Religion in Schools

The role of religion in education is often debated, especially when it comes to primary and secondary education, where the minds of the students are tender enough to be influenced by vested interests. In most democratic settings, both Education and Religion are part of the fundamental rights - the right to education and the right to religious practice. I really value both these rights. The trouble however comes when the two are mixed.

In many settings religion does play a vital role in education. In a country like India, blame it partly on the lack of good public educational system, most privately run educational institutions have a religious affiliation. I do not see it as a problem. If we consider education as an essential service to humanity, then the religious institutions (not religions)that, at least in paper, claim to be dedicated to the service to humanity are more likely to end up starting schools and universities.

Unfortunately, the involvement of religious institutions in educational systems come with a premium - vested religious interests start making inroads into structure and content of the educational lives of campuses.

In my case I had by primary school education from a CSI Mission school in Ooty, Secondary education from a Catholic school also in Ooty, Bachelors degree from a Hindu college in Calicut and MBA from a Muslim run institution in Kollam. In all these places there were elements of the respective faiths pervading into everyday educational life, if not in curriculum (which was often controlled by the secular state) certainly in other ways of educational life. In my primary school it was the "Jesus is the King" prayer song followed by the "Fun - Sunday School" Everyone knows what goes in those Fun Sundays :). In my secondary school it was my deeply religious Zoology teacher who said in a hushed tone after teaching evolution theories, "Dear students, these are only meant for the exam... in reality we all know the origin of life on earth"(the "we" in this case was those students he was able to convert to his faith :). Things were not much different in my Hindu college - An arrogant Hindu Fundamental principal (fortunately he was there only during my last year) was hiring former ABVP cadres(The student wing of the RSS, so to say) as lectures - anyone's easy guess as to what impact that would have had in the campus. My Muslim MBA institute was doing it differently - they had separate prayer rooms for Muslim students. Every Friday a bus was arranged to take all my Muslim friends to the nearby Jumma mosque. Whats more, our class timings were adjusted on Fridays to accommodate the schedule of the Mosque goers.

Here is a link to an episode from the Simpsons. It is a satire on how Religion is sneaked into classrooms by vested religious interests. Check it out.

Another amazing lesson in the sociology of laws from The Simpsons

Jan Lokpal supporters should definitely check this out...

http://www.videobb.com/watch_video.php?v=LIpEpLFEEvjc

Its episode 20 of season 21 from the Simpsons. It is about what a draconian law might end up doing to the society. I strongly believe that a corruption free society is utopia - arent we all corrupt at some level?

It is practically impossible for a wayside tea shops and street hawkers to legally operate in our country - they survive by paying some bribes to the poorly paid cop, who lets them have a livelihood at a minor premium. If the draconian law prevents the badly paid cop from getting his cut, he will try to put the poor hawker out of business (as the law would require) and thus rob him of his livelihood, prompting him to move towards some anti-social path.

That doesnt mean that corruption isnt to be dealt with. My issue is with the sort of red tape based corruption that stifles growth to meet some government official's or politician's private benefits. A starting point to addressing corruption is not to formulate a draconian law but to design efficient systems that suggests reliable turnaround times for bureaucratic matters and incentives for the bureaucrats to stick to those turnaround times.

A renewed BSNL customer care is an example of such a system (at least my recent experience indicates so) Further, it might also be useful to compartmentalize bureaucratic activities into two (not more) - the ones that receives service requests from the people and the ones that deliver service requests to people.

Reducing the interface between the ones receiving service requests and the ones delivering services and motivating both to stick to turn around times would reduce the incentive and the propensity to engage in corruption, as the ones taking the request do not have anything to do with (ability to influence decisions) the final outcome, but they have the incentive to pass on the request quickly. That's my tuppence worth on this issue.

Social Movement Lessons from The Simpsons

The Simpsons never stop to amaze me - this time it's Lisa Simpson starting a micro media movement... Great lesson for social movement students :) An absolute 'Must watch!' It is episode 22 from season 22 - "Fraudcast News"

After you enjoy watching the video, read the following article (Carroll & Swaminathan, 2000) from the American Journal of Sociology on the Micro Brewery Movement in the US. I am sure you will see what I mean :)

http://www.sociology.psu.edu/graduate/Fall%202010%20Prosem/Readings-McCarthy/Carroll%20&%20Swaminathan%202000.pdf

Why the Jan Lokpal is a Bad Solution

Jus playing the devil's advocate here... In India now the Jan Lokpal is a favorite solution to fight corruption. I agree, the idea of a corruption free country feels very exciting and no wonder there are so many joining arms in this "war against corruption"... Certainly the uprising of this social movement against corruption is well justified. But my issue is with the proposal of appointing an ombudsman. I see it as an attempt to solve the problem of bureaucracy with yet another bureaucracy. I would need more space to break it down for you. See my following comments :)

Any system that is constructed to attain some sort of teleological efficiency that is expected to be obtained through rational calculations and controls is a bureaucracy. In this very sense the government is a bureaucracy and so too is the Jan Lok Pal. Unfortunately, once established for a certain teleological end, the bureaucracy takes its own life and eventually traps its very creators and the once replicating it and supposed to be benefiting from it. Hence, as Max Webber lamented, Bureaucracy turns into an "Iron Cage". There are umpteen instances where we are victims of such iron cages... We can speak at length about them but that would divert attention.

So, on the one hand bureaucracy appears to facilitate us in attaining some teleological efficiency (e.g., tackling corruption); however, it soon turns into an iron cage from which we have no escape. So how could one use solve the dilemma of bureaucracy? In India, the society has learned to deal with bureaucracy while also benefiting from it by developing a defacto market within the bureaucratic system - if the system is too rigid motivate the gatekeepers to generate some flexibility - Corruption, you might call it. This is the menace we have been trying to fight, right. Then, eventually the Jan Lokpal will become one such iron cage which will be dealt with corruption too :) Now you might speak about accountability and stuff... lets get to that.

Lets take anti-raging laws. It is illegal to rag in college campuses. That doesnt stop raging from occurring year after year. The senior students might develop their own system to monitor who will go and complaint and who wouldn't - a survival of the fittest, so to say. Many a time, out of vested political interest the junior student (lets say an SFI member) could even take vengeance over some senior (lets say a KSU leader) without any basis, by lodging an anti-raging complaint against him/her. Same goes with sexual harassment laws and many such laws. So a law is not a solution to tackle the situation. It either turns into an iron cage that starts controlling our every move or people find their own ways to mend it.

A potential solution will be to legalize many things that are now illegal. For example, I don't see many complaining against Tirupati devotees who get expensive tickets to get into the "quick darshan" ques. Now that would be corruption if that was illegal (as it happens in Guruvayoor). But the devaswom board has legalized it in Tirupati. Same goes with Business class travel, or any such paid service. Even lobbying for that matter should be legalized. At least it allows people to know who is paying for the campaigns of major parties (i.e., is there a hidden agenda). Without making it legal we would not be able to see who is behind the campaign (it happens under the table). Back until the 80s Gold was smuggled into India in large quantities, now we don't have that malice - every person can legally bring in 5kg of Gold to India legally now.

So the solution is not another bureaucratic system with too many iron bars, but a system without too many check posts. I rest my case here :)