University that poses a threat to young India by Shailesh Kumar

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the former US president, had once rightly said, “Democracycannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education”. Education becomes even more important for healthy functioning of a giant democracy like India where more than 65% of the population is below the age of 35 and more than 25% of the population is illiterate. While the former figure leaves us with an optimistic image of a young, vibrant and ambitious India, the latter opens our eyes wide enough to make us aware of the thorny path that lies ahead. While an illiterate and ignorant mind is like the raw clay which can be moulded intoany shape, a young brain too is like a hot iron plate which can be turned into a shield to protect as well as a sword to kill. Interestingly, the Indian democracy has abundance of both the raw clay and the hot iron plates.

Here the solution comes in the forms of information, education and institutions. While Indian Universities suffer from a wide range of problems starting from shortage of faculties to age-old syllabus and lack of infrastructure, often they face allegations of promoting certain ideologies and leaving no space behind for the young generation to think and use their rationale.For instance, the JNU is often called as ‘the factory of the left’ while a few are unpopular as ‘ambassadors of the right’.

        However, another university continues to maintain the first rank when it comes to manipulation of the young intellectual capital. It is, unlike the traditional Universities, ever expanding. It is omnipresent and enrolls millions of students across the land with just one touch. It becomes even more powerful as there is no eligibility criteria to get into this university. Anybody from any age group, from any socio-economic background and even without a minimum qualification can enroll himself/herself. This university, again, does not suffer from shortage of faculty members as anyone with an android smartphone can become a professor. The University I’m talking about is the University of the social media giants-Facebook and WhatsApp.

But in the age of information and technology, where about 300 millionusers are using smartphone in India, how does the social media pose a threat when it is supposed to strengthen the polity by bringing people together? Well, the answer is simple. When an Indian youth opens his social media application, be it WhatsApp, Instagram or Facebook, he encounters a number of manufactured propaganda and ultimately starts believing them to be the ultimate truths. Most of them are either pro-establishment or anti-establishment, pro-government or anti-government, hyper-nationalist or anti-national, hyper-secular or communal, radically feminist or misogynist; but one thing is for sure – they all are biased and none of them will tell you the full truth.

For instance, a week back, a post was widely shared and made viral where an IPS officer, Ajay Pal Sharma, was claimed to have proudly killed the rape accused of a 6 year old. At first it gave me a shock as how an IPS could act so casually and took the law into his hand. But after checking the facts it became quite clear that the entire news was fake. But how many of them who shared that post had checked the authenticity of the story? Did they even bother to think if it was right to kill a person only based on mere allegation and suspicion? Does anybody care to take the responsibility of making people aware of the fact that around 54% of the rape cases filed were fake in the so called rape capital-Delhi alone and hence with such a situation, capital punishment is not a viable option?

Moreover, every time you open Facebookor WhatsApp you will find posts abusing Gandhi, Nehru, Savarkar, Ambedkar and so on depending on who has created those posts and who has shared them. But the irony is most of them areeither factually incorrect or fundamentally corrupt, snatching away the right to knowledge from the Indian minds.

In the past few years, we have seen many incidents of mob lynching where whatsapp messages and Facebook posts had played a negative role. Every now and then posts, inciting violence and hatred, are getting shared by people without having a second thought. But if we peep into the matter, we can find clear political gains for some political groups at the cost of misleading our youth. While the television and the print media were vehemently criticized for their biased role and were alleged of being sold out during the 2019 General Elections, much less attention was paid to the negative role of social media.

Yes, nobody can underestimate the benefit of social media in making information cheaper and accessible. In fact, we must admire the fact that, because of this social media, today we aren’t mere consumers of information but also the participants and contributors. But at the same time we need to keep  an eye on the negative side as well. Now let’s get back to the beginning of this article. “The real safeguard of democracy is education”(F. D. Roosevelt). But that education must be enlightening, inspirational and based on truth. A misleading education and information are even worse than ignorance.

About the author- The author of this article, Shailesh kumar, is a student of political science, pursuing B.A at BJB Autonomous college.