The Educated Terrorist

Another well educated man is under suspicion for the Bangalore blasts according to the news reports. Happened the last time during the Mumbai blasts too, a software professional from Bangalore working for Oracle was found to be part of the terrorist gang. Scary is it not? What effect does academic education really have on a man's mind if inspite of having degrees and certificates, he believes its completely justified to kill a fellow human? The answer makes me shudder right in my soul.

The one thing that binds all human beings together irrespective of caste, creed, colour, sex age is humanity.Its inherent, not an acquired quality, whats acquired is apathy, cruelty and disregard for human life. And its missing in highly educated people. What does that say for us as people?

So here we have well educated young men using their trained brains to plan attacks on fellow humans. Should I be surprised and shocked at this revelation? I should, but I am not, somewhere in the corner of my heart it seems so possible so likely. There are many reasons that I can think of for such acts, none of them act as an excuse good enough to kill another human being, but there are reasons aplenty. But I think the lack of values, goodness, righteousness tops the list. In a dog eat dog world, where is the time to think and do good?

Education in today's times is nothing more than academic ability, it has no connection whatsoever with morals, humanity, values. Schools and colleges could not care less, about the person, as long as the results are good, high scores and all. There is no sense of responsibility in these institutes about imparting good values, learnings, creating good humans to be the future of the nation, the world. Barring a very few, no teacher is interested in the personal development or enhancement of her pupils, all that matters are the score cards. Come parents' teachers' meets and they have piles of things to tell the parents about whats wrong with their child. I wonder what will happen if one of the parents manages to ask them, "And what are you doing about that, being the teacher?" Teaching is not just about reading text books and explaining subjects, but its about imparting the students with values and principles which see them walk through life with their head held high, on the path of honesty and righteousness. But teachers today could not care less. How many of them care to help and rectify a student, beyond giving punishments. Good acts are rarely rewarded, all that matters are the books and extra curricular activities, which no doubt are extremely important, but definitely not more than basic human values. Unfortunately many of these institutions, not only have no inputs in this domain, but instead provide the impressionable minds with the exact opposite morals of save-your-skin-at-all-costs, and kill competition at whatever price you can. so what else can we expect from products of such institutes? Humanity and love for mankind? Far fetched imaginations we have don't we???

Back home parents are no different. Expectations are sky high. Every child is expected to be a class/college/university topper. The emphasis on academic achievements is so high, that all else pales in comparison. Children learn to cheat, lie to parents to escape the pressure. A good humane act is not applauded half as much as a good report card. Children begin to learn that everything is passable as long as there are good grades to show, and where does that lead them once they complete their academic life? What happens if they cannot survive the pressures of the real world out there? They cheat and lie yet again, and again and again, until the frustration within kills them, they look for means for an escape. Its easy to sway such a person, to mislead them, give them a human thing to believe in, an emotionally charged goal rather than marks and promotions to look for. Easy isn't it?

Spotting such terror activists is difficult, if not impossible. Its simple to understand when we see unemployed poorly educated people being employed by terrorist organisations to carry out there evil acts, but a well educated person falling for these things, a very complex proposition. But with the lines of good and bad blurring into oblivion, with high performance pressures to produce results on paper, that humanity and righteousness takes a backseat from day one, is it then a great surprise that without much guilt, the educated man steps into the evil world of terrorism.

Wake up oh society and change before we have more learned terrorists. Realise human values are much more important than score cards and promotions.