Opinion India’s aspirants need someone to help them dream
Let’s pledge to ensure that hope can become disappointment but it should never turn into despair
This Independence Day, let’s remember that the key to aspiration is hope and because of the numbers, more will fail than succeed. 
This Independence Day, as we unfurl the flag and sing the national anthem, let’s spare a thought for The Aspirant. Of course, all 1.4 billion of us, in this our 77th year, aspire towards the ‘better,’ whatever that may be, but The Aspirant is the young man or woman working hard, away from public glare, to find a tiny door in the massive, impregnable wall known as the system: Trying to crack an entrance exam, a job interview, find a bed in a hospital or a seat in the sleeper coach — not Vande Bharat — or a foothold on the ladder that leads to someplace higher.
The last few weeks have shown them, and us, that even 77 years into freedom, what a challenge it is. More than 26 lakh NEET examinees spend endless days and nights waiting for the system to decide if they have to take a retest or not, all because of a few corrupt citizens. Three university graduates, all bright and talented, find themselves under rainwater which colludes with the system to snuff out their lives. All they had hoped for was to become a civil servant and help other aspirants realise their potential in a village, a district. A woman doctor returning after her night shift is raped and killed. We are now fighting a war over her soul on Instagram, calling each other names, rather than confronting the reality that stares at us: India has improved in a million ways since that tryst-of-destiny midnight but in a million new ways, it is still a work in progress.
In any society, politics, governance and citizen behaviour are inevitably extensions of human relationships. How we engage with each other, and how we transact with each other is how relationships play out in our democratic institutions as well — we often forget that our MPs and MLAs are MPs and MLAs because of our vote and our vote is shaped by how we conduct ourselves outside the polling booth. In our schools, homes, and workplaces, do we cut corners, do we take the cheap shot, do we put down a rival? Do we push an application of a friend’s child rather than one unknown and less entitled? Morality and ethics are not principles, they are hidden in the list of items in our daily to-do list.
That rainy day, the students in Rau’s basement library would have been studying politics, science, history, geography, disaster management, literature, sociology, India’s Five-Year plans and the country’s space programme, knowing that they were in a quiet place where they could concentrate. What they could not read was us, their fellow Indians: The owners of that building, the contractor and the municipal corporation officer as well as their teachers who, every day, told them about dreams but were disconnected from their reality and, of course, the local MP, the local MLA, the local thana. It was their job, it was our job, to ensure that no one is killed reading in a library. But we have all got away and this Independence Day, we shall forget.
This Independence Day, let’s remember that the key to aspiration is hope and because of the numbers, more will fail than succeed. So let’s pledge to ensure that hope may become disappointment, but it should never turn into despair. That is why each suicide note from Kota is a call for national action and yet, it continues to be treated like an unfortunate postcard from this city of dreams. Talented artists convert that trauma into successful TV shows and our world goes on.
As a first step, can we start thinking of ways other than exams where the odds are as skewed as in a lottery? In a deeply unequal society, how do we design a level-playing field? As parents, how can we stop thinking of our children only in terms of their national examination rank? We need to change. At the heart of this change, lies the fact that a nation of The Aspirant needs a nation of The Teacher and The Parent, who stitch the safety net for all our children. Protection, care and nurture become the key imperatives of policy. The three who died in that Delhi basement working hard chasing their dreams were our children, the doctor who was murdered in Kolkata this week was our daughter. Can this be our pledge this August 15? Can we say, to our children and others’ children: Happy Independence Day, you can depend on us.
The writer is the author of Being Good, Aaiye, Insaan Banen and Ethikos.
The writer is the author of Being Good, Aaiye, Isaan Banen and Ethikos. He teaches and trains courses on ethics, values and behaviour
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