Fathers of St. Xavier's versus fathers of India

Kolkata: In an alarmingly medieval skirmish, a lady faculty member of St. Xavier's University (aka College), Kolkata, was sacked for an Instagram post. Where, apparently, she was photographed in a swimsuit (bikini) which infuriated the morality of a pious student, his puritanical parent and indeed, the noble offices of Father Felix Raj, the principled principal.

Now, being an alumnus of this institution, both school and college, a few disclaimers are in due order. Missionary establishments do score above par in terms of operational morality, a sense of discipline and decorum superseding illicit spontaneity. But yet, they have never been stifling in construct, ever eager to provoke the imagination for Top Gun glories, and the instances are way too many with Nobel Laureates as due provenance. So, this matter must be adjudged in a fair and rightful context, shorn of emotive excesses.

Like all else in civil society, professors too have moved on, exercising the universal right to enjoy privileges of normalcy, while engaging sincerely in a solemnly inspirational vocation. In the happy era of social media, this certainly extends to Instagram effusiveness, as the barrier between personal and professional is rather clearly chalked, unlike conventional choking. So a fine scholar, with brutal integrity, is well entitled to be a party fiend, drowning Tequilas with the same prolificity as evaluating Engels and Marx. This necessary duality, or rather convergence, is perhaps still alien in our selectively judgemental mainstream. 

This is exactly why I wish to put two deserving candidates on the dock, both equipped to be progressive agents of change but choosing to be intuitive speed breakers. The Fathers who run the University, as the primary exhibit, for being deeply unable to change with the times, still expecting Stone Age abstinence from the designated educators. To add, this alarming extortionist demand of Rs. 99 crores as compensation from the disengaged teacher, seemingly a crippling lesson for all who dare to contravene. Such conduct is clearly neither cool nor learned, and has the potential to terminally damage the ably acquired ethos of the institution. 

The second, arguably more culpable, are the fathers (and indeed mothers) of urban India, who are proudly bringing up regressive children, scholastic but uneducated. To possibly compensate for their own inefficiencies, parents routinely dial up the role model-ness of educators, as if unidimensional robots who conform to a comforting script of abstinence. This in tandem with a tacit denial of new age civilization at large, leads to such obsolete offsprings, who seek holy umbrage at the right of others to live normally. So, it becomes a summer evening pastime to violate the personal social media account of a teacher, with a doting decadent parent in merry tow, over cauliflower samosas or pan-fried momos.  

If such an anomaly can occur in relatively liberal Kolkata, then surely a disturbing pattern can emerge across a more judgemental nation. A key lesson in this fracas, or rather fiasco, is the necessity to reposition educators as qualified professionals as opposed to surrogate deities, which is our cultural norm. Thus, to appreciate and evaluate their worth from tangible outcomes, exactly how we perceive doctors, lawyers, accountants, executives and even radio jockeys. 

In this journey, both Father and father (including mother) must perform compelling roles, being the most significant influencers of emerging mindsets. Educators need to demystify themselves as normal human beings blessed with a specific skill set while parents must reinforce this evolving perspective, starting with being real to their children. The halo must be earned by the genuine transference of valuable wisdom, eminently scalable, and not the faux demonstration of archaic iconicity, useless for all. 

On St. Xavier's row specifically, it seems rather inevitable that the Father in question will eventually abdicate, bowing to opinion momentum. Equally, the professor needs to be reinstated forthwith and the scholar and his family, suitably censured. But we must allow this case to be amplified liberally, so that blunders as such are not easily emulated.