THE last week brought a new conversation -- with another group of 10-12 youngsters, mostly in colleges. And the questions posed to them were about heroes of India’s freedom struggle, or in Indian science, or in Indian arts. And the overall low level of general knowledge was saddening, to say the least. For, most queries went unanswered, though some youngsters did try to browse the internet only to be able to reply to a small percentage of questions. The youngsters came from different regions of India -- brought together by their colleges. Yet, most of them failed to answer questions about the local heroes of freedom struggle from their respective regions. “But Sir, you should not blame us,” a smart girl from the group stressed. “That is because nobody in our homes and colleges have ever introduced us to this subject. Our school books do not carry such information, and our homes are in the same league. There is no family elder who ever told us stories of nationalism and patriotism from our regions.” “She is right, Sir,” another youngster -- a boy from West Bengal -- said with equal emphasis. “Our books do not have such inspiring material to read -- in addition to study material.

 

Our teachers, too, rarely encourage us to study beyond the textbook content,” he added. The third comment from another boy from a major city in Maharashtra was more interesting. He said, “I did see some movies on historical figures. I enjoyed those. But my father said that the storylines were far from accurate. He also said that the movies were only commercial in nature and not historical. How will, then, we know the real story of the past?” Leave alone such stray comments, most youngsters in the group chose to keep a stiff silence and kept giving blank stares, indicating that history was not a subject of their interest. That episode left many, many questions unanswered and issues unaddressed. Some of those youngsters were frank in telling that history did not interest them. Some others were equally frank in blasting their schools and even families for not introducing them to the subject of local heroes who made a vast difference to India’s freedom struggle or artistic evolution, or helped in achieving higher progress in sciences. None of those comments and observations was worth being ignored.

 

For, in a way, those youngsters were bringing to fore the defect in our social and educational systems in which local heroes -- in any field -- seem to have little value. Most young people are not conscious of what actually the histories of their respective places are. This is, obviously, because the larger Indian society has become least interested in its own history. Is this because of the excess of consumerism? Is it because of the excess of commercialism? Is it because of the excess of a propagandist attack (on Indian minds) of material that is foreign to our DNA? Is it because in a social thought-process dominated by issues of commerce -- and survival -- finer issues such as history and its heroes have lost their value? Answers to these questions need to be found out and responded to by the larger society in the most responsible manner. For, India can only ill-afford to allow its younger generations divorced from the beauty of the story of India since time immemorial.