Page 84 - EW March 2021

Postscript

Plagiarism endorsement described by Dr. B.R Ambedkar, prime author of the Con-
stitution of India, as sink holes of ignorance, superstition
and iniquity, the authority and diktat of the local political
HE UNWRITTEN RULE AND CONVENTION OF don and family patriarchs can be questioned only on pain
Indian journalism is dog doesn’t eat dog. Despite of death or worse.
Tfierce competition for advertising and readership, The entire rule book has been thrown at teenage
the established norm of Indian media is to refrain from climate activist Greta Thurnberg, pop singer Rihanna and
direct criticism and ridicule. However, sometimes excep- our own environment idealist Disha Ravi by the neta-
tions have to be made to this rule of media propriety. babu establishment, not because they pose a threat to
For the past few years, an enterprise operating under the sovereignty, stability and unity of India, but because
the name and style of VAK Education Today Pvt. Ltd, they dared to make common cause and speak up for the
promoted by Anil Sharma, a former employee of Edu- thousands of farmers who have been agitating against
cationWorld, has been publishing an annual print and three laws rushed through Parliament without sufficient
online magazine titled Education Today.co. Like Educa- deliberation and debate.
tionWorld (estb.1999) which pioneered its annual EW Even if the girls/women had aided and abetted in
India School Rankings (EWISR) way back in 2007, Edu- the design of a “tool kit” in collaboration with a motley
cation Today.co also publishes its Special Edition (sic) band of Punjabi émigrés plotting to embarrass the BJP/
of India School Rankings in exercise of its constitutional NDA government on the farmers’ agitation issue, it
right to do so. would have amounted to a fleabite to an elephant and
However even if belatedly, your editors have taken should have been ignored. By interpreting youth activism
exception to this publication’s blatant plagiarisation of as international conspiracy to destabilise the country
parameters ideated by us to evaluate primary-secondary and government, the BJP leadership has exposed its
school excellence (academic reputation, individual at- small-mindedness. Ditto on the farm legislation issue.
tention to students, infrastructure provision, value for Repeal of the already hollowed out legislation which the
money, leadership etc) being brazenly replicated in the government has suo motu put off for 18 months, and
ET.co. Ditto the categories and sub-categories into which re-enacting it after consultation with farm leaders, rather
schools are segregated to eliminate apples and oranges than patriarchal bullying, would have been the politically
comparisons. Flagrant plagiarism apart, the ET.co rank- correct response.
ings are downright dishonest with top rankings stretch-
ing credibility to breaking point.
For instance, incredibly ET.co’s latest (December MJA’s glass house blunders
2020) issue ranks NES International, Mumbai, India’s #1
international school ahead of Woodstock, Indus Interna- HE EXONERATION ON FEBRUARY 17 OF col-
tional, Dhirubhai Ambani, Kodaikanal International and umnist Priya Ramani by a Delhi sessions court in a
Good Shepherd (Ooty) which routinely top the annual Tcriminal defamation case filed against her by once
EWISR. Within, the virtues of NES International are much celebrated author and hitherto cabinet minister
advertised across nine pages. Moreover, while EWISR in the BJP/NDA government at the Centre, has further
is the outcome of a national field and online survey of damaged the already tattered reputation of M.J. Akbar,
12,000-15,000 academics, parents and teachers coun- who over four decades had built a reputation for tren-
trywide, ET.co rankings are reportedly based upon the chant political and socio-economic insights and felicity
deliberations of a jury comprising “the most-experienced with the English language. At the height of the women’s
in the education system”. The identities of members of global Me Too movement (2018), several women journal-
this grand jury are undisclosed. ists went public and accused Akbar of sexual harassment.
Yet the reality that a large number of school promot- One among them was Priya Ramani, who writes a weekly
ers and principals enthusiastically participate in ET.co’s column for the business daily Mint.
patently plagiarised and fraudulent annual rankings Instead of offering the defence that the dangerous
farce — and proudly display their knock-off trophies liaisons he had perhaps initiated were consensual, Akbar
and awards — is a telling commentary on the judgement — who in his long career had acquired quite a reputation
and discrimination of some of India’s school leaders. Is as a Don Juan of the newsroom — ill-advisedly went
it possible they are unaware that they are judged by the into denial mode. Worse, he filed a criminal defamation
company they keep? case under s.500 of the archaic Indian Penal Code,
1860, against Ramani for loss of “stellar reputation”.
Patriarchal small mindedness A big mistake because Akbar’s stellar reputation was
as a man of letters, not for personal propriety. Also a
big mistake because it’s widely accepted that the laws
HE BJP/NDA GOVERNMENT’S transformation of criminal defamation are obsolete and abolished
of the puerile tweets of two girls hardly out of their worldwide. Therefore, judges are reluctant to jail accused
Tteens into a vast international conspiracy to topple in defamation cases, especially women. If at all, he should
the government of India with a defence establishment have filed a civil action for damages. Even so he would
comprising over 1,100,000 personnel and a nuclear arse- most likely have been awarded contemptuous damages,
nal at its command, exposes the small-town patriarchal i.e, the lowest coin of the realm.
mind-set of its leadership. In the almost one million small Moral of the story: people in glass houses shouldn’t
towns and villages of India’s vast rural hinterlands aptly throw stones. Or become legally trigger happy.

84 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2021