Why arrest Bihar toppers? After all, they are victims of a corrupt and venal system

On what grounds have these children in Bihar been arrested for topping their examinations and why are they being interrogated rather than simply being perceived as the pawns in a conspiracy? Let’s just look at the national track record. Everyone knows someone who cheated in class. They had the moxie which some of us did not. We had a kind of half-admiring half-disgusted attitude to their brazenness. In a nation where reservations have encouraged mediocrity to get high marks and children are force fed antiquated dross that passes for knowledge, it is no surprise that cheating is integral to the system. Top schools cheat openly when students are ‘kept behind’ for board examinations and then boast 100 per cent results. [caption id=“attachment_2829166” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Bihar toppers Rubi Rai and Saurabh Sreshtha. File photo. News18[/caption] This weeding out is never questioned. Less well-known schools just allow the students to cog. Same difference. The pressure is so intense, the teachers so poor, the demands so great that failing is not even a consideration. We have children who, by the hundreds, get 99% in English language. Even Shakespeare wouldn’t. That is how ridiculous our systems are. Today’s school children remind me of a stick of sugarcane being put through a metal wringer. Take these toppers who were arrested in Bihar after their lack of ability was revealed. They could not even explain what subjects they took underscored the absurdity of the cheating game. Why arrest these kids? They were given a deal by parents and teachers and they took it. They didn’t ask to be toppers. You could have just passed them Vyapam style like it is done every year right across the nations and no one is any wiser. Where was the need to go for glory? It is not their fault they were toppers, they didn’t ask for it, a mere pass mark would have sufficed. Somebody wasn’t thinking. You take children from lower income families and put a laurel wreath on their heads of course it is going to be a story. Today, we mock Rubi Rai who says ‘prodikal science’ instead of political science and the kid got 444 out of 500 in that subject. Makes you feel good to jeer. Then there is Saurabh Shreshta whom we have pilloried for his 485 out of 500 in science and we put this boy on TV and insulted him by asking him what was the most reactive element in the periodic table and he said aluminium and the nation hooted with mirth. As if you know the right answer. These kids are victims of a corrupt and venal system. They don’t even know what is happening to them. And we are purging ourselves and a bullet riddled education system on these children from less affluent homes and ruining their lives instead of concentrating on the culprits who make the money and exploit the children. Why are these children being arrested? Catch the school authorities, check out the nexus between the teachers and the people who correct the papers, find out how the latter knows who is to be the topper, at least be honest in the exposure of the rampant dishonesty. Instead, we are traumatising young boys and girls and thinking we have cleaned the stables. Arresting them is draconian. A civilised code of conduct would have been to simply question them in their homes. Everything we do and make is not just by the lowest bidder it is by the most corrupt. That’s why flyover collapse and bridges fall. We cannot even solve the open-ended Vyapam scam and seem to be waiting for all the persona to be killed off. So far, 49 people associated with this mountain of madness, have shuffled off the mortal coil in suspicious circumstances. How many more to go? And here we are piously arresting children whose parents and teachers manipulated them for their own ends. I read in the papers this morning that these frightened children are now going to be interrogated by the police. They are locked up. Have we gone totally insane? If one of these children kills him or herself out of sheer fear and shame I won’t be surprised. Is there nobody in India who can say stop this nonsense.