Dumbed Down Electorate Outcome

The fantastic series of events shaking Tamil Nadu (pop.78 million) beginning with the mysterious prolonged illness and death on December 5 of J. Jayalalithaa, a popular former film star, AIADMK supremo and three terms chief minister of this southern seaboard state alternatingly ruled by the AIADMK and DMK — political parties with utterly corrupt and incompetent leaders emanating from the make-believe world of Tamil pulp cinema for three decades — has captured the public imagination nationwide. This drama is indicative of the depths to which Indian democracy has plunged because of neglect of public education.  The plots and sub-plots in the scramble for political power in Tamil Nadu, which despite the foolish policy experiments of the AIADMK and DMK, has emerged as a hub of the textiles, automobiles and IT industries, would surely have defied the best efforts of script-writers of popular Indian cinema. Only nine months ago, the AIADMK of which Jayalalithaa has been the undisputed leader since 1991, was — against all expectations — swept to power in the state’s legislative election of 2016. This despite her conviction together with her close friend and adviser V.K. Sasikala and two of the latter’s relatives in a case of corruption — possessing wealth and assets disproportionate to known sources of income (s.13 (1) (c) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988) — to four years’ imprisonment and fines  by a special Bangalore-based criminal trial court.  This conviction (which was promptly appealed) notwithstanding, the people of Tamil Nadu voted the AIADMK to power with a sweeping majority, perhaps because the dynastic DMK which had ruled from 2006-2011, had also been embroiled in scams and scandals. The long duration for which the patently corrupt and intellectually bankrupt leaders of these two popular pulp cinema-based parties have ruled — and ruined — Tamil Nadu, a state which in the early years after independence was reputed for its great universities and excellent public administration, not only raises doubts about Indian democracy based on universal franchise without any qualification, it also highlights how through reckless interference with the country’s primary, secondary and higher education systems, post-independence India’s wily neta-babu brotherhood has dumbed down the citizenry into an electorate of amoral simpletons unable to distinguish between right and wrong, and lacking reasoning and logical thinking capabilities.  The history of education under almost four decades of AIADMK-DMK rule in Tamil Nadu is a litany of populist interventions which has ruined the academy, in particular K-12 education. The consequence is that the people have lost all judgement and reason as the clamour for Sasikala’s election as AIADMK supremo despite her conviction having been confirmed by the Supreme Court, shows.    Messing with Children’s Minds Alarming reports are emanating from across the country about state education boards inserting propaganda, ‘alternative facts’, mistakes and inaccuracies in shoddily and haphazardly produced textbooks, especially prescribed liberal arts and humanities texts. There seems to be little awareness within society that textbooks invested with hate, lies and malicious religious, caste and ideological propaganda can…