It is a well know fact that India has the most number of illiterate people in the world with a literacy rate of around 74%. Another perhaps little known fact is that more than 50% of India's illiterates are concentrated in North Indian states. My intention here is not to tarnish north India but rather point out some consequences and reasons for this based on some observations I made during my experience.
Let me start with what prompted me to write this piece in the first place. Recently I got on a cycle rickshaw (a simple vehicle that moves on the pure muscle power of the driver) to go to a friends house. I asked the the driver (a man in his late 30's) to look for a sign with so and so name and number. However to this he replied meekly that he was illiterate and could not read. This came as a shocker and at the same time answered several questions. I have always wondered why anybody would become a cycle rickshaw puller in Delhi since it is probably the worst job a man can get in the transportation industry. Imagine cycling in the midday heat, amidst fumes and dust with 2 or 3 people attached to a carriage behind you. And the worst part is you only get paid a pittance, often less than what other taxi drivers make for the same distance. I have heard that most of these people contract asthma or some other lung disease
My point in explaining the plight of the rickshaw drivers is that, illiteracy might be one of the driving factors that constrain them to take up such employment in turn be exploited by the literate people like us. There is an old saying in Kerala, "the one who was struck by the lighting was in turn bitten by the snake". I feel the plight of the illiterate rickshaw drivers and so many other illiterates mirror this statement. I do not think it would be farfetched to say that we the literates, have created a class of illiterates to exploit economically. Perhaps we did this unintentionally but certainly not without our knowledge.
But why is it that despite so many years of independence,so many thousands of crores spent every year by the government for education, and the hundreds of NGO's who work for literacy that India is still many decades away from full literacy.
Perhaps the reason can be found in the mindsets of the educated, North Indians themselves. I have often noticed a strong reluctance to share information to others, even if they are colleagues or coworkers. They seem to think that they posses a treasure which only they have the right to enjoy. If this is the attitude of the educated towards their peers, how much more worse will it be towards the underprivileged. Education is the methodical imparting
of knowledge to those who don't have it, but that in itself would be a
dead end if the educated does not share it with somebody else who don't
have it.
Another interesting fact I have seen among certain lower middle classes is the limited importance they give for educating their children. Educating children is still secondary to marrying them off, or conducting some expensive religious ritual. Most often it's the girls who suffer because the limited family budget for education gets over with the boys. This is in direct contrast to south Indian families.
The schools of course don't really help either. I have heard first hand accounts of government schools in rural areas where teachers only come twice every term even though the children come for the free food. Apparently all the children are given free passes to the succeeding years without writing exams. The other extreme are the private schools in the Cities, which have turned primary education into a money spinning corporate enterprise. Indeed the cost of a single term for a single student in one of these schools is enough to pay for a 100 or so students in a normal school. These schools cultivate a sense of cut throat competition from day one in the child for them to be successful. But in turn take away many things that could have caused them to care about the less privileged.
I believe the eminent educationalists and political class of north India have to wake up to plague that eats the less fortunate in their backyard rather than slumber in their high mansions of national glory. No nation can claim any trophy in cultural greatness or set a date for economic might when a good multitude of its people don't know how to read or write. Similarly the educated in North India have to realize that without sharing knowledge, their education means nothing.
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