How would one explain, a mother waiting with her 4-5 year old son on the platform for the metro at the metro station and making him pee on the metro track?
Laughing stock, I know, it must have become for many readers by now but, being an eye-witness to the incident, it makes me feel rather ashamed on behalf of all the ‘well educated’ for not having being able to help this, and the many more of its kind, situation.
This incident is just a petty example of the sorry state that our country, India, is in today and an indicator for what’s in store for it.
The root cause is illiteracy. It isn’t an obstacle to development alone but brings with it many more, like ill-health, lack of civic and social sense etc.
The government, though, is taking measures to irradiate illiteracy but it is, here, following the policy of the British Government in India. The government is making efforts to educate the illiterate but only that much, that it doesn’t become a problem in turn for the government.
One more factor that comes into light is that all metro stations are installed with CCTV cameras, every activity is recorded, then why was no action taken against this act? Is it only something as big as a terrorist act that is going to draw the attention of the metro officials? In my opinion, the degradation of human capital is a bigger loss to the society. The act, in the first place, should have been made punishable!
This incident puts a big question mark on the work efficiency of the National Literacy Mission Authority (NLMA), an initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. If the working strategies of the authorities do not change, India will continue remain a developing country for many more decades to come.
