The season of cheating

Shiban Khaibri
Inquisitive journalism, at times really does wonders as we witnessed recently in connexion with the Board examinations currently underway in Bihar. That they could not do it simultaneously at various places (exam centers) but whatever they exposed, must have sent shock waves down the spine of every honest Indian. In a sense not showing the malaise about almost all centres, in a way, put lid on the magnitude of the shameful scenario of what  the  exams to test the  merit and knowledge has been cumulatively been reduced to. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that the whole exercise has been reduced to a farce. It otherwise results in the breakdown of the zeal of the promising students to work hard, to study deep and to know the basics and the details of the subject and to prove it on the day of reckoning. The date – sheet of the exams has been turned into a virtual “festival” or a “season” of cheating looking from what we saw happening on the “Moqa -e- varidat”. Chhapra,  Hajipur,  Khagadia  were the places leading in race of copying, read cheating. It was free for all, the students, the parents, the Home guards working in tandem to smother efficiency, to strangle merit, to reduce to a naught hard work and intense studying.  It is a thing to be believed that 14 lac examinees had adequate army of helpers numbering nearly 70 lacs. We know over population is a curse and drain on limited natural resources but in certain ways it can also turn into an “advantageous position ” like in the matter under reference.
Long bamboo sticks, windows, cast slabs over windows, ladders,  ropes etc all were roped in to reach the “needy” , the prospective Engineers, Doctors, bureaucrats, commercial heads, the decision takers of tomorrow of this country. One could forget the feats of a Spiderman, stunt making persons displaying spectacular daring skills of reaching to the “marooned” with all help.  The good old days of circus artists performing similar feats but for a noble and genuine cause for eking out an honest living got refreshed. The tragedy is that – order establishing authorities were equally in good number there, the invigilators, the teachers, the superintendants of exam centres, Police, Home guards etc; but all were just in deep slumber with eyes wide open. Who will  on this condition of the obnoxious joke which the institution of education has been reduced to? Who will write a requiem over how exams and the concept of hard work have become casualties?
While this all was being telecast live on almost all TV Channels, one of the channels wanted to have strong views or “ghoor ninda” on all this humbug from a teacher teaching in a University in Delhi and who is himself from Bihar and associated with a political party of Bihar, pat came his reaction, it is all due to  “samajik visangatian” or it all is a manifestation of social inequalities. The Professor really deserved a Padamshree on this “cause” of the problem but owes an explanation as to why were there inequalities allowed to breed so ruthlessly that breaking of law , morality, honesty and ethics were all justified when the Party which he owed allegiance to, ruled Bihar for nearly 25 years at a stretch and even now the Government there is all supported by his Party. He also knows and so do we, that he cleverly avoided a direct reply and just evaded and the truth, the fact, the reality got bruised in the process. It sounds as another type of cheating to reach vote bank by not antagonizing the cheats and their supporters but appeasing them irrespective of how much damage it would cause to the institution of education.
It is a paradox that while Bihar on the one hand produces more   bureaucrats in service of the nation and also in other areas be it defence, technology, commerce or the like, on the other hand there should be mass copying and cheating in exams getting established as a routine and perhaps as a right guaranteed by some political Parties. It is also worth noting that there are ample incentives, rewards, cash assistance etc; for the students of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Muslims and other minorities performing better in the exams which should otherwise have resulted in self imposing discipline to take exam tests sincerely. The other part of the story is to ensure thorough teaching in educational institutions, to appoint efficient and knowledgeable faculty, to keep them training intermittently so that they are abreast of knowing the latest and to release their annual increments linked to performances only by evaluating the question answer books from the faculty of another district to preempt any window dressing to show good results. It should be ensured that a noble profession like teaching should not be commercialized. As regards booking the cheats, Bihar Government should emulate the system from the state of Jammu and Kashmir in as much as involving Police and other law enforcing agencies to frame cheating cases under relevant provisions of the IPC. How can the state of Jammu and Kashmir lag behind in getting afflicted with the malaise of copying though the magnitude is quite manageable and not out of the proportions of effectively combating it. We had recently such a malaise to see in various centres in Rajouri and Poonch districts where at lest 75 cases of gross copying were detected and criminal cases registered against them. It is an admitted fact that in our state both the students as well parents believe in and insist on tasting success through fair means like intense studying, coaching, tuitions, hard work etc and  no  goons or  undesirable elements are generally  to be found around  our educational institutions.
When acts of terrorism and violence were at their peak in early 90s, in the valley, reports of resorting to mass copying were there in many exam centers but the menace got resolved to a large extent mainly due to the non approval of any unfair means by most of the parents and the students. However, in entrance exams for professional courses, two years back a strange modus operandi existed in many cases but soon the nexus was cracked and the court proceedings in the matter are under way.
The menace is equally uglier in Uttar Pradesh. This writer having served for three years in one of the parts of Eastern UP found that even class 12 students did know virtually nothing even about elementary knowledge like who was the speaker of the Lok Sabha or what is “meant” by Rajya Sabha, who was the vice President of the country etc and when the plight was brought into the notice of some teachers, they had replies and arguments about the matter not worth sharing in these columns. The tragedy is that in 1994, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the then CM abolished Anti Copying Act introduced forcefully by the “communal” BJP Government in UP. It was a sop to the student community so that they themselves and through their parents remember the “cycle”. The effect of it was an open cheating in exam centers on a prodigious scale. It is the same Mulayam Singh who only last year opposed stringent punishment to habitual rapists saying, “Bachay to bachay hain, balatkar kay liye  kya fansi day do gay?”  So far no alternate or a substitutive methodology has been envisaged by the educationists to replace the conventional method of exams. Right from paper setting to evaluation to enforcing strict order in the exam centers and doing away with “all promoted” policy till 8th standard are some of the measures to prevent exams becoming a mockery, ruse  or a crude joke.

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