Opinion Dear parents and students

I studied math, physics, chemistry and biology in Hindi till Class VI. We had a prayer book that had the best from the Gita, Sanskrit kavya, and the “Gayatri Mantra”, which I still remember by heart. We read history that would be called leftist, elitist or pseudo secular today — whatever that means.

Today, as I surprise my colleagues with my knowledge of Hindi, Sanskrit and ancient Indian traditions, I cannot thank my school enough for giving me the kind of education that lets me span 3,000 years of human history with relative ease, and yet stay contemporary. Everything I am today, I owe to my school. Which is why I am still proud of it.

But it never struck us that our education was wrong. Not once did any part of that curriculum teach us that to love India, we needed to hate something or someone. Parents and students of India, we need to ensure that years from now, when young Indians graduate from school and step into an India of the future, they feel proud and indebted to their education for the right reasons. For me, those reasons are my teachers. My Sanskrit sir, my English ma’am, my principal and all those teachers we respected, were afraid of, had crushes on, were fans of, and sometimes had our ears boxed by.

In the professional institute I attended, those reasons were the intense professors and faculty who would sit with us under a tree and talk for hours on how to design a cheap electric rickshaw for the Indian small town or marvel at the shape of the humble Indian lota.

None of those teachers told us to love India, be a patriot, or protect the country’s honour. But funnily enough, as they taught us about the quadratic equation solved by Brahmagupta, recited the poetry of Dinkar and read passages from Ruskin Bond and Manto, taught us the wonders of Indian muslin, the terracotta tile work of Bengal and the world’s highest airstrip in Ladakh, or sang film songs, that love affair was kindled in our hearts unknown to us and burns strong still.

India has had a proud tradition of teaching and learning for thousands of years. Central to that tradition was the guru, and his shishyas. It is not for nothing that Drona, Kripa and even religious teachers like Shankara, Buddha, Mahavir and Nanak live among us even today, in scriptures and legends. Before they were anything, they were teachers, who inspired a group of students. Further, the most ancient Indian tradition is debate. Many Upanishads, Itihasas, and Darshanas are in the form of a series of questions and answers between the guru and the shishya.

Our past glory is repeatedly cited as the reason for many acts and deeds today. That glory needs to be spelt out: It was an education system that encouraged questioning, argument, debate and the give and take of ideas. Our teachers prepared us to live in India with other Indians who also went to schools and colleges that equipped them with a sustainable Indianness. We could pass out of Roorkee and get a job in Chennai. Or a boy from Gujarat could become the best friend of a Bengali growing up in the Punjabi heartland of Delhi. We would think nothing of joining an engineering institute in a state we had never visited. We would think nothing of years in a hostel that was predominantly Hindu or Muslim or Sikh, even if we did not belong to that faith.

Teaching is the imparting of the right knowledge. To impart it, one must have it. The greatest teacher of painting in the world will be unsuitable to teach carpentry. And the love of India can be taught easily while teaching math or filmmaking by someone who loves math, filmmaking — and India! It does not need a specialist course in patriotism because that almost always stands for the vested interest of a group that needs to recruit your child to do their dirty work.

Parents and students of India, we need to show we love India more than those who profess they have a monopoly on this love story.

The India we love is fun, smiling, diverse, full of good food, good music, classrooms full of mischievous but bright children, and young people who love a party but can still study all night for exams. The India we love is full of teachers who, for minimum pay, walk miles to teach toddlers to count, or young men to turn the lathe machine, or girls to climb a mountain. The India we love is full of teachers and educationists and writers and poets and singers who, through their course books, songs, stories and poems, make Indian students some of the brightest, most talented and multi-faceted in the world. The India we love is full of institutes that turn out bright sparks in banking, genetic research, fashion design and statistics, without telling them how they should profess their love for India. The India we love lets its parents and students decide for themselves what they want to learn and how — if there was a school or college they could go to. For all our faults, frustrations, poverty, and inequality, we never lost that.

As we stand in fear of losing that one Indian privilege, I ask you, the parents and students of India, to break your silence and start speaking out. Because it is the silent who are heard most when they break it.

Banerjee, director, most recently, of ‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!’, is one of the 12 filmmakers who returned their National Awards this week