WHEN EVERYTHING SEEMS FINE, PARENTS ARE WORRIED ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN’S FUTURE

WHEN EVERYTHING SEEMS FINE, PARENTS ARE WORRIED ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN’S FUTURE

8-JULY-ENG 19

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

ARA------------------------------Imagine a society where everything seems fine—children are going to school, youth are busy in competitive exams, parents are worried about their children's future day and night. From the outside, it seems that this education is taking the society forward. But as soon as you scratch the surface, a very deep deception is visible—what Gramsci calls 'ideological hegemony'. In this, hegemony means- achieving power through consent, not by force and ideological means- related to ideology, that is, thinking, beliefs, values, and common sense which seems natural to us. Ideological hegemony means- such ideological hold in which the ruling class makes its thinking the thinking of the entire public, due to which even the exploited class starts considering its own exploitation as right.

This dominance does not do any force. It enters our thoughts silently, smiling. This makes us believe that all the inequality in society is based on our merit. The rich are rich because they were smart. The poor are poor because they were lazy. If one child became a doctor, he was brilliant. If another remained a laborer, he was incompetent. In this way, gradually, all the reasons for inequality in society turn into personal failures.

This lie is taught as truth. The syllabus has stories of the bravery of kings and emperors, but the exploitation of farmers and workers never becomes a topic. We are told that everyone can rise up if they work hard, but no one tells us that some people cannot even start from the bottom because they have been punished for being born at the bottom. Caste, class, gender, region, language—all these barriers are hidden, and only one thing is highlighted—you were not capable.

What happens with this? When a poor child fails in the exam, he does not say that I did not have the resources. He says – I am useless. And this self-reproach is the most dangerous gift of this education. It breaks the consciousness of the person. It does not make him stand against the power, but makes him bow down before the same power.

Gramsci says that this process is made so normal that people stop finding it abnormal. In this system, schools and colleges are not built so that people know the truth, but so that people start believing the interpretation of the power to be true. This is ideological dominance. It does not scare like the police, it consoles like a mother. But its fatal blow is much deeper.

Since this education does its work very quietly, it becomes difficult to oppose it. People will say – are you against education? … You are even abusing hard work! Whereas the question is not of hard work, but of equal opportunity. The question is whether we are all being made to run in the same race, or has someone been tied in ropes and made to stand there?

If we want to break this deception, then education will have to be changed. We need such an education which teaches us to question. Which shows the real face of history. Which prepares children not only for jobs, but also to understand and change the world. Gramsci says that this is counter-hegemony. This education does not tell us to change ourselves, it says- change the society.

And when this understanding takes root in us, then education will not remain a mere thing that imparts knowledge. It will become a torch of struggle-and this will be the biggest revolution in the field of education.