet each other with ‘Jai Hind’ instead?”
Most students in any class, I find, resonate with this suggestion and if a few still insist on saying “Jai Shri Ram”, I simply respond with “Jai Hind” or even “Jai Samvidhaan”, given that the Constitution of India is what our Republic has been built on.
‘But in Muslim-majority countries, the official religion is Islam. Why can’t India be a Hindu country since the majority here are Hindus?’
To this, I simply respond with, “Many Muslim majority countries, such as the countries in the Gulf, are officially proclaimed religious states. India chose not to be one. That is why we do not have an official state religion because we are officially a secular country.”
‘All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslim’
If these statements sound just like the ones coming your way from RWA/old school friends’ WhatsApp groups, it’s because they are. Kids and young people are sponges. More often than not, they regurgitate what they have heard at home or seen on social media.
If a student says this, I gently ask them if the person who shot Mahatma Gandhi was a Muslim. This usually brings about a pause.
At this point, though, I tell them that someone’s religion does not automatically make them a good or bad person, but the choices that they have made do. This might sound obvious, but it is not always so apparent to young people who have been brought up in communally bigoted families. It also helps to quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s immortal phrase:
“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts.”
‘But Muslims are backwards people and very dangerous’
The best response to this, I find, is just to ask them, “How many Muslims do you personally know who are dangerous, and what they have done to you personally?”
The reply to this is usually, “I don’t know any personally, but I’ve been told…”
This is then a good time to request your students to kindly do their own thinking and not be swayed by what others’ biases and prejudices. As far as backwardness and superstition go, it helps to remind the class that these are not the exclusive domain of any one religion.
‘But I saw it on WhatsApp and on TV’
This is an excellent time to talk about the dangers of misinformation and fake news. I even have the following ready in PowerPoint form, to show and explain to young people at an opportune time:
Don’t trust a WhatsApp forward if it:
- Has a sensational headline
- Claims to reveal some “shocking” truth no one has ever heard before
- Creates suspicion and mistrust of others
- Creates enmity between communities
- Promotes bigotry
- Makes you feel emotional and ‘triggered’
- Promotes pseudo-science
- Is not factual
While of course, it is imperative to keep pointing out the illogic and fallacies in the WhatsApp-fuelled arguments our students (or professional colleagues for that matter) put forth, the best way, perhaps, to tackle the poison of bigotry and hate in the classroom is to remind our students of its effects. One can say something like: “We are all human beings first and foremost, and when we label and ostracie others, we hurt them deeply. How would you feel if someone did to us what you are doing to them?”
A simple call to respect the humanity of another can actually go a very long way.
Also read: When Hate Fills Every Corner, From Classroom to Prayer Room, Where Do You Look for Hope?
A school teacher who teaches grade-school kids recently told me that children as young as seven years of age have now started talking about ‘Hindu and Musalmaan’. I asked her how she is handling it.
She said she makes it a point to celebrate all the major Indian festivals with her class. Recently she asked Aziz, a Muslim boy in her class, to bring sevaiyaan (sweet vermicelli, an Eid delicacy) to school the day after Eid. His eyes lit up and he said, “Will you eat it?” She assured him she would. At that point, his young Sikh classmate standing next to him said, “Bring me some too, OK?”
Some students protested, “But ma’am, Eid is a Mussalmaan festival! We don’t celebrate it or eat Muslim food!”
The teacher then told the class, “There is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ here, We are all Indians” and spent the next half hour explaining to her second grade students that as Indians, we are free to celebrate all festivals and that Eid is as Indian a festival as any.
She went on to share with them the story of the prophet Mohammed and showed her class a short, animated YouTube video about how Eid is celebrated all over India. She encouraged her students to wish all their classmates “Eid Mubarak,” which they did, happily.
Unfortunately, despite one’s best efforts and appeals to logic and reason, there will still be those who will choose bigotry. I am reminded of a recent incident involving a colleague who has taught 11th and 12th graders for several decades now. She sat quietly while a few religious zealots in her class ranted against a minority community.
After they had finished giving expression to their hostility (and run out of things to say) she said, “You can hate your fellow Indians if you want to, but I am going to love them and treat them with respect and dignity.”
The class went quiet. The most important point that had to be made had been made.
It will take time to heal as a society from the industrialised hate it has been soaked in for the last ten plus years. As always, teachers and educators remain in one of the best possible positions to facilitate this healing.
Rohit Kumar is an educator, author and independent journalist, and can be reached at letsempathize@gmail.com
