02-05/11
It is the practice, or should I say a fashion, to rubbish everything that has happened during the past when someone takes up afresh the reigns of governance. This syndrome of sheer arrogance is not necessarily confined to governance of states and countries and can happen in any situation.
Take for instance a prominent old school in Coimbatore which was started painstakingly in the early seventies in a rented premise on Guru Govind Singh Road, R.S.Puram, Coimbatore. The first principal of the school had in those days gone from door to door in R.S.Puram and collected Rs 2 as minimum donation from houses in that posh locality of Coimbatore. My family members went all the way out to encourage the noble cause. I still remember going with my mother and having knocked at all the 90 houses in our colony and scores of other houses in Bashyakaralu Road. For over three decades the principal painstakingly built a highly dedicated team of committed teachers and went on to open two branches of the school. Unlike some of the other schools in the town, where regimentation was the order of the day to mould children, this principal believed in moulding children through love and affection. Both teachers and children had a space to function which was devoid of the dirty regimentation which many schools used to boast of as a great quality of a good school. During the three decades of her tutelage, the school won laurels in all fields- state ranks in academics, produced state level players in various games, clinched many prizes and awards for extra curricular activities and the climax of all this came when the principal received the coveted Dr.Radhakrishnan Award for the Best Teacher.
Then came the blow to all the good happenings in the school. In 2004-05 a new team of persons took charge of the school and the first thing they did was to rubbish all the past three decades of hard work. This new team even went on to rebuke the teachers for the way of their dressing and their ability to teach! This team, with the full knowledge of the management, unleashed a reign of terror in the campus. They were successful in very systematically and tactfully pressurizing over seventy teachers to go out of the school. This new team was so keen about ‘cleansing’ the school that they methodically ‘flushed away’ not only teachers but in the process lost over 700 students too. The height of this act of new governance was the selling away of all the awards and trophies which many students had earned for the school over the three decades. The sad part of all this is that the management of the school was ‘fully’ aware of ‘all’ the developments and were virtually throwing a Nelson’s eye on the happenings. The new team had a complete free hand to go the extra mile and do things with an impudence, audacity and temerity never seen before in any institution. As of today there is NOTHING that the management of the school can flaunt of about the glorious three decades. History has not only been changed but has also been erased.
This was just an example to drive home the idea of a similar situation in the governance of states. In Tamilnadu we now have a new team taking up the governance of the state. It is now a trend that has been established in Tamilnadu like the neighbouring state Kerala- alternate parties every five years! Last time this party came to power in Tamilnadu we saw the reversal of all schemes including even the good ones. The smoothly functioning farmers market was closed and similarly many other good welfare schemes were closed just because it was started by the earlier people in the government.
As a person having worked in Kerala I think that this sort of sadism does not prevail there. The best example I always give is the continuation of the red colour of the KSRTC buses. Despite several chances of the Congress party they have not changed the colour. That’s because they had better things to do. Another instance is the continuation of the famous Kudumbashree project, despite change of governments three times, since its inception. I also remember the continuance of Mr. TKS Jose as its CEO during both the regimes. If the present voting pattern in Tamilnadu is to reckon with it is time the parties in the state stopped underestimating the voters anymore. In a situation where people are yearning for good governance, acts of vengeance and vendetta are not going to escape the memory of the people that soon. Political parties should realise that with each election the gullibility level of the electorate is getting reduced and they are acting more responsible every time they get a chance to vote. A change in the name of the scheme is understandable but not the removal of the entire welfare scheme. History has to be created by new deeds and not by erasing history itself.
P.Uday Shankar
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